Considering that school is one of the primary contributors to socialization, it makes sense that participation in a given track can also result in the adoption of the norms, values, beliefs, skills, and behaviour that correspond to that track. In other words, tracks can turn into a type of self-fulfilling prophecy: you may start out at the same level as someone in a higher track, but by the time you have completed the lower track you will have become like the other students in your track.

To reduce confounding variables and ensure notable test effects, Rosenbaum selected a homogeneous, white, working class public school with five different, highly stratified classes. Rosenbaum then compared IQ scores for individuals in the different tracks at two time points. As it turns out, tracking does have a significant effect on IQ. People in lower tracks can actually see a decline in IQ compared to a possible increase among those in the upper track. In other words, tracks socialize their students into their corresponding roles.

References

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Ellis, Godfrey J., Gary R. Lee, and Larry R. Petersen. 1978. ‘Supervision and Conformity: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Parental Socialization Values’, American Journal of Sociology, 84 (2): 386-403.

Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates.

Holland, David. 1970. ‘Familization, Socialization, and the Universe of Meaning: An Extension of the Interactional Approach to the Study of the Family’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 32 (3): 415-27.

Kohn, Melvin L. 1969. Class and Conformity: A Study in Values. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

Long, Theodore E. and Jeffrey K. Hadden. 1985. ‘A Reconception of Socialization’,
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Marshall, Victor W. 1975. ‘Socialization for Impending Death in a Retirement Village’, American Journal of Sociology, 80 (5): 1124-44.

Mortimer, Jeylan T. and Roberta G. Simmons. 1978. ‘Adult Socialization’, Annual Review of Sociology, 4421-54.

Rosenbaum, James E. 1975. ‘The Stratification of Socialization Processes’, American Sociological Review, 40 (1): 48-54.