Page 54 - The Importance of Common Metrics for Advacing Social Science Theory and Research

The Importance of Common Metrics for Advancing Social Science Theory and Research: A Workshop Summary
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13034.html

42 THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMON METRICS

Until consistently defined cohort rates that are comparable over time
and space become regular practices, Warren observed, it is best to use
aggregate cohort rates based on Common Core Data or similar data for
research purposes. It is also important to account for the weaknesses and
limitations of these sorts of measures and acknowledge the bias in research
results. Individual-level data based on longitudinal sample surveys, like
the National Education Longitudinal Study or the various longitudinal
surveys administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, are
best suited for describing students’ progress through the secondary school
system. However, these types of surveys are limiting because they are very
expensive, are not conducted regularly, and suffer from problems of cover-
age bias and sample attrition.

Accuracy of Data
The third reason Warren outlined for the differences in high school
dropout and completion rates has to do with the accuracy of the underly-
ing data used to construct them. Even when the measures are intended to
quantify the same thing and even when they agree on the technical defini-
tion of the numerator and the denominator, the estimates often differ. An-
other weakness with status completion and dropout rates has to do with
the validity and reliability of respondents’ self-reports of whether and how
they completed high school.

A COMMON METRIC FOR RACE AND ETHNICITY?

In his presentation, Matthew Snipp (Stanford University) referred to
race and ethnicity as a set of universal characteristics that exist over time
and space. He observed that the human species relies heavily on the ability
to visualize and identify difference, and some people have argued that the
ability to make distinctions on the basis of race may have even been a selec-
tive advantage. More specifically, identifying people who look the same in
terms of physical appearance, stature, diet, etc., may be a way to recognize
those who are less likely to cause harm (or vice versa).
Snipp noted that the color coding of race, however, is something that is
even more recent, beginning with the emergence of biology and the racial
sciences in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The rise of the racial sci-
ences in the 19th century, principally ethnology and eugenics, focused heav-
ily on the physiognomy of race. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
people began contesting the research and thinking on race, especially the
concepts of physiognomy and the notion of inherent racial hierarchies. In
the mid-20th century, attention began to shift from trying to define race to
categorizing types of race. Today, administrative definitions are probably

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