A Test of Three Sociological Explanations of High School Completion

The California …, 2002

Previously published research has not moved beyond studying the general association between retention and high school dropout. This longitudinal study seeks to evaluate within-group differences, exploring the characteristics of those students who are retained and subsequently drop out as compared to those students who are retained and do not drop out. A transactional-ecological view of development is presented to assist in situating the findings within a framework of longterm outcomes across development. The results of this study suggest that there are early socioemotional and behavioral characteristics that distinguish which retained students are most likely to drop out of high school. In addition, maternal level of education and academic achievement in the secondary grades were also associated with high school graduation status. These findings provide information that extend beyond the association between grade retention and later dropout. In particular, this investigation suggests that it is especially important to attend to the socioemotional and behavioral adjustment of children throughout their schooling to facilitate both their immediate and long-term academic success.

2012

This study draws from extant literature on social attainment to examine what factors affect the attaining of higher incomes, education, and occupational ranks. Research on five distinct factors is examined and analyzed using a sample of about 6,000 students from a national longitudinal study across the United States between 1988-2000 as they transitioned from eight grade through high school and into the labor force: (1) background characteristics: household type, race, and gender, (2) social capital, (3) cultural capital, (4) academic ability, and (5) parental social class. The results revealed that these factors affect social attainment. I also examined if parental socioeconomic status interacts with other factors. The results of the study showed that the gap between rich and poor has grown over the last 30 years. The rich are getting further ahead in the race for social attainment.

The Journal of Human Resources, 1968

Data from a national survey of inequalities in educational opportunity were analyzed to estimate the independent and joint effects of r^aie, socioeconomic lwel, religion,_and, place of residence on chances of boys and girls.dropping out of high school. Low socioeconom.ic level, non_Catholic religious identification, and residence in the south were found to be more closely associated than the other variables with leaving school before graduation; these relationships were relatively independent"of race and urban residence. The latter were associated with leaiing school, but the relationships were not independent of effects of the lor*... patterns of interaction were examined, and blue-collar Negro males in the urbanized areas of the North and west and blue-collar white males in the more rural part of the South were found to have much higher dropout rates than expected.

2000

Between 1972 and 1998, data from October Current Population Surveys show that dropout is least among whites and greatest among Hispanics, and it has declined among whites and African-Americans since the late 1970s. Annual dropout rates are successively higher in each of the last three years of high school, and men drop out more than women. Social background favors school continuation among whites relative to minorities, but trends in background were favorable both to whites and blacks. Residence in a large central city increases high school dropout among whites and blacks. The end of compulsory school attendance increases dropout, especially among minorities. Female household headship increases dropout, especially among whites, and post-secondary education of parents and home ownership sharply lower dropout. Social location and background should inform our understanding of changes in high school dropout, along with the dynamics of the economy and of educational policy. Trends in High School Dropout among White, Black, and Hispanic Youth, 1972 to 1998 Just as the earning power of high school graduates has declined relative to that of college graduates (Murphy and Welch 1989; Murnane and Levy 1993; Hauser 1993), so has the earning power of high school dropouts. Indeed, in most cases, high school dropouts are already unable to compete for jobs that pay enough to keep one out of poverty; clearly, the economic consequences of dropping out of high school have never been as severe. In this context the highly publicized National Goals for Education (U.S. Department of Education 1990) have proclaimed 90 percent high school completion among six primary goals. 1 Since the middle 1980s, there has been a steady stream of new reports about the familial and economic origins of high school dropout (McLanahan 1985; Ekstrom,

Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, 2019

In this report, we utilize data from two cohorts of Toronto District School Board high school students to address the following research questions:    How closely are current measures of secondary school success aligned with measures of postsecondary access? Do the predictors of high school graduation match the predictors of different postsecondary pathways, that is university and college? How have these alignments changed over time? Are the same predictors significant for different cohorts of students or has there been a shift? Are there gaps in secondary school success and PSE access between subgroups of students, particularly those who historically have been underrepresented at the postsecondary level, in terms of high school graduation, university pathways and college pathways? Are these gaps widening, shrinking or remaining stable over time? Using both descriptive and multivariate techniques, as well as data visualizations and illustrations, we find evidence that secondary school measures of success are more aligned with measures of college confirmation than university confirmation. Confirmation refers to a student receiving an offer of admission and accepting that offer. While neighbourhood household income and parental postsecondary experience are not significant predictors of high school graduation and college confirmation, they are important predictors of university confirmation. Our findings point to a diminishing importance of income and parental postsecondary education, but also that the social class gap in universities persists — and perhaps is even growing. Our analysis offers compelling evidence of a widening class-based gap between those who go to university and those who don’t. Parental education and neighbourhood household income are still strong predictors of university confirmation, although they do not matter for high school graduation and college confirmation. We also find evidence that racialized students, with the exception of Latin American and mixed-race students, have greater odds of confirming university and college than White students, when all control variables are taken into consideration. We offer reserved optimism, as previous studies have demonstrated that the playing field is not equal, and that racialized students — particularly Black males — must navigate a structural obstacle course to avoid being placed in applied streams and designated with a special education need, two characteristics that severely curtail the educational attainment prospects of youth.

1992

This paper assesses the effects of human capital and social capital on the probability of a person dropping out of high school, using the High School and Beyond data set. Utilizing logistic regressi~n, pre~icted drop~ut rates are uncovered for students whose families and communities differ in human and social capital, controllmg for financial capital, race, ethnicity, and rural-urban residence. The effects of human and social capital variables combine to make substantial differences in predicted dropout rates. 1Mark H. Smith is a Doctoral Candidate in the

2015

General Education Diploma Students’ Familial Attachment Experiences Influencing Premature High School Departure by Tonya S. Wright-Stone MED, Clemson University, 1998 MED, Converse College, 1994 BA, University of South Carolina at Spartanburg, 1989 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Counselor Education and Supervision Walden University December 2014 Abstract Lowered academic achievement and premature departure from high school continue to plagueLowered academic achievement and premature departure from high school continue to plague the educational system, creating the need for greater insight into experiences affecting students’ classroom performance. Much is known about academic achievement; however, less research has focused on the role of familial attachment on premature departure from high school. Guided by attachment theory, the purpose of this interpretative phenomenological study was to gain insight into Ge...

1971

EDRS Price MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 *Academic Achievement, Attitudes, College Admission, Demography, Dropout Characteristics, *Dropout Research, *Dropouts, *School Holding Power, *Secondary School Students, Socioeconomic Influences, Socioeconomic Status This paper explores the relationship between: (1) premature withdrawal from high school, (2) entrance to college, and (3) several attitudinal, socioeconomic and demographic measures taken from a national probability sample of 5,225 young men interviewed in 1966 and again in 1967. Being over-age in grade in 1966 and at least 17 in 1967 strongly increased the likelihood of dropping out of high school and this relationship affected blacks much more than whites. Among youth not over-age, low I.Q. and living in the West (whites) or South (blacks) increased the probability of premature withdrawal from school. A combination of relatively low educational aspirations, low family income, and low expenditures per pupil also increased the probability o...

Education and Society, 2012

It is well known that socioeconomic status (SES) at both the student and school level is associated with educational outcomes. Students from higher social backgrounds, on average, have greater educational outcomes than their less privileged peers. Also, a student that attends a school that enrols students from primarily high social backgrounds will, on average, have greater educational outcomes than if she attended a school that enrolled students from low social backgrounds. School SES is related to student outcomes through a complex array of factors, including the quality of curriculum and instruction, resources and the learning environment. This chapter reviews the research literature about the relationship between school socioeconomic composition and student outcomes, the mechanisms by which the relationship is enacted in schools, as well as the structural features of education systems that influence how students from varying social backgrounds are distributed across schools. I conclude with suggestions for future research.

The study looked into the ability of academic delay of gratification (e. g. intentionally miss out a social event such as parties and hanging out in order to be able to focus on their studies) and need for affiliation (e. g. establishing and managing close interpersonal relationships with others) to predict the academic achievement (e. g. average grade of all subjects during the first grading period of the academic year) of high school students. A sample of 1,021 Filipino fourth year high schools students from selected private and public high schools in Metro Manila participated in this study. Results showed that academic achievement was positively predicted by academic delay of gratification but negatively predicted by need for affiliation an indication of the ability of high school students to prioritize goals.

International Journal of Education and Language, 2021

In educational environments, students' academic achievements can be associated with many concepts. In this context, in addition to educational aspects such as teacher education, teacher behaviors and, characteristics, the role of the peers', curriculum; sociological concepts such as discrimination, poverty, gender, etc. can be interpreted as key factors that influence students' academic achievements. In this study, education and its sub-components that create essential differentiates in students' academic achievements were examined in terms of sociological and educational factors. The research was structured as a systematic literature review. In this context, 67 academic publications consisting of 50 research articles, 11 literature reviews, 3 academic reference books, 1 academic reference book chapter, 1 letter from the editor, and 1 research support between 1931-2020 years focused on the research problem were collected through 14 different database that involve JSTOR,

1974

For the past 15 years, sociologists have actively been working to identify. measure, and interpret the effects of schools on aspirations and achievements. Paradoxically, social science interest in school effectiveness gained in intensity and scope in the aftermath of the publication of Equality of Educational Opportunity (Coleman, Campbell, Hobson, McPartland, Mood, Weinfeld, and York, 1966). That massive study found that American public schools are remarkably homogeneous in resources and in educational outcomes, while there remain unacceptably large differentials among the achievements of major racial and socioeconomic groups. These broad conclusions appear to stand despite the challenges posed by systematic critical review and by further research (Mosteller and Moynihan, 1972;

Psychological Bulletin, 1982

Although it is widely believed that socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly correlated with measures of academic achievement, weak and moderate correlations are frequently reported. Using meta-analysis techniques, almost 200 studies that considered the relation between SES and academic achievement were examined. Results indicated that as SES is typically defined (income, education, and/or occupation of household heads) and typically used (individuals as the unit of analysis), SES is only weakly correlated (r = .22) with academic achievement, With aggregated units of analysis, typically obtained correlations between SES and academic achievement jump to .73. Family characteristics, such as home atmosphere, sometimes incorrectly referred to as SES, are substantially correlated with academic achievement when individuals are the unit of analysis (r = .55). Factors such as grade level at which the measurement was taken, type of academic achievement measure, type of SES measure, and the year in which the data were collected are significantly correlated statistically with the magnitude of the correlation between academic achievement and SES. Variables considered in the meta-analysis accounted for 75% of the variance in observed correlation coefficients in the studies examined.

Psychology in the …, 2002

Youth & …, 2007