Dynamics of High School Course Enrollment

高中课程入学的动态摘要本项目将调查高中课程入学的动态，以了解导致社会长期不平等的一些机制。高中提供不同严格程度的课程。在有些学校，学生在父母的同意下，可以自由选择学习课程的严格程度，而在另一些学校，学生的选择起着有限的作用。然而，在以前的学校，有些学生和家长可能不知道课程之间的差异有多大，因此可能选择一些不能充分发挥学生潜力的课程。这种安置不足的成本可能会在高中结束后持续很长时间，推迟甚至否认个人以及国家的贡献，学生可能最终作出。这种代价在科学领域可能尤为严重，并可能在追求科学的过程中造成性别不平等。此外，种族/民族的差异可能是可追溯的，部分原因是家长和学生可能对课程的信息的差异。研究不同学校的课程注册过程可以帮助确定可以支持每个学生选择最严格的课程的做法。这些做法的结果可以通过期刊和演讲与学区和学校现场的行为者分享。分析师们以前也研究过课程注册情况，但自从这些研究完成后，学校发生了明显的变化。在完成对现有证据的全面、系统审查的同时，该项目还将收集有关课程招生过程的经验数据。研究人员将分析用于向学生和家长传达课程注册过程的材料，以发现正式课程注册程序的范围。与此同时，将招募就读于不同学校的学生家长参加几次小组访谈（焦点小组），家长可以在访谈中反思和报告他们及其子女在选课过程中的经历。此外，研究人员还将比较官方的课程注册过程和家长的经验报告，以调查某些类型的材料和过程是否更有可能帮助家长帮助他们的孩子浏览课程选择过程。

Dynamics of High School Course EnrollmentAbstractThis project will investigate the dynamics of high school course enrollment in order to understand some of the mechanisms that contribute to long-term inequality in society. High schools offer courses of different levels of rigor. In some schools students, with their parents' blessing, are free to select the level of rigor of their courses for study, while in others student choice plays a limited role. Yet, in the former schools, some students and parents may be unaware of how great the differences are among courses, and thus may select courses that do not fully build on the students' potential. The cost of such under-placement may last long after high school is over, delaying or even denying the individual as well as the nation the contributions the student might ultimately have made. Such costs may be especially acute in the sciences, and may play a role in gender inequality in the pursuit of science. Further, racial/ethnic differences may be traceable, in part, to differences in the information parents and students may have about courses. Studying the course enrollment process of disparate schools can help to identify practices that can support each student in selecting the most rigorous courses for which the student is qualified. Findings of such practices can then be shared with school districts and school-site actors via journals and presentations. Analysts have studied course enrollment before, but schools have changed appreciably since such studies were completed. While completing a comprehensive, systematic review of existing evidence, the project will also gather empirical data on the course enrollment process. Researchers will analyze materials used to convey the course enrollment process to students and parents to discover the range of official course enrollment procedures. At the same time, parents of students attending diverse schools will be recruited for several group interviews (focus groups) in which parents can reflect upon and report on their and their child's experience of the course selection process. Further, researchers will compare the official course enrollment process and parents' report of their experiences in order to investigate whether some kinds of materials and processes are more likely to help parents help their children navigate the course selection process.