On the Edge of Commitment: Educational Attainment and Race in the United States (review)

Written from a sociology of education theoretical perspective, On the Edge of Commitment: Educational Attainment and Race in the United States seeks to introduce a new and better model of educational attainment. This new model is focused on determining the commitment level of students. The book begins with two chapters explaining and critiquing the historical theoretical perspectives taken by sociology of education researchers to explain educational attainment. The majority of the critique is focused on the Wisconsin model, which explains educational attainment by using status socialization theory. This theory explains future behavior as an outcome of an individual's expectations and how the individual is influenced by others' expectations.

The next four chapters introduce the commitment-based model called the stochastic decision-tree model. This model borrows from and extends status socialization and rational choice models, using numerical simulations to understand individuals' decisions. The model's starting point is the college entry decision and how that decision impacts later decisions—what the theory calls belief formation and revision. Decisions about college entry are seen as grounded in prefigurative and preparatory commitments. Prefigurative commitments arise from the response "to the prediction rule: 'I will go to college if I perceive it to be in my best interest to do so'" (p. 175).

The behaviors that position an individual to meet his or her prefigurative commitments are defined as preparatory commitments. If a student has weak prefigurative commitments, then his or her preparatory commitments are likely to be nonexistent. This relationship prompts Morgan to see the observable preparatory behavior as a direct function of the student's level of prefigurative commitment. From this initial decision point about college entry, Morgan displays a decision tree and possible explanations for the different branches. This simple decision tree leads to the stochastic decision-tree model illustrating that the commitment to "go to college" is a function of the quantity of processed information available to students.

The most direct description of how this decision tree explains the difference between Black and White educational attainment is:

Among students who eventually enact the same college entry decision, those who are not systematically misinformed but who are nonetheless not well informed will exhibit less effort in the short run and attain lower levels of the returns expected from a college education in the long run.

(p. 101)

This explanation is based on Bayesian learning theory and the reasons that some students may be slow or fast Bayesian learners. These reasons are: (a) differences in the amount of available information, (b) differences in the propensity to search for information, and (c) differences in the amount of information sharing (pp. 162–163). The connection of these theoretical underpinnings to the educational attainment differences between Blacks and Whites emerges in Chapter 6 when Morgan ties in Claude Steele's stereotype threat to explain why Black students may devalue their own performance.

Overall this book reads like a dissertation. It is dense and at times repetitive and confusing. It is difficult to draw out straightforward explanations for what the author is attempting to describe. He should receive credit for his willingness to candidly describe limitations to the model and to educational attainment theory.

The book does provide interesting theoretical explanations, but in very abstract and hypothetical ways. In some aspects, this book is an example of research for the sake of research. There is no attempt to tie theory to practice or to make recommendations for institutions. Instead the focus is purely on the academic expression of modeling educational attainment.

The book would be more relevant to higher education audiences if the author tied college choice literature to the college entry decision and considered the retention literature in the educational attainment model. This book does not reference any of the well-known higher education researchers, not even such landmark works as those by Tinto or Braxton. Higher education readers must [End Page 544...