Perceptions and Ground Truths: How Subjective Interpretations and Objective Realities Impact Student Academic Aspirations and Parental Decision Making

Abstract

Racial disparities in education persist across the K-12 landscape and often translate into disparities in postsecondary aspirations and realizations. However, the mechanisms through which structural inequities and sociopolitical realities shape students’ academic aspirations and parents’ schooling decisions have not been adequately integrated. This dissertation combines ecological systems theory and evidence of structural racism to explore how processes within the microsystem, specifically in schools, neighborhoods, families, and sociopolitical discourse contribute to the persistence of racial disparities in education between Black and White students and their families. Across three papers, this dissertation utilizes large-scale data sources and nationally representative samples. The first study explores adolescents’ perceptions of their interactions within their immediate environments, particularly with their parents and neighborhoods. To explore these perceptions, the first study uses nationally representative longitudinal data from Add Health and moderated regression models to test whether students’ perceptions of parental expectations, parental involvement, and neighborhood quality condition the relationship between objective family and neighborhood contexts and students’ academic aspirations. Findings indicate that student perceptions are associated with academic aspirations and in some cases, can shape how objective indicators are related to aspirations. Although several hypothesized moderation effects were not supported, results demonstrated that subjective interpretations of family and neighborhood contexts are key mechanisms through which structural conditions translate into postsecondary aspirations. The second study moves further into the microsystem and examines how school features, specifically teacher race, influence adolescents’ postsecondary aspirations. To do so, the second study used state-level administrative data from NCERDC to test whether student-teacher race matching across high school predicts students’ post-secondary aspirations. Results revealed racial disparities in exposure to same-race teachers across high school, wherein Black students experience substantially fewer race matches compared to White students. Cumulative exposure to same-race teachers was not consistently associated with aspirations, however, grade-specific race matching associations varied by race and grade level. Findings from this study suggest that race matching alone is not a significant predictor of postsecondary aspirations and broader opportunity structures may determine how race matching influences students’ aspirations. The third study examines the influence of the microsystem on student outcomes from a different approach and focuses on how parents’ perceptions may shape youths’ experiences in educational spaces. The third study used nationally representative survey-experiment data from a sample of 139 Black and White parents, along with regression analyses, to assess how framing a middle school history curriculum as critical race theory versus American history influences parental support for the curriculum. Results from this study show that curriculum framing influences parents support and evaluations of a middle school history curriculum. Specifically, parents responded more positively to the curriculum vignette when it used the “American History” framing compared to the “Critical Race Theory” framing. These findings suggest that politicized framing can shape how parents interpret curriculum content and broader educational materials and contexts, further influencing their schooling related decisions. Together, these studies emphasize the role of perceptions, of both students and parents, on students’ academic experiences and their development of postsecondary aspirations, demonstrating how educational inequality can be reproduced through subjective, interpretive processes alongside longstanding material and structural gaps.