On August 3, 2021, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) sponsored a symposium that featured presentations by researchers working with large-scale federal datasets on education and educational achievement.

Over three sessions, the symposium explores relationships between student outcomes, differences in educational opportunity, and the demographic and economic contexts of schools in the nation. Examples of research questions, data, and methods are provided to encourage future investigations into school equity by geographers and other stakeholder communities.

The first session focuses on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the related data and tools available to support research into student achievement. View the session.

The second session provides examples of research that has been conducted with NAEP social studies achievement data and what is known about the nature of and reasons for inequality in student outcomes in U.S. history and geography. View the session.

The third session demonstrates methods of linking multiple large-scale federal datasets to investigate geographic inequalities in education and other factors associated with inequality in student outcomes. View the session.

Questions about the symposium may be directed to Dr Michael Solem at msolem@txstate.edu.