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Title: Disputing Discrimination, Data Don't Back Up Accusations of Economic Bias
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Gorman, Linda
Disputing Discrimination, Data Don't Back Up Accusations of Economic Bias
Rocky Mountain News, March 13, 1994, Editorial; Ed. F; Pg. 79A
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Denver Publishing Company
Keyword(s): Economics of Discrimination; Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Gordon uses NLSY79 data to support her critique of studies that claim to "'single-out' wage differences based solely on race.'' She argues against the validity of such research by drawing an analogy to high school test scores. Her argument is as follows:

"In 1980, the highest and lowest scores for white high school graduates in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were about the same as those for black high school graduates. On average, however, the scores of black graduates were much lower - 75% of the black high school graduates scored below the 25th percentile of the white high school graduates. This means that - again on average - black high school graduates are not as well prepared academically as white ones. But statistical studies that only use schooling to equalize individual differences do not recognize this. As a result, when black students have poorer jobs or lower wages, statistical studies may attribute the difference to discrimination when it is really due to differing levels of skill."

Bibliography Citation
Gorman, Linda. "Disputing Discrimination, Data Don't Back Up Accusations of Economic Bias." Rocky Mountain News, March 13, 1994, Editorial; Ed. F; Pg. 79A.