people

Clara G. Muschkin

Assistant Research Professor of Public Policy
Director, North Carolina Education Research Data Center

Clara Muschkin is an assistant research professor of public policy and serves as director for the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC), located within the Center for Child and Family Policy. The mission of the NCERDC is to support and develop policy-oriented research on education, providing academic researchers with access to a wealth of data on North Carolina public schools, students, and teachers.

Muschkin is a sociologist and demographer with an interdisciplinary research focus. In her research, she asks how education policies that influence the composition and organization of educational institutions can influence student behavior and academic performance. Her current research interests include: the impact of grade configuration on student behavior; the influence of retained and old-for-grade students on the behavior of grade peers; the effects of composition of district and school on race differences in student behavior and achievement across grade levels; variations in student behavior related to high school track placement; educational trajectories of youth involved in the criminal justice system; and educational outcomes among immigrant youth.

Muschkin is also the liaison between the Center and the Duke University Institutional Review Board, and provides support to researchers on issues related to human subjects review.

She regularly teaches the cornerstone course for the Children in Contemporary Society Certificate.

Education:

• Ph.D. Duke University - 1989
• B.A. College of William and Mary - 1978

Teaching Fall 2009:

• CCS 150.01, CHILDREN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY Synopsis
  Rubenstein 149, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Muschkin, C.G., E.J. Glennie, and A.N. Beck (Submitted, (forthcoming)). Effects of School Peers on Student Behavior: Age, Grade Retention, and Disciplinary Infractions in Middle School.


2. Cook, P., R. MacCoun, C.G. Muschkin and J. Vigdor (2008). The Negative Impact of Starting Middle School in Sixth Grade. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27(1), 104-121.


3. MacCoun, Robert, Philip J. Cook, Clara Muschkin, and Jacob Vigdor (In press). Distinguishing Spurious and Real Peer Effects: Evidence from Artificial Societies, Small-Group Experiments, and Real Schoolyards. Review of Law & Economics.


4. Muschkin, C.G. and Malone, P.S. (2007). Multiple Teacher Ratings: An Evaluation of Measurement Strategies.. Educational Research and Evaluation, 13(1), 71-86.


5. Muschkin, C.G. and Patterson, C.J. (1997). Aging Trends in Puerto Rico. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 12, 373-385.

1. "Research Support for Evidence-Based Education Policy: The North Carolina Education Research Data Center," as part of the symposium session Evidence-Informed Education: The Role of Collaborations in Leveraging SEA Accountability and Compliance Data, American Educational Research Association held in San Diego, April 13 - 17, 2009

1. Immigration and Changing Public School Enrollments: the case of North Carolina, International Sociological Association Forum of Sociology, held in Barcelona, Spain, September 7, 2008
2. The Enduring Impact of Race: Understanding Disparities in Behavior and Achievement., Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, New York, NY, August, 2007
3. . Explaining Race Differences in Student Behavior: The Relative Contribution of Student, Peer, and School Characteristics, annual meetings of the Population Association of America, New York, NY, March, 2007
4. Peer Influences of Old for Grade and Retained Students: Disciplinary Infractions and Suspensions in Middle Schools, Annual Meetings of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA, April, 2006