The Sociology of Summer Camp: Examining Demographic Discrepancies in Perceived Student Outcomes Through the Organizational Context of Summer Programs

Abstract

In the context of widening learning gaps and growing educational inequities, this thesis attempts to make sense of the responsibility placed on summer programs to reduce learning gaps. My thesis takes a step back to understand the organizational sociology of summer camp programs before zooming in to examine demographic discrepancies in perceived outcomes from a longitudinal case study. The goal of this research project is hence twofold. First, I theoretically frame the mechanisms within summer camp in the context of organizational sociology. Then, I quantitatively analyze demographic factors that impact the perceived outcomes of students from the Summer Urban Program (SUP) through the lens of this sociology of summer camp theoretical framework. In particular, I ask how do the demographics of counselors and students impact the perceived outcomes of students in the classroom at summer camp? How can theoretical understandings of summer camp mechanisms explain these impacts? For this thesis, I explore race and gender as key demographics in a stepwise regression modeling approach, utilizing 2019-2023 data from SUP’s family surveys. I focus on Academic, SEL, Inside of Camp Interaction, and Outside of Camp Interaction outcome variables. My findings reveal that gender and racial match in the classroom do not have any effect on student learning outcome scores, at least through parent perceptions. Lower scores were identified for children with gender queer/nonbinary and male counselors and for Native American children. Asian/Pacific Islander counselor race and child race also had consistently lower outcome scores. Students with white counselors had higher scores than other racial categories for most outcomes. Other factors that correlated with higher scores were counselor expertise, child age, and child household income.