Tracking and Transitions through the Middle Grades: Channeling Educational Trajectories

Abstract

Using longitudinal data from the Beginning School Study (BSS), the study reported here examined sources of influence on inner-city students' initial middle school placements in English and mathematics and continuity and change in placements through- the end of middle school. The study found that test scores and prior retention in grade exert strong effects at the transition into middle school, but so do social background and parents' educational expectations, particularly for higher-level placements. Stability in middle school placements is strong, and neither social background nor educational expectations consistently influences eighth-grade course levels, net of sixth-grade placements and other predictors in the model. The authors conclude that educational trajectories are not grounded in academic considerations alone, but the contributions of nonacademic factors on track placements toward the end of middle school are obscured if the determinants of earlier placements are not included in the model