In high schools across America, ‘tracking’ is used to place students into segments that determine their learning trajectory and classes based on their achievement levels.

The idea behind tracking is to enable schools to more efficiently target each of the students’ learning needs based on their academic level. However, sociologists have begun to study tracking as poor and working-class students are far more likely to be placed into lower-level segments relative to middle and upper-class students who are more likely to be placed into higher-level tracks, Cucchiara (2020, p. 30). My public high school had tracks for math classes in ninth through 12th grade. It is notable how an immediate tracking placement limits a student’s ability to obtain Advanced Placement credit for calculus, which directly contributes to college tuition money. Meanwhile, students that couldn’t get placed in the upper-level track did not have the opportunity to obtain college credit. 

It’s also interesting how the effect may go further than just missing out on the opportunity to obtain calculus credit. A study by Bedelia Richards, a University of Richmond associate professor of sociology, examined how academic tracking regulates the friendship networks of second-generation West Indian youth, as well as the meanings they associate with their racial and ethnic identities (Richards, 2017). This study examined a high school in New York City and how minorities were placed together in the lower-track classes. Considering how a lot of the interactions between students are a result of the classes they’re in, it makes sense how this racial disparity between the tracking can solidify racial and ethnic identities in schools.  

Overall, this is concept is prime for sociologists to study as it appears that this tracking is leading to inequalities and segregation within the schools based on which students are placed in the higher and lower-level academic tracks. Perhaps this concept contributes to the greater discrepancies that ultimately lead to unequal opportunities based on the income and ethnicity of students.

Sources 

Cucchiara M (2020) Sociology of Education. In: Barian A, Brown JA, Clair M, et al. (eds.) A Sociology Experiment 

Richards. (2017). Tracking and Racialization in Schools. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), 3(1), 126–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332649216653413