Do skills and behaviors in high school matter? The contribution of noncognitive factors in explaining differences in educational attainment and earnings
Introduction
During the late 1970s, Bowles and Gintis (1976) published Schooling in Capitalist America, which boldly claimed that individual’s noncognitive behaviors were perhaps more important than cognitive skills in determining stratification outcomes. While early sociological theories of status attainment (“Wisconsin” model) posited that academic performance, and to a lesser extent mental ability, were important mechanisms linking parental socioeconomic background to employment outcomes in adulthood (Sewell and Hauser, 1975, Sewell et al., 1969, Woelfel and Haller, 1971), Bowles and Gintis (1976, pp. 122–123) argued that social class reproduction was mainly due to differential patterns of behavioral socialization within and across schools. In addition, they suggested that the kinds of behaviors employers sought out in the labor market were the same as those fostered and rewarded by teachers and schools in the educational system. In related work, Jencks and his colleagues (1979) also demonstrated the importance of noncognitive behaviors and personality traits. They found that industriousness, leadership, and good study habits in high school were positively associated with higher occupational attainment and earnings, even after controlling for social class.
In the time period since Bowles, Gintis and Jencks, researchers have extensively examined the effects of cognitive ability, often measured by standardized achievement tests, on employment outcomes, but rarely examined the effects of noncognitive behaviors on educational and occupational success (Kerckhoff et al., 2001, Farkas et al., 1997, Raudenbush and Kasim, 1998, Farkas, 2003). As a result, little is known about what kinds of behaviors and skills, other than cognitive, are fostered and rewarded during the schooling experience that influence later success in the labor market. Nor do we know much about the extent to which differences in skills and habits account for racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and sex differences in educational and employment outcomes. This study follows up on the work of Jencks and his colleagues (1979) and extends prior work on the micro-processes involved in educational and labor market stratification by assessing the impact of a range of noncognitive behaviors, in addition to cognitive skills, on the educational attainment and earnings of a national cohort of tenth grade students, measured 10 years later in 2000. The results from this study indicate that noncognitive behaviors measured in high school have unique and significant effects on both educational attainment and earnings, even after controlling for cognitive skills. The results also show that skills and behaviors play an important role in explaining group differences in stratification outcomes. Finally, the results indicate that only part of the effect of cognitive skills and noncognitive behaviors on earnings is explained by increased educational attainment.
Section snippets
Cognitive ability
Empirical studies have shown that cognitive skills or ability, typically measured by standardized tests, have a significant effect on labor market outcomes, either directly or indirectly via higher educational attainment. In a recent study, Murnane et al. (2000) estimated that high school male graduates with greater cognitive skills earn as much as 30 percent more than workers with lower levels of skills. In addition, at least one-third of the estimated monetary return to cognitive skills in
The present study
Despite the abundance of research seeking to measure the relationship between schooling and earnings, few studies have specifically examined the relative effects of cognitive skills and noncognitive behaviors on educational attainment and later earnings (Rosenbaum, 2001). Thus, little is known about what kinds of skills that are fostered and rewarded in schooling may influence student’s later success, particularly in the current labor market characterized by rising service sector employment and
Data and sample
The data used in this study come from the first and fourth follow-up surveys of the National Education Longitudinal Study (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000). The NELS are a stratified nationally representative sample of approximately 24,500 eighth grade students in 1052 public and private schools who were re-interviewed in the tenth grade (1990), twelfth grade, 2 years after high school 1994. In 2000, when respondents were typically 8 years out of high school, NELS conducted the
Analytic strategy
The goal of this study is to assess whether cognitive skills and noncognitive behaviors measured in high school have a unique effect on later educational attainment and earnings. In addition, the extent to which cognitive skills and noncognitive behaviors individually and collectively account for racial, ethnic, sex and class differences in educational and employment outcomes is examined.
The data used to meet these goals come from the first and fourth follow-up surveys of the NELS. In the base
Descriptive results
Table 1 presents the unweighted descriptive statistics for the sample. The test composite score which included mathematics, reading comprehension, science, and history/geography/citizenship ranged from 27.58 to 71.09, with a mean of 50.81. Looking at tenth grade measures of noncognitive behaviors, the majority of individuals in the sample were judged by their teachers to be hardworking and conscientious students. Most students were not thought to be exceptionally passive or withdrawn by their
Summary and discussion
Early opportunities and experiences often shape later life chances and success. One of the main mechanisms involved in determining labor market outcomes is the educational system. Indeed, sociologists have argued for decades that schools play a central role not only in teaching students the basic skills needed to succeed in the labor market but also in demanding and rewarding behaviors and attitudes that are also valued by employers. The overall goal of this study was to examine the effects of
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