How learning aggregates: a social network analysis of learning between Swedish municipalities

Using a unique data set of learning among all 290 Swedish municipalities, we use social network analysis to analyse how learning networks aggregate nationally. To facilitate this analysis, we describe five ideal-typical patterns of aggregation: core-periphery, small world, top-down regionalism, bottom-up regionalism and urban hierarchy. Each of these ideal-types has important implications for how ideas, information and innovation will circulate among municipalities. Social network analysis allows us to both isolate these patterns and to appreciate composite patterns. The analysis indicates that Swedish municipalities are a small-world network with regional and hierarchical elements. County seats serve an important role as network hubs.     

Perceptions of Relatedness with Classroom Peers Promote Adolescents’ Behavioral Engagement and Achievement in Secondary School

Secondary school is a vulnerable time where stagnation or declines in classroom behavioral engagement occur for many students, and peer relationships take on a heightened significance. We examined the implications of adolescents’ perceptions of relatedness with classroom peers for their academic learning. Participants were 1084 adolescents (53% female) in 65 middle and high school classrooms. Multilevel cross-lagged path analyses found that adolescents’ perceived relatedness with classroom peers subsequently predicted their increased self-reported behavioral engagement in that classroom from fall to winter and again from winter to spring. Higher engagement in spring predicted higher end of year objective achievement test scores after statistical control of prior year test scores. Implications are discussed for increasing classroom peer relatedness to enhance adolescents’ achievement.     

The Balance‐Sample Size Frontier in Matching Methods for Causal Inference

We propose a simplified approach to matching for causal inference that simultaneously optimizes balance (similarity between the treated and control groups) and matched sample size. Existing approaches either fix the matched sample size and maximize balance or fix balance and maximize sample size, leaving analysts to settle for suboptimal solutions or attempt manual optimization by iteratively tweaking their matching method and rechecking balance. To jointly maximize balance and sample size, we introduce the matching frontier, the set of matching solutions with maximum possible balance for each sample size. Rather than iterating, researchers can choose matching solutions from the frontier for analysis in one step. We derive fast algorithms that calculate the matching frontier for several commonly used balance metrics. We demonstrate this approach with analyses of the effect of sex on judging and job training programs that show how the methods we introduce can extract new knowledge from existing data sets.     

Differential Registration Bias in Voter File Data: A Sensitivity Analysis Approach

The widespread availability of voter files has improved the study of participation in American politics, but the lack of comprehensive data on nonregistrants creates difficult inferential issues. Most notably, observational studies that examine turnout rates among registrants often implicitly condition on registration, a posttreatment variable that can induce bias if the treatment of interest also affects the likelihood of registration. We introduce a sensitivity analysis to assess the potential bias induced by this problem, which we call differential registration bias. Our approach is most helpful for studies that estimate turnout among registrants using posttreatment registration data, but it is also valuable for studies that estimate turnout among the voting‐eligible population using secondary sources. We illustrate our approach with two studies of voting eligibility effects on subsequent turnout among young voters. In both cases, eligibility appears to decrease turnout, but these effects are found to be highly sensitive to differential registration bias.     

Is Trade Policy for Sale? Congressional Voting on Recent Trade Bills

This paper examines voting by U.S. Representatives onthe North American Free Trade Agreement, the UruguayRound Agreement, and most-favored nation status forChina. Using recent political economy models of tradepolicy to formulate an empirical specification ofcongressional voting behavior, we find evidence thatcampaign contributions influenced legislators' voteson the NAFTA and Uruguay Round bills. Labor groupcontributions were associated with votes against freertrade while business contributions were associatedwith votes in favor of freer trade. Economicconditions in each member's district as well as thebroad policy views of the legislators also affectedrepresentatives' voting decisions.     

Teacher–Student Relationship Climate and School Outcomes: Implications for Educational Policy Initiatives

In recent discussions regarding concerns about the academic achievement of US students, educational policy makers have suggested the implementation of certain teacher policies. To address the limited empirical research on the putative educational impact of such policies, this study used multilevel structural equation models to investigate the longitudinal associations between teacher evaluation and reward policies, and student mathematics achievement and dropout with a national sample of students (n = 7,779) attending one of 431 public high schools. The student sample included an equal number of boys and girls averaging 16 years of age, and included a White (53%) majority. This study examined whether associations between teacher policies and student achievement were mediated by the teacher–student relationship climate. Results of this study were threefold. First, teacher evaluation policies that allowed students to evaluate their teachers were associated with more positive student reports of the classroom teaching climate. Second, schools with teacher reward policies that included assigning higher performing teachers with higher performing students had a negative association with student perceptions of the teaching climate. Lastly, schools with better student perceptions of the teaching climate were associated with lower student dropout rates by students’ senior year. These findings are discussed in light of their educational policy implications.     

Religiosity Profiles of American Youth in Relation to Substance Use, Violence, and Delinquency

Relatively little is known in terms of the relationship between religiosity profiles and adolescents’ involvement in substance use, violence, and delinquency. Using a diverse sample of 17,705 (49?% female) adolescents from the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, latent profile analysis and multinomial regression are employed to examine the relationships between latent religiosity classes and substance use, violence, and delinquency. Results revealed a five class solution. Classes were identified as religiously disengaged (10.76?%), religiously infrequent (23.59?%), privately religious (6.55?%), religious regulars (40.85?%), and religiously devoted (18.25?%). Membership in the religiously devoted class was associated with the decreased likelihood of participation in a variety of substance use behaviors as well as decreases in the likelihood of fighting and theft. To a lesser extent, membership in the religious regulars class was also associated with the decreased likelihood of substance use and fighting. However, membership in the religiously infrequent and privately religious classes was only associated with the decreased likelihood of marijuana use. Findings suggest that private religiosity alone does not serve to buffer youth effectively against involvement in problem behavior, but rather that it is the combination of intrinsic and extrinsic adolescent religiosity factors that is associated with participation in fewer problem behaviors.     

Parental Aspirations for Their Children’s Educational Attainment: Relations to Ethnicity,Parental Education,Children’s Academic Performance,and Parental Perceptions of School Climate

This study examined parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment in relation to ethnicity (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic), parental education, children’s academic performance, and parental perceptions of the quality and climate of their children’s school with a sample of 13,577 middle and high school parents. All parents had relatively high educational aspirations for their children, and within each ethnic subgroup, parental education and children’s academic performance were significantly and positively related to parental aspirations. However, moderating effects were found such that Caucasian parents with lower levels of education had significantly lower educational aspirations for their children than did parents of other ethnicities with similar low levels of education. Although the strength of the relationship between parental perceptions of school-related factors and parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment was not strong, it was most predictive of non-Caucasian parental aspirations for their children.