High school graduation and postsecondary enrolment of Black, Latin American and other population groups: What explains the differences?

Given the large differences in educational attainment observed across non-Indigenous population groups in Canada, understanding when these differences emerge and what may explain them is an important first step in informing policy discussions on the issue. Using the British Columbia kindergarten to Grade 12 dataset, the Postsecondary Student Information System, the 2016 Census of Population, and the T1 Family File tax data, this study follows several cohorts of Grade 9 students in British Columbia over time to explore differences between population groups, by gender, in the probability and timing of high school graduation and enrolment in academic postsecondary programs. The analysis assesses the extent to which differences in high school course marks (Grade 10 English, science and math) and other factors, such as adjusted parental income and immigrant status, account for differences in these outcomes between population groups. On-time high school graduation rates varied by upwards of 10 percentage points across population groups for each gender, with lower rates registered by Latin American, Black and West Asian students, and higher rates by Japanese, Korean, Chinese and South Asian students. In all population groups, girls were more likely than boys to graduate high school on time. Given an extra year, the graduation rate increased among all groups, most notably among Black boys. For boys and girls, enrolment rates in postsecondary programs were lowest among Latin American, Black and White students, and highest among Chinese, Korean and South Asian students. Differences in Grade 10 course marks explained a substantial share of the gaps in education outcomes between many of the population groups and White students. By contrast, adjusted parental income differences explained smaller shares of the gaps than differences in course marks did, in most cases. Comparing the standardized test scores for literacy of Latin American and Black students with those of White students in grades 4 and 7, and provincial exam marks in Grade 10 English, showed that skill gaps implied by the lower (relative to White students) course marks obtained by Latin American and Black students in Grade 10 may have existed at least as early as Grade 4. Parental income may have exerted an indirect effect on educational outcomes through its influence on academic performance (though this study cannot shed light on this).