ABSTRACT

Why do many minority students and students in poor communities perform badly and spend less time in school? This question plagues educators, policy makers, and researchers alike. There are many possible economic answers. Schools in minority communities have fewer resources, parents have less time and ability to help with homework, children move from school to school as their parents follow different job opportunities, children have to contribute to household chores or family income, etc. All of these factors almost certainly contribute to lower educational outcomes of minority and poor students. But studies that control for such economic characteristics still find strikingly lower outcomes. 1 These findings indicate that something may be missing from the standard economic model of education. Inspired by work outside economics, we bring social dimensions to the economic analysis of school policy. 2