White and Black Boys Fall Further Behind White Girls during the Transition to High School

Educational transitions, such as the one from middle school to high school, are difficult for all students but may be especially difficult for students from marginalized groups. During these critical periods in schooling, academic status can be reshaped and inequality between racial/ethnic groups and gender can deepen. Former PRC trainees April Sutton and Amy Langenkamp, along with PRC faculty research associate Chandra Muller and Kathryn Schiller (SUNY Albany), use nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to investigate how the transition to high school affects the GPAs of young white, black, and Latino men and women. They show that white and black male students, especially higher-achieving black students, suffer the greatest academic losses at the high school starting gate. Notably, these young men do not recover lost academic ground the following year. Given the role that high school GPA plays in gender and racial/ethnic disparities in educational attainment, this research has significant implications for inequalities within and beyond high school.