The de-standardization of high-school tracking hypothesis: A case study

We examine a highly focused case of the de-standardization hypothesis presented by Lucas in his work: Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American School. Lucas argues that during the late 1960s and early 1970s, high schools in the U.S. underwent a ‘unremarked revolution’ in which highly institutionalized, rigidly defined course taking tracks gave way to more flexible less standardized pathways through high school. We apply a latent class analysis to four cohorts of high school students from a single school that span from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s to find evidence that such a transformation indeed occurred. Evidence for a transformation would include: (1) models specifying fewer latent pathways would better fit earlier cohorts, (2) with the number of latent pathways held constant, classification of individuals to pathways would be easier in the earlier cohort, (3) with number of latent pathways held constant, students in the same track in earlier cohorts would have higher levels of concordant course-taking than students in later cohorts. We do not find support for any of these three expectations. In short, in this case study, we find no evidence to support the de-standardization hypothesis.