An official website of the United States government
This study integrates an intersectional framework with data on 15,000 U.S. ninth graders from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to investigate differences in ninth-grade math course placement at the intersection of adolescents’ learning disability status, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). Descriptive results support an increased liability perspective, with the negative relationship between a learning disability and math course placement larger for adolescents more privileged in terms of their race and/or SES. Adjusted results suggest that the lower math course placements of youth with learning disabilities are due to cumulative disadvantage rather than disability-related inequities in the transition to high school for youth of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition to demonstrating the importance of intersectional perspectives, this study provides a roadmap for future studies by introducing the new perspective of increased liability to be used in conjunction with the widely employed perspective of multiple marginalization.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on December 1, 2025
Mindsets, contexts, and college enrollment: Taking the long view on growth mindset beliefs at the transition to high school
Abstract Socioeconomic disparities in academic progress have persisted throughout the history of the United States, and growth mindset interventions—which shift beliefs about the malleability of intelligence—have shown promise in reducing these disparities. Both the study of such disparities and how to remedy them can benefit from taking the “long view” on adolescent development, following the tradition of John Schulenberg. To do so, this study focuses on the role of growth mindsets in short‐term academic progress during the transition to high school as a contributor to longer‐term educational attainment. Guided by the Mindset × Context perspective, we analyzed new follow‐up data to a one‐year nationally representative study of ninth graders (National Study of Learning Mindsets,n = 10,013; 50% female; 53% white; 63% from lower‐SES backgrounds). A conservative Bayesian analysis revealed that adolescents' growth mindset beliefs at the beginning of ninth grade predicted their enrollment in college 4 years later. These patterns were stronger for adolescents from lower‐SES backgrounds, and there was some evidence that the ninth‐grade math teacher's support for the growth mindset moderated student mindset effects. Thus, a time‐specific combination of student and teacher might alter long‐term trajectories by enabling adolescents to develop and use beliefs at a critical transition point that supports a cumulative pathway of course‐taking and achievement into college. Notably, growth mindset became less predictive of college enrollment after the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic, which occurred in the second year of college and introduced structural barriers to college persistence.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10575519
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Research on Adolescence
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1050-8392
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1201 to 1217
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
A growth-mindset intervention teaches the belief that intellectual abilities can be developed. Where does the intervention work best? Prior research examined school-level moderators using data from the National Study of Learning Mindsets (NSLM), which delivered a short growth-mindset intervention during the first year of high school. In the present research, we used data from the NSLM to examine moderation by teachers’ mindsets and answer a new question: Can students independently implement their growth mindsets in virtually any classroom culture, or must students’ growth mindsets be supported by their teacher’s own growth mindsets (i.e., the mindset-plus-supportive-context hypothesis)? The present analysis (9,167 student records matched with 223 math teachers) supported the latter hypothesis. This result stood up to potentially confounding teacher factors and to a conservative Bayesian analysis. Thus, sustaining growth-mindset effects may require contextual supports that allow the proffered beliefs to take root and flourish.more » « less
-
Beliefs play a central role in human development. For instance, a growth mindset—a belief about the malleability of intelligence—can shape how adolescents interpret and respond to academic difficulties and how they subsequently navigate the educational system. But do usually-adaptive beliefs have the same effects for adolescents regardless of the contexts they are in? Answering this question can reveal new insights into classic developmental questions about continuity and change. Here we present the Mindset × Context framework and we apply this model to the instructive case of growth mindset interventions. We show that teaching students a growth mindset is most effective in educational contexts that provide affordances for a growth mindset; that is, contexts that permit and encourage students to view ability as developable and to act on that belief. This evidence contradicts the “beliefs alone” hypothesis, which holds that teaching adolescents a growth mindset is enough and that students can profit from these beliefs in almost any context, even unsupportive ones. The Mindset × Context framework leads to the realization that in order to produce more widespread and lasting change, we must complement the belief-changing interventions that have been aimed at students with new interventions that guide teachers toward classroom policies and practices that allow students' growth mindset beliefs to take root and yield benefits.more » « less
-
Lockman, Jeffrey J. (Ed.)Beliefs play a central role in human development. For instance, a growth mindset—a belief about the malleability of intelligence—can shape how adolescents interpret and respond to academic difficulties and how they subsequently navigate the educational system. But do usually-adaptive beliefs have the same effects for adolescents regardless of the contexts they are in? Answering this question can reveal new insights into classic developmental questions about continuity and change. Here we present the Mindset×Context framework and we apply this model to the instructive case of growth mindset interventions. We show that teaching students a growth mindset is most effective in educational contexts that provide affordances for a growth mindset; that is, contexts that permit and encourage students to view ability as developable and to act on that belief. This evidence contradicts the “beliefs alone” hypothesis, which holds that teaching adolescents a growth mindset is enough and that students can profit from these beliefs in almost any context, even unsupportive ones. The Mindset×Context framework leads to the realization that in order to produce more widespread and lasting change, we must complement the belief-changing interventions that have been aimed at students with new interventions that guide teachers toward classroom policies and practices that allow students' growth mindset beliefs to take root and yield benefits.more » « less
-
Prior research has shown that the home learning environment (HLE) is critical in the development of spatial skills and that various parental beliefs influence the HLE. However, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of different parental beliefs on the spatial HLE remains lacking, leaving unanswered questions about which specific parental beliefs are most influential and whether inducing a growth mindset can enhance the spatial HLE. To address these gaps, we conducted an online study with parents of 3- to 5-year-olds. We found that parents’ growth mindset about their children’s ability strongly predicted the spatial HLE after controlling for parents’ motivational beliefs about their children, beliefs about their own ability, children’s age, children’s gender, and family SES. Further, reading an article about growth mindset led parents to choose more challenging spatial learning activities for their children. These findings highlight the critical role of parents’ growth mindset in the spatial HLE. Crucially, these findings demonstrate that general growth mindset messages without specific suggestions for parental practices can influence parental behavior intentions. Further, these effects were also observed in the control domain of literacy, underscoring the broad relevance of the growth mindset in the HLE.more » « less
