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In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.

In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.

For the first year of the program, GMS awarded 4,053 scholarships to freshman, continuing undergraduate students, and graduate students. Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients. Freshmen constitute one respondent type and continuing undergraduate and graduate students comprise a second respondent type.

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.

In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.

Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up survey, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients.

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.

In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.

Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up survey, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients.

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.

In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts are composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients are defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.

Baseline, first follow-up, second follow-up survey, and longitudinal survey data have been collected from both recipients and non-recipients.

In 1999, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation started the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), a 20-year initiative which intends to expand access to higher education for high achieving, low-income minority students. In addition to its academic objectives, GMS also has the goal of creating future leaders in minority groups. The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Awardees can receive the scholarship for up to 5 years as an undergraduate and 4 years as a graduate student. The scholarship is renewable through graduate school in math, science, engineering, library science, and education.

In order to see how GMS has impacted students and to know how to better prepare minority students for college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has commissioned a survey of recipients. Cohorts were composed of both recipients and non-recipients. Non-recipients were defined as individuals who were asked to go on to the scholar confirmation/verification phase, but did not become a scholar for one or more reasons.

Baseline survey data has been collected from both recipients and non-recipients of Cohort 9.

The Longitudinal Study of American Youth (LSAY) is a project that was funded by the National Science Foundation in 1985 and was designed to examine the development of: (1) student attitudes toward and achievement in science, (2) student attitudes toward and achievement in mathematics, and (3) student interest in and plans for a career in science, mathematics, or engineering, during middle school, high school, and the first four years post-high school. The relative influence parents, home, teachers, school, peers, media, and selected informal learning experiences had on these developmental patterns was considered as well.

The older LSAY cohort, Cohort One, consisted of a national sample of 2,829 tenth-grade students in public high schools throughout the United States. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, ending four years after high school in 1994. Cohort Two, consisted of a national sample of 3,116 seventh-grade students in public schools that served as feeder schools to the same high schools in which the older cohort was enrolled. These students were followed for an initial period of seven years, concluding with a telephone interview approximately one year after the end of high school in 1994.

Beginning in the fall of 1987, the LSAY collected a wide array of information including: (1) a science achievement test and a mathematics achievement test each fall, (2) an attitudinal and experience questionnaire at the beginning and end of each school year, (3) reports about education and experience from all science and math teachers in each school, (4) reports on classroom practice by each science and math teacher serving a LSAY student, (5) an annual 25-minute telephone interview with one parent of each student, and (6) extensive school-level information from the principal of each study school.

In 2006, the NSF funded a proposal to re-contact the original LSAY students (then in their mid-30's) to resume data collection to determine their educational and occupational outcomes. Through an extensive tracking activity which involved: (1) online tracking, (2) newsletter mailing, (3) calls to parents and other relatives, (4) use of alternative online search methods, and (5) questionnaire mailing, more than 95 percent of the original sample of 5,945 LSAY students were located or accounted for. In addition to re-contacting the students, the proposal defined a new eligible sample of approximately 5,000 students and these young adults were asked to complete a survey in 2007. A second survey was conducted in the fall of 2008 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the civic scientific literacy of these young adults, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A third survey was conducted in the fall of 2009 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes and to measure the participants' use of selected informal science education resources, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. A fourth survey was conducted in the fall of 2010 that sought to gather updated information about occupational and education outcomes, as well as provided questions about the participants' interactions with their children, in which to date more than 3,200 participants have responded. Finally, a fifth survey was conducted in the fall of 2011 that sought to gather updated information about education outcomes and included an expanded occupation battery for all participants, as well as an expanded spousal information battery for all participants. The 2011 questionnaire also included items about the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan along with attitudinal items about nuclear power and global climate change. To date approximately 3,200 participants responded to the 2011 survey.

There were no surveys conducted in 2012 or 2013. Beginning in 2014 the LSAY was funded by the National Institute on Aging for five years. This data release adds the 2017 data to the previous data release that included data through 2016.

The public release data files include information collected from the national probability sample students, their parents, and the science and mathematics teachers in the students' schools. The data covers the initial seven years, beginning in the fall of 1987, as well as the data collected in the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 questionnaires.

Part 1: LSAY Merged Cohort (Base File) contains student and parent data from both cohorts of the LSAY from 1987-1994 and student follow-up data from 2007-2011 and 2014-2017. Additionally, Parts 2 - 5 contain information gathered from two teacher background questionnaires and two principal questionnaires from 1987-1994.

The Social Capital and Children's Development data were collected in a study of the causal effects of social capital on levels and inequalities of children's social and cognitive development during the early elementary years. The study included 52 schools in Phoenix and San Antonio, including 3,084 first graders and their families, and over 200 teachers, with half the schools randomly selected for the intervention and half serving as controls. Children from low-income Latino families were a special focus of the study. The experimental design of this study allowed for testing of the causal role of social capital. Social capital here refers to trust and shared expectations embedded in social networks of parents, teachers, and children. For young children, social capital operates primarily through their relationships with their parents, enhancing development through mechanisms of social support and social control.

The research design was experimental: social capital was manipulated through a well-tested randomized intervention, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that enhanced social capital among parents, teachers, and children through an intensive after-school program and a 2-year follow-up program. FAST is intended to reduce parental isolation, enhance family engagement with schools, and strengthen family functioning; that is, to increase social capital between families and schools, among families, and within families to improve children's education and life-long outcomes. Key aspects of child development were assessed, including (a) social skills and problem behavior from standardized behavioral ratings by parents and teachers, and (b) grade retention, attendance rates, and third-grade reading and mathematics scores from school records. Social capital was measured with repeated surveys of teachers and parents that address the extent of social networks, parent involvement, trust, and shared expectations among parents, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. Demographic variables of this study include native language, years in the United States, date of birth/age, race/ethnicity, gender, and household composition.

The Youth Development Study (YDS) was initiated as a school-based study of adolescent children and their parents to examine the consequences of formative experiences in adolescence for mental health, value formation, educational achievement, and multiple facets of behavioral adjustment. Particular attention was directed to the impacts of early work experience. Data were also obtained about parent-child and peer relationships and experiences in school. As the study continued, the focus shifted to adult development and attainment and, most recently, mid-life adjustment and health. This comprehensive longitudinal study now encompasses three generations: the initial cohort studied from adolescence to mid-life (G2), their parents (G1), and their adolescent children (G3). Data from three generations in the same families enable study of intergenerational relationships and differences in the experience of adolescence and transition to adulthood across parent and child cohorts. The YDS covers a wide range of topics of interest to sociologists, social psychologists, developmental psychologists, and life course scholars, including the development and impacts of agentic resources, socioeconomic attainment, processes of inter- and intra-generational mobility, objective and subjective work conditions, family relationships, intergenerational relationships, mental and physical health, and well-being.

In-school administration of paper surveys during the first four years of the study was supplemented by mailed surveys. Subsequent data collection took place entirely by mail, with 19 surveys conducted between 1988 and 2011. A final survey was conducted on-line in 2019. Survey data was obtained from the parents (G1) of this cohort during the first and fourth waves of the study (1988 and 1991). Surveys of the children (G3) began in 2009, continued in 2010 and 2011 (by mail) and in 2019-2020 (online).

The Youth Development Study measures a wide range of formative experiences and both psychological and behavioral variables, using survey methodology.

The G1 surveys obtained information about socioeconomic background as well as attitudes toward teenage employment, the parents' own employment as teenagers, their current work experiences, and educational expectations for their children.

The G2 surveys during the high school years included detailed questions about students' work and volunteer experiences, as well as experiences in their family, school, and peer groups, with an emphasis on the ways that working affected other life domains, mental health, and well-being. Shorter surveys containing many of the same topics were administered to students in 1992, 1993, and 1994, and included questions about current family and living arrangements. In 1995, a full survey was administered covering the wide range of topics included in previous surveys as well as information about career plans and life events that had occurred in the past five years. G2 Waves 9 through 19 (1997-2011) included many of the same questions contained in earlier surveys and additional sections that focused on the respondents' educational experiences, family relationships, sources of living expenses, and health and well-being. The most recent G2 survey (2019), administered on-line, included questions about support of aging parents. The YDS is unique in its coverage of both objective and subjective work experiences from adolescence to mid-life.

The topics covered by the G3 surveys are very similar to the G2 variables described above. Variables in each G2 and G3 wave are included in cross-wave codebooks, available at the Data Archive Codebook website.

For an overview of the Youth Development Study, see Mortimer, Jeylan T. (2012) "The Evolution, Contributions, and Prospects of the Youth Development Study: An Investigation in Life Course Social Psychology." Social Psychology Quarterly 75(1, March):5-27.