Coleman, James S. (1926–1995)

Adolescent Culture and Composition Effects

The Adolescent Society (1961), his first book focusing on the outcomes of schooling, anticipated much of his subsequent analysis of public education in the United States. Analyzing adolescent social relations and aspirations in 10 high schools in northern Illinois, Coleman found adolescent peer culture had an effect on students' aspirations independent of their family background. For instance, the aspirations of a physician's son would likely differ depending on the adolescent culture of his high school cohort. The powerful effect of adolescent culture upon the decisions of young people in high school and the heavy reliance on sports as an avenue for recognition led Coleman to advocate that schools should increase the academically oriented extracurricular activities available to youth in high schools—in hopes of providing more recognition for scholastic pursuits. The effects of peer groups appear again in his subsequent research on equality of opportunity and desegregation in the 1960s.

In 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine used by school districts to separate students racially was inherently unequal. Yet, in the subsequent 10 years, little change in the separation of Black and White students had occurred. In 1964, Coleman was asked to lead a congressionally mandated study on the equality of opportunity in public schools. Resource inequities across schools were considered the primary way in which schools generated unequal outcomes across schools: Schools affected students differentially because of the varying quality of resources they made available to students. In fact, schools serving African American students for the first half of the 20th century typically received materials and texts that were no longer needed or acceptable in the schools serving White students. Coleman and his colleagues stunned many with their findings. Using survey and achievement data from 3,100 high schools, representing over 600,000 students throughout the nation, Coleman and his colleagues concluded that inequality of resources did little to explain the differing levels of academic achievement in high schools across the nation. On the other hand, the attributes of a student's peers did make a substantial difference. The researchers found that the most important school factor affecting a student's performance was the aggregate composition of socioeconomic background of other students. Students whose parents had limited formal education had higher levels of academic achievement when they attended schools where many parents of students in the schools had more substantial levels of education than in schools where their peers' parents had limited formal education. The second most important school factor, given much less attention in subsequent reviews of his work, was that of teacher quality. These factors became known as “composition effects.” Courts throughout the United States relied upon the evidence of composition effects to render decisions requiring desegregation of public schools, but the importance of the socioeconomic background was seldom, if ever, part of the court-ordered desegregation plans.

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