Are Schools the Great Equalizer? Cognitive Inequality during the Summer Months and the School Year

How does schooling affect inequality in cognitive skills? Reproductionist theorists have argued that schooling plays an important role in reproducing and even exacerbating existing disparities. But seasonal comparison research has shown that gaps in reading and math skills grow primarily during summer vacation, suggesting that non-school factors (e.g., family and neighborhood) are the main source of inequality. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort of 1998–99, this article improves upon past seasonal estimates of school and non-school effects on cognitive skill gains. Like past research, this study considers how socioeconomic and racial/ethnic gaps in skills change when school is in…