Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In 2007, former ABC World News anchor Bob Woodruff returned to the airwaves one year after surviving a life-threatening attack in Iraq. However, his first appearance was not on the nightly newscast World News, but rather on ABC’s morning news program Good Morning America. This example illustrates a new pattern in network newswork which changes how frequently talent appears on-air. As Kurtz argues, the traditional prominence of the evening newscasts has declined. This shift occurred as the networks transitioned to a multi-media platform, and are challenged by the 24-hour news cycle, cable news, declining audiences, and expectations to turn profits. To confront the challenges facing the news divisions, they often use the Internet and morning and primetime programs to showcase or break news. The existence of multiple news sites within each network requires talent to appear across platforms and programs. In this paper, we argue that network news talent is used more frequently in programming hours than in the past by comparing a content analysis of network news programming, conducted in 1987, with a similar analysis of news programming in 2007. The 1987 study found content was not repeated, and talent did not report on more than one newscast per day. By 2007, this pattern had changed; the same content and talent were being used in multiple news programs per day. This comparison demonstrates this 20-year shift, providing a framework to interrogate this pattern and its implications for the future of network news.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the US, there is great loss of academically talented college-level science and technology students as many decide not to follow through with their initial career choices. Following research that has implicated personal relationships in career decision-making, we study the effects of college course experiences, relationships with professors, and individual characteristics on career plans of 58 talented university students by analyzing interview data gathered in 1999. Among other things, we find that students who dropped out have few positive science course experiences and no relationships with faculty. Life sciences students report that they do not like science courses, but they have relationships with faculty, but others have mixed experiences with courses and faculty. Our findings suggest that subject-matter attracts quantitative students while people attract medical and life sciences students. Finally, we find that gender and race are predictive of students’ experiences. Women and minorities are less likely to like their science-related classes or form relationships with faculty and are thus more likely to leave science and technology. Women are more drawn to life sciences, perhaps because of the relationships with faculty.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Efforts to improve low academic achievement among racial and ethnic minorities and children from low-income families, including the No Child Left Behind legislation, will meet with limited success unless and until they take into account an important feature of contemporary American public education—white children continue to receive the educational opportunities not available to others in gifted and talented schools and programs. To find the basis for these educational advantages we examine several identification procedures used to select kindergarten students for a gifted and talented program.
Our analysis is a case study in one urban Midwestern school district where, for over ten years, repeated efforts have been made to identify and admit children from under-represented groups so that they might attend a “magnet” school for gifted and talented children created to achieve voluntary school desegregation. Our sources are interviews with seven parents, as well as district and state documents.
With the demise of affirmative action, the current racial resegregation has been shown to have a negative influence on educational achievement (Orfield, 2001). The systematic educational advantages afforded to white students under the banner of gifted and talented education that maintain and strengthen defacto segregation must be addressed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The paper addresses the efficiency case for egalitarian institutions that seek to provide universal access to education as a means to eliminate class barriers in society. We present a stylized model of educational attainment and labor market success that incorporates both training and sorting functions of educational systems. Simulation analysis of a calibrated version of the model shows that egalitarian institutions that lower the cost of education are welfare improving because of the increased sorting effectiveness - in the sense of a close alignment between individual talent and educational attainment - of educational systems they imply. As one critical test of this argument, the model suggests to assess the sorting effectiveness of educational systems through heterogeneity in returns to educational investment. Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel data, we empirically estimate heterogeneous returns to several post-war policy changes in the German educational system, which is typically considered one of the most class-ridden systems in the Western world. Compared to the benchmark of family investment in children's education, labor market returns to policy-driven attainment are high, thus suggesting that egalitarian institutions are in fact able to more effectively tap society's pool of talented individuals. Removing barriers to universal access to education thus may have an important efficiency implication over and above the effect typically considered by sociologists, namely reducing educational inequality in the first place.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study investigates the likelihood of applying to college for high school seniors and finds that the gap between first-generation (whose parents did not graduate from college) and non-first-generation students is wider for those with higher grades or test scores. Based on theories of social and material capital, four hypotheses were tested. The results suggest that this gap is not due to a bias among school personnel in favor of providing more, or earlier, information about the college application process to students with college-educated parents. Rather, the parents’ desire for their children to live at home during college accounts for two-thirds of the effect of parental education and interacts with test scores, such that students with higher test scores are particularly disadvantaged when their parents want them to live at home during college.