How do sociologists explain why the achievement gap between black and white children who are similarly matched in terms of age, birth weight, education, and occupation of their parents reappears in the third generation?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Racial differences in educational achievement can be explained by historical and current systems of racial inequality, including neighborhoods, families, schools, and peers, who become important for older children. Racial differences in achievement are due to social inequalities rather than genetic differences. This is shown in research that takes into account grandparental resources, neighborhood characteristics, and peers as well as information on parents, students, and schools (Yeung, Persell, and Reilly 2010). White children in the third generation are much more likely than black children to live in neighborhoods with little poverty, attend schools with many more children of average or high SES, and have more friends who stay out of trouble. When grandparental resources and neighborhoods are considered together with parental resources, neighborhoods, parenting practices, school SES, and peers, these factors together reduce the racial gap to insignificance.