‘Race’, Parental Occupation and Academic Performance in a Public School Population

Races of humans exist only as socially defined constructs. It is widely believed that there is a difference in educational achievement between the major "races" in America - "blacks" and "whites". The objective here was to test the veracity of this belief by studying a population that was relatively homogenous on parental occupation. This study found that in a population of 133 13 to 14 year old science students in an affluent public middle school, there was no gap between the academic achievement of students categorized as "black" and students categorized as "white". Stratifying by parental occupation eliminated any distinction. "Asian" students outperformed all other students. Solving the inequities in education should involve consideration of parental occupation.