‘Economic Connectedness’ and Classroom Interactions

Back in 2022, Harvard professor Raj Chetty released a new report about the deep connection between friendship and economic mobility. Drawing on a massive dataset of more than 72 million social media users, Chetty found that people tend to befriend others with similar incomes. Chetty also found that when low-income children grow up in communities with what he calls “economic connectedness,” meaning they have connections with people from other socio-economic groups, they are much more likely to rise out of poverty. 

When Ph.D. student Farah Mallah learned about Chetty’s work, she knew it would help her own research on income and education.

“I read his work, and it made me think about the role of schools in helping or hindering cross-class interactions,” she says. “I wanted to understand what school policies impact cross-income interactions from forming.” As she writes in a related paper that she’s working on, “The strong relationship between cross-income friendships and longterm outcomes leads to the question: Can we do anything about it? How schools are organized could make it easier or harder for friendships to form between lower- and upper-income students.”

Mallah started looking into one area where students interact (or don’t) in schools: the classroom. In particular, she looked at what impact adding an AP class would have on cross-income interactions. 

Using data from Texas state administrators that spanned from 2004 to 2022, and with a dissertation grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, Mallah was able to look at the exact classes that students in grades 5 to 12 were taking. She found that the likelihood that lower-income students were exposed to upper-income students was low. On average, she writes, “the typical (median) lower-income student goes through grades 5 to 12 having one-tenth the share of upper- income classmates as their upper-income counterparts, and one in every five lower-income students has a share of upper-income classmates smaller than 1%.” 

This lack of exposure that lower- and higher-income students have to one another — the economic connectedness that Chetty noted — makes it difficult for students to form cross-income friendships. 

But Mallah found that adding an AP class in a school helps increase that exposure, although it varies by subject. With math, where enrollment in an AP course often depends on prior preparation, “lower-income students may be less likely to benefit from the addition of an AP course,” she says. “The increase in the exposure to higher-income students is mainly driven by three subject areas: science, foreign language, and fine arts.”

She also found that analyzing students is difficult because so many things can affect outcomes. For example, a great biology teacher might join a school and add a new AP course. 

“Then the question is, are lower-income students taking science courses and exposed to higher-income students because of the great biology teacher or because now there is an AP course offered?” 

Reflecting on the equity work she is doing, Mallah says her interest goes beyond just simply the research. It’s also personal.

“I didn’t grow up in the United States. I moved around a lot, across the Middle East,” she says. “I’m originally Jordanian with Palestinian heritage, and have lived in Saudia Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai. My parents spent more than their savings to get us through private schools. I ended up getting a merit scholarship to Georgetown in Qatar,” where she majored in international economics and joined an organization that taught English to immigrant campus workers. Unfortunately, she says many of her peers growing up were not as lucky with their schooling options, which has fed her passion for equity in education. 

“I really think it was education that allowed me to be where I am today,” she says, and helping others access similar paths has become a life philosophy. “If you’re blessed with something, the least you can do is help your community, as cheesy as that might sound. These interactions” — studying low-income students and helping immigrants —“have shaped the way I think about economic mobility and have broadened my horizons.” 

Mallah hopes to continue this work beyond just one paper. She also wants to find ways to get her work out to those who would benefit the most. 

“A goal of mine is to be able to uncover what we don’t know and share those findings broadly,” she says. “And, of course, speak to more than other academics about the work.”