African American Education Sociology

Differences in race lead to divergent levels of economic development within the United States. Analysts often try to explain this phenomenon by observing a specific ethnic group's tradition and cultural ideology. Economists expand their analysis on the economic behaviors of African Americans by taking into consideration personal histories and value systems of the group under study. American families measure economic status in terms of income, and factors associated with material security as a whole. These factors may consist of health care, college funds, and retirement plans. However, African American families lag well behind when conceptualizing economic development under these terms. The reason is due to numerous instances of discrimination
Education is a vital tool to economic security. However, Melissa Marschall (1997) has found that current policies demonstrate minorities have been denied equal access to education. She has found that assignment systems based on assessments of language deficiencies or other individual needs are used to separate non-whites from whites. According to Jeffrey J. Mondack and Diana C. Mutz (1997), inequitable school financing is equally detrimental to non-white students. Funding for public schools comes from property taxes. They go along to say that predomintly non-white schools tend to be in central inner city school districts which have a smaller property tax
It is difficult for a non-white American family to become economically stable in terms of income and security plans. The reason is due to being a minority in a predominately white America. Therefore, non-white American families are less economically developed than white American families because: H1 non-white American families are less likely to participate in elections than white American families. H2 non-white Americans are more likely to be discriminated against in school than white Americans. H3 the more children in a household, the more likely a family will be economically deprived.

Implications and Conclusion: Education, political participation, and the number of children a family has all affect the levels of economic development within the household for white American families. Even though education levels has a stronger affect toward higher levels of income, when the three variables are measured together, they are all highly statistically significant. In non-white American homes, education levels appears to be the key determinant of their economic