Black-White Differences in Achievement: The Importance of Wealth

Abstract

In this article, the author argues that wealth, which is an indicator of both financial and human capital, can affect academic achievement, as well as help to explain the gap in black-white test scores. Analyses reveal that wealth affects achievement through its effect on the amount of cultural capital to which a child is exposed. Because blacks have substantially less wealth than do whites, wealth can help to explain a portion of the racial achievement gap. The implica-tions of the findings are discussed. Studies have generally found that blackstudents have fewer educational oppor-tunities than do white students and are at a disadvantage compared to whites on several educational outcomes. Of particular importance is academic achievement, often measured by performance on standardized test scores. Black adolescents consistently have lower scores on standardized tests than do white adolescents. Although research has shown that the gap in black-white test scores has narrowed over the past 30 years, it is still substantial, and at the current rate of change, it may take approximately 50 years to close the gap (Hedges and Nowell 1998). Because of the importance of test scores in determin-ing college attendance and selectivity, wages, and job placement (Kane 1998), the factors that lead to inequalities in test scores must be uncovered so that they may be alleviated. For many years, researchers have been searching for explanations as to why blacks, on average, have lower achievement than do whites. One major finding has been that much of the differences can be attributed to black-white differences in family background characteristics, such as socioeconomic status (SES) and family size or composition. Wealth, defined as the value of all assets of a particu-lar family or individual minus any debts owed, has not received sufficient attention. Blacks have less wealth than do whites, regardless of income, education, and occupation (Blau and