Summer Learning in the City: How Schools, Families, and Neighborhoods Influence Urban Elementary School Students' Opportunities and Achievements

[摘要] It has been well documented that educational inequality grows during the summer months. While this much is clear, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seek deeper understandings of why low-income children tend to lose academic ground over the summer and what schools can do to intervene. This mixed methods dissertation uses qualitative data to explore how disadvantaged family and neighborhood contexts influence children’s summer learning experiences, and uses quasi-experimental techniques to investigate whether and how summer learning programs can curb summer learning loss among low-income urban elementary school students. For the quantitative analysis, I used propensity score matching methods to identify the effects of enrollment in a Baltimore City summer learning program. Two variants of the program were offered to elementary school students during the summer of 2012: a half-day program featuring a highly structured literacy curriculum, and a full-day program featuring the same curriculum as the half-day program, but also offering students an afternoon of non-academic activities including enrichment, field trips, recreation, and a warm evening meal. I found that students who enrolled in the full-day program had higher fall reading test scores than a matched comparison group of students who did not enroll in any program and higher scores than a comparison group of students who enrolled in the half-day program.For the qualitative analysis, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 parents of first grade children attending two Baltimore City elementary schools located in a single high-poverty neighborhood. I found heterogeneity in how parents thought about summer learning and in the parenting strategies they enacted over the summer. These differences had important ramifications for children’s access to learning resources and exposure to neighborhood risks over the summer. Additionally, I found that parents who valued high-quality summer learning experiences often faced a number of non-monetary constraints that prevented them from creating enriching home environments for their children over the summer and from accessing summer learning programs. Finally, I found that even when not in session, schools could augment their role as compensatory institutions by connecting their students to summer learning opportunities.

[发布机构] Johns Hopkins University

[效力级别] Summer Learning

[关键词] Sociology of Education;Summer Learning;Sociology