Cognitive skills, test scores, and social stratification: the role of family and school-level resources on racial/ethnic differences in scores on standardized tests (AFQT).

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, high stakes testing has become a major preoccupation of politicians, school administrators, parents, academics, and of course, the many students who have to subject themselves to a multiple battery of standardized tests. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) to examine the effects of family and school level resources on racial/ethnic/national origin differences in scores on standardized tests (the AFQT).

Research on racial and ethnic stratification in the contemporary United States suggests that discrimination has three interrelated components. First, there are differences in the acquisition of "quality skills" caused by differences in material resources, barriers to access, and differences in treatment within educational and training institutions. This means that whites, when compared to racial and ethnic minority groups, have the privilege of better access to the kinds of resources that are conducive to higher levels of educational attainment and to the development of certain job related skills (Betts 1995; Fisher, Hout, et. al. 1996). Second, there are differences in how skills for particular jobs are evaluated at any level of the distribution. This means that when compared to minorities with similar skills whites have the advantage of being able to work in better jobs and move slightly faster through the occupational distribution. This is confirmed by research based on interviews with employers (Moss, and Tilly 1995, 1996) and by audit research showing that individuals of different ethnicities (Anglo-Hispanic and white-black) who were matched on a variety of job-related skills and experiences had significantly different probabilities of receiving job interviews and employment offers (Cross, et. al. 1990; Fix and Struyk 1993; Turner, Fix, and Struyk 1991). Third, there are racial and ethnic differences in levels of compensation for individuals with similar levels of education and skill (Cancio, Evans, and Maume 1996; Mason, 1997a, 1997b; Rodgers and Spriggs 1996; Darity and Mason 1998). This means that minority individuals who manage to attain similar levels of education and experience in particular occupations and industries are not compensated at the same rate as their white counterparts (Mason 1997a; Darity and Mason 1998).

This paper differs from, and adds to, Rodgers and Spriggs (1996) in that it focuses on the role of family and school level material resources in scores on the AFQT and does not focus as much on the role of standardized test scores in explaining differences in labor force participation and earnings (see Darity and Mason 1998). Most of the recent research on race and labor markets has focused on the last two dimensions of discrimination: a) how the "skills" of majority and minority workers are differentially evaluated by employers, and b) how individuals of different race/ethnicity who have similar levels of education and experience receive different (lower for minorities) wages and earnings (Cancio, Evans, and Maume 1996; Mason, 1997a, 1997b; Rodgers and Spriggs 1996; Darity and Mason 1998). In this paper I focus on the first question: What is the role of differences in material resources on standardized tests scores? I answer the question through an empirical analysis of the effects of family, school, and, to a lesser extent, community-level resources on levels and racial/ethnic/national origin differences in scores on standardized tests (the AFQT) using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).

The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) has received substantial attention in both the academic and non-academic literatures and there is considerable controversy over the meaning, validity, and reliability of the test for civilian employment decisions. Some authors (Cameron and Heckman 1992; Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Hotz and Tienda 1994; Neal and Johnson 1996) argue that the AFQT is a measure of "scholastic and/or job-related aptitudes." Other researchers (Fisher, Hout, et. al. 1996; Maume, Cancio, and Evans 1996; Mason 1997a; Rodgers and Spriggs 1996) have been able to show that the AFQT contains many of the socioeconomic and cultural biases inherent in standardized tests and is not a valid and reliable measure of job-related skills, aptitude, or performance. In this paper I discuss two questions related to the AFQT: a) What does the AFQT measure? And b) What is the role of family, school, and community-level resources on differences in scores on the AFQT?

The next section of the paper discusses the literature on educational attainment, youth employment, and skill acquisition. I show how the debate over skill acquisition and race/ethnicity has focused mostly on individual level differences at the expense of a systematic analysis of the role of social structures, the role of material resources available in the family, the school, and in the community, and discriminatory differences in the production, evaluation, and compensation of skills. Educational attainment and scores on standardized tests are important independent variables in models of wage determination but the reasons why they are important and the mechanisms that connect educational attainment, scores on standardized tests, and labor market outcomes are not well understood. In this section, I argue that educational attainment (years of schooling) and scores on standardized tests are the result of social processes and differences in family, school, and community-level material resources. The AFQT is related to employment outcomes because it captures the effects of cumulative differences in material :resources, differences in social investments and, as suggested by Maume, Cancio and Evans (1996:561), because it measures "exposure to the values and experiences of the white middle class."

The third section of the paper discusses the data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and defines the specific variables that will be used in the study. I then present an empirical model wherein scores on the AFQT are examined as a function of individual, family, school, and community (county) level resources. I also explore racial/ ethnic differences in the determinants of scores on the AFQT by estimating separate models for each major racial and ethnic group (Non-Hispanic whites, African Americans and Latinos). The fourth section of the paper discusses the empirical results, of the study. The main finding is that the variables included in our models explain between one-third and one-half of the variation in scores on the AFQT. This is evidence that the test score is not only a function of individual level attributes and characteristics but is also largely related to material differences in contextual/ environmental characteristics and socially distributed resources. Section six discusses the role of material resources on differences in test scores and the role of standardized tests as measures of skill and "ability," their relation to other socio-economic outcomes, and their role in helping researchers understand an important dimension of racial/ethnic discrimination. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of our empirical findings for social science research and for public policies bearing on racial/ethnic/national origin differences in educational attainment, employment, and earnings.