tracking

(noun)

An educational system in which the entire school population is assigned to classes according to whether the students' overall achievement is above average, normal, or below average and in which students attend academic classes only with students whose overall academic achievement is the same as their own.

Related Terms

Examples of tracking in the following topics:

  • Tracking Systems

    • Since low-class and minority students are overrepresented in low tracks with Whites and Asians generally dominating high tracks, interaction among these groups can be discouraged by tracking.
    • Thus, traditionally, students were tracked into academic, general, and vocational tracks.
    • Instead, many secondary schools now base track levels on course difficulty, with tracks such as basic, honors, or college-prep.
    • Lessons taught in low-track classes often lack the engagement and comprehensiveness of the high-track lessons, putting low-track students at a disadvantage for college because they do not gain the knowledge and skills of the upper-track students.
    • Tracking can also result in a stigmatization of low-track students.

  • Tracking and Within-School Effects

    • Tracking separates students within a school into different tracks based on their skills and abilities.
    • A 1992 study by Kulik and Kulik found that high-ability students in tracked classes achieved more highly than similar-ability students in non-tracked classes.
    • A 1992 study by Gamoran showed that students are more likely to form friendships with other students in the same tracks than students outside of their tracks.
    • A 1992 study by Kulik and Kulik found that high-ability students in tracked classes achieved more highly than similar-ability students in non-tracked classes.
    • Proponents for detracking believe that low-track students will greatly benefit in school achievement if they are mixed in with high-track students .

  • Research Examples

    • Rosenbaum was interested in the effects of high school tracks on IQ.
    • High school tracks are the different levels or types of courses students can take; for instance, many high schools now include college preparation tracks and general education tracks.
    • In other words, tracks can turn into a type of self-fulfilling prophecy: you may start out at the same level as someone in a higher track, but by the time you have completed the lower track you will have become like the other students in your track.
    • As it turns out, tracking does have a significant effect on IQ.
    • People in lower tracks can actually see a decline in IQ compared to a possible increase among those in the upper track.

  • Sexual Violence

    • Sexual violence is particularly difficult to track because it is severely under reported.
    • On a global scale, international sexual violence is difficult to track because of extreme variation in sexual mores.

  • Class, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System

    • Within the field of criminology, white-collar crime initially was defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as "a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. " A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes.
    • That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the United States tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent.
    • Explain why white-collar crime is less likely to be tracked in the U.S.

  • Religion

    • Religiosity is measured by tracking frequency of church attendance, church group involvement, frequency of prayer, and other such markers of strength of religious practice.

  • Introduction to nodes

    • We need to track down each of those seven friends and ask them about their friendship ties, as well.

  • Theories of Deviance

    • A clear example of how deviance reflects power imbalances is in the reporting and tracking of crimes.
    • That such crimes are not tracked more clearly suggests that there is less of an emphasis placed on prosecuting white collar crime than there is on prosecuting other types of crime (property and violent crime) in the U.S.
    • It may also be the case that it is difficult to collect such statistics, but that is also likely due to the fact that a system for tracking such crimes has not been put into place because such crimes are not seen as warranting the same amount of attention as exists for other types of crimes.
    • That white-collar crimes are less likely to be tracked, less likely to be reported, less likely to be prosecuted, and are more likely to be committed by people in higher social classes suggests that the way crimes are punished in the U.S. tends to favor the affluent while punitively punishing the less affluent.

  • The Health of Infants and Children

    • Birth defect trends and risk factors are difficult to monitor because many countries do not have systems that can accurately track the prevalence of birth defects.
    • In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researches and tracks birth defects and coordinates the surveillance and research activities of about 40 member programs of the International Clearing House for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research.

  • Sampling ties

    • Then, all the actors named (who were not part of the original list) are tracked down and asked for some or all of their ties.
    • The snowball method can be particularly helpful for tracking down "special" populations (often numerically small sub-sets of people mixed in with large numbers of others).
    • In many cases it will not be possible (or necessary) to track down the full networks beginning with focal nodes (as in the snowball method).