Dissertation

My dissertation is an in-depth interview study with 12th graders and their counselors, teachers, and school leaders across 5 public high schools in Philadelphia. Given the wide variation in college-going rates among high schools in the city and ongoing debates about the value of college for low-income students, I ask how school-based factors shape students' postsecondary plans. 

Sageman, Joseph. 2024. "Advising through Adversity: Urban High Schools' Diverging Approaches to Postsecondary Readiness." Social Problems.

Abstract: This article examines the role urban high schools play in influencing students’ postsecondary plans. While postsecondary aspirations and attendance have become more universal experiences over time for low-income students in the U.S., the kinds of high schools they attend are increasingly heterogeneous in their missions and orientations to college. We know little about how variation among high schools maps onto differences in how students are supported or advised on their postsecondary plans. Drawing on 73 in-depth interviews with high school seniors, counselors, and principals in Philadelphia, I find that school structures tend to compound existing differences among students related to how they think about the value of college, consider which postsecondary programs fit them best, and seek out help or guidance from adults. I contrast the postsecondary strategies of socioeconomically diverse and socioeconomically disadvantaged schools on four salient dimensions: curriculum, counseling, staff and peer networks, and orientation to work. Diverse schools foster exploratory adolescence, orienting students towards open-ended and long-term educational goals. Disadvantaged schools promote expedited adulthood, an approach that prioritizes pragmatic over academic training in hopes of accelerating students’ paths to economic stability and self-sufficiency. These results point to the lasting effects of school segregation and sorting mechanisms that shape students’ long-term educational and career trajectories.

"College AND Career Ready? College Ambivalence and the Postsecondary Strategies of Low-income High Schools," under review.

Abstract: Low-income students and their educators confront conflicting evidence about the risks and rewards of college as a financial investment. Through 80 in-depth interviews, this article examines how urban high schools define their postsecondary strategies and advise students on their future plans. First, I document that schools with vocational missions and college-for-all philosophies are converging on a message of college ambivalence. Their staffs are eager to support students’ ambitions but are wary that college may not always represent a reliable route to economic mobility. Second, I show how college ambivalence is socially produced by the student debt crisis, low college persistence rates, and a tight labor market benefiting less educated workers. Finally, I find that college ambivalence influences students’ postsecondary decisions, including how they think about the purpose of college. High schools’ turn to college ambivalence implies the limits of both college-for-all and career-based education as social mobility strategies.

"Through Thick and Thin: How Black Educators Support Urban Students' Postsecondary Plans," under review.

Abstract: This paper asks how exposure to Black educators impacts minority students’ postsecondary planning processes and long-run educational ambitions. Prior studies have documented positive effects of student-teacher racial matches on achievement and non-academic outcomes, but quantitative research designs are often unable to uncover the mechanisms underlying these effects. Through 102 interviews with high school seniors, teachers, and counselors in Philadelphia, I find that Black educators have an outsized impact on their minority students’ postsecondary trajectories through a combination of empathic engagement and presumed proximity. I propose four distinct mechanisms through which Black educators may influence their students’ future plans: increasing students’ contact with postsecondary advisers, raising students’ feelings of belonging in school, offering counseling expertise that is specifically relevant to students of color, and strengthening students’ self-efficacy. This paper justifies policy efforts to diversify teacher and counselor workforces and suggests ways that White teachers may more effectively support their minority students.

Other Projects

My other research projects tend to focus on the interplay between education policy and demographic change. In addition to the papers listed below, an ongoing project with Beza Taddess investigates the long-run health effects of court-ordered school desegregation in the post-Brown era.

"The Limits of Evaluative Rationalization: Public School Ratings and Racialized Place Discrimination in the Housing Market," with Adam Goldstein. (Revise & resubmit at American Journal of Sociology)

Abstract: Sociologists have documented how expanded use of quantitative evaluative metrics can inject algorithmic biases into selection processes, but less is known about how decision-makers’ responses to such metrics affect patterns of discriminatory behavior. Does heightened audience alignment with the valuations expressed by popular metrics weaken residual discrimination on the basis of ascriptive characteristics? This study considers the case of homebuyer responses to public school ratings. Drawing on a unique dataset of primary school attendance zones from 2010-2017, a difference-in-differences design is used to estimate differential changes in White and Asian buyers’ home purchase rates across neighborhoods with equal school ratings but variable shares of Black and/or Hispanic students following the 2012 rollout of GreatSchools’ ratings in Zillow.com’s platform. The findings show no attenuation in White buyers’ long-documented avoidance of highly-rated schools with relatively larger shares of marginalized minority students. School ratings powerfully reshape demand for housing across neighborhoods, but not to the extent that they weaken the effect of racial place discrimination. Implications for studies of quantification, housing, education and racialized markets are discussed.

Sageman, Joseph. 2022. "School Closures and Rural Population Decline." Rural Sociology 87(3):960-992.

Abstract: Since 1998, more than 6,000 public schools have closed in rural U.S. counties. Very little research considers how these school closures impact the future growth (or decline) of rural communities. Given rural schools’ importance to parents, local labor markets, and civic life, closures could trigger or reinforce population loss. On the other hand, the configuration of schools may simply be a consequence of population loss and not a cause. This paper tests these hypotheses using records from the Common Core of Data (CCD) and U.S. Census. Employing an instrumental variable analysis that exploits exogenous variation in school district boundaries and a difference-indifference design that groups counties by propensity scores, I find that school closures induce population loss in many—but not all—cases. Specifically, counties with the lowest propensities to close schools experience the largest negative effects on population. This finding suggests that policymakers often overlook potentially important unintended consequences of school consolidation in rural communities.