Faith and Family Play a Bigger Role in Academic Achievement Than Race or Socioeconomic Status

January 30, 2020 | by William Jeynes

The phrase “achievement gap” refers to the well-documented discrepancies between the scholastic achievements of African American and Latinos on the one hand and white students on the other. What explains the gap? My meta-analysis revealed that if an African American or Latino student was a person of faith and came from a two biological parent family, the achievement gap totally disappeared, even when adjusting for socioeconomic status.