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Are BLACK GIRLS The New Brain Heroes?

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Are BLACK GIRLS The New Brain Heroes?
ARE BLACK GIRLS THE NEW NUMBER RUNNERS? AN ANALYSIS OF BLACK GIRLS AND HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS by CAROLYN DENISE KING

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York (2013)

UMI Number: 3553563

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 3553563 Published by ProQuest LLC (2013). Copyright in the Dissertation held by …show more content…
Abstract ARE BLACK GIRLS THE NEW NUMBER RUNNERS? AN ANALYSIS OF BLACK GIRLS AND HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS by Carolyn Denise King Adviser: Professor Juan Battle According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), one out of every 100 employed scientists and engineers in the United States is a Black female. This statistic prompts the examination of Black females and mathematics. How do individual-level (educational aspirations), familial-level (support), and school-level (school characteristics) variables impact Black female students’ proficiency in high school mathematics as well as predict their enrollment in postsecondary math courses? Employing four waves from the National Education Longitudinal Study (1988, 1990, 1992, & 1994), this study seeks to add to the discourse on achievement in mathematics …show more content…
Social scientists and policy makers have studied extensively the Black-White disparities in mathematics achievement in American schools. However, there has been a preoccupation among researchers to use White middle-class males as the standard by which all others are measured. Existing research on the White-Black and gender gaps in mathematical achievement can be organized under five general theoretical explanations: (1) social psychological (affective) factors (attitude, self-concept, self-confidence); (2) student aspirations and academic preparation; (3) extra-familial influences (extra-curricular activities, peers); (4) parental support (income, involvement); and (5) school characteristics (percent minority, private, teachers). It should be noted that these theoretical explanations have not been tested empirically to examine how they impact Black females’ proficiency in high school mathematics, as well as how they predict their enrollment in postsecondary mathematics courses. Data employed in the present study is drawn from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). NELS:88 is a clustered, two-stage, stratified national sample with a total of 24,599 eighthgraders surveyed in the base year, 1988. NELS:88 consists of four follow-ups to the original 1988 study. The first follow-up was conducted in 1990 when the
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