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Journal Article 1: Dumais, S. A., Kessinger, R. J., & Ghosh, B. (2012). Concerted cultivation and teachers’ evaluations of students: Exploring the intersection of race and parents’ educational attainment. Sociological Perspectives, 55(1), 17–42.

Abstract: Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey and Lareau’s concept of concerted cultivation—the idea that educational and financial resources result in different cultural logics in the approach to parenting—the authors examine racial and educational differences in the relationship between parenting practices during elementary school and teachers’ evaluations of students’ (1) language and literacy skills, (2) approaches to learning, and (3) interpersonal skills. The authors find that both race and education affect the relationship between parenting practices and teachers’ evaluations. Children in college-educated white families whose parents volunteer receive higher scores on all dependent variables, while white children in high-school-educated families receive lower evaluations the more often their parents attend conferences. Children in college-educated African American families consistently experience negative academic consequences when their parents make special requests of the school. These findings imply that parental investments do not necessarily translate into equal educational rewards.

Journal Article 2: Thompson, M. S., & McDonald, S. (2015). Race, skin tone, and educational achievement. Sociological Perspectives, 59(1), 91–111.

Abstract: Research on skin-tone bias has focused primarily on intraracial inequality with little attention to skin-tone inequality across ethnoracial groups. We engage the debate over the color line by considering the independent, simultaneous, and interactive impacts of skin tone and self-identified race on educational performance. Analyses of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement (AHAA) data show significant skin-tone differences in grade point average (GPA) both across and within racial groups, with darker skinned tone individuals receiving significantly lower grades than their lighter skinned tone counterparts. Net of controls, skin-tone differences in GPA are essentially flat among African Americans but are notably stronger among other race/ethnic groups. These findings highlight the interplay between racial categorization and colorism by revealing the categorical disadvantage of racial stigma versus the more fluid colorism boundaries of nonblack groups.