School Dropouts

A new analysis of the widespread urban school dropout problem focusing on the critical factors of grade retention and school transition, offering suggestions for policy changes.

By the 1960s, high schools had become mass institutions saddled with the expectation of universal education for America's youth. Ironically, with this broadening of clientele and mission came the idea and phenomenon of the "dropout." The consolidation of a dropout stereotype focused on the presumed dependency and delinquency of dropouts, with the resulting programs focusing on guidance and vocational training. Why the problem persists is the topic of this study with more constructive perspectives on dropping out.

Open and distance learning (ODL) is now a well-established complement to traditional campus-based learning and numbers of participating students are on the rise. However, a growing concern for all those involved in recruiting and teaching in ODL is keeping these students. Retention rates for online courses are often worse than for conventional learning, and a recent study has suggested that over 70% of distance learning students drop out of courses.There is increasing recognition that student retention is the responsibility of the actual institutions running the courses rather than being out of their hands, as previously thought. Institutions need to retain greater numbers of students without compromising academic standards.Ormond Simpson provides a clear, accessible analysis of strategies for increasing retention and, crucially, provides case studies and examples to illustrate how these strategies can change institutional policy and practice.All the key issues are covered, including recruitment, retention, retrieval and reclamation.

American schools in urban areas have received much attention. This reference offers a comprehensive look at the issues and controversies at the heart of urban American education. The volume is divided into several parts devoted to historical, political, and social dimensions of urban schooling. The chapters in each part are authored by expert contributors, and each offers a fresh perspective on historical and contemporary concerns. The volume considers the place of schools in urban society and analyzes their mission and how they have changed, or failed to change, to meet modern needs. Much of the work is devoted to the problems of particular populations, such as minorities and special-needs students, while other chapters examine broad pedagogical issues and the societal problems that confront students of all backgrounds and abilities. Each chapter closes with a list of works for further reading, and the volume concludes with a bibliography.

The link between economic development and education in Latin America is generally well-recognized. A literate and educated work force is the largest single factor in explaining economic growth. In this study, the editors and contributors survey the various elementary educational systems to investigate the reasons behind the failure of schools to retain students in elementary grades. A group of scholars looks at the current state of education in four countries: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, with a view to designing more effective programs for reducing the dropout and grade repetition rates. For each country studied, there is an overview of the school system, teacher training and attitudes, centralized and decentralized planning, curriculum development, and psychological and environmental issues that contribute to school dropout.

This book summarizes structural, reproduction, and resistance theories of education and provides a social research approach to problems of social inequity. It analyzes how these perspectives contribute to the political analysis of the production of early school departures and the consequent disadvantages and poverty. Fagan follows a deconstructive approach to research methodology that presents a text in which real characters and events are brought to life. Dublin working-class kids speak for themselves, tell their stories, and discuss their futures openly. They describe their schooling and their colorful responses to situations that seemed meaningless or demeaning when they were in school. They share their insecurities about the future and their experiences with poverty and unemployment outside the mainstream of middle-class society. As a unique contribution to cultural studies and a rare ethnographic glimpse of Irish urban society, this study establishes a model in educational and sociological research.

Invisible Children in the Society and Its Schools, Second Edition offers a series of reports by some of the most passionate and insightful scholars writing in the field of education today on groups of children and young people whose complexity, strengths, and vulnerabilities are largely unseen or unheard in the society and its schools. The metaphors of invisibility and visibility are used to explore the social and school lives of groups of children and young people in North America who are socially devalued in the sense that alleviating the often difficult conditions of their lives is not a priority. This includes children who are subjected to derogatory stereotypes; children who are educationally neglected in schools that respond inadequately, if at all, to their needs; and children who receive relatively little attention from scholars in the field of education or writers in the popular press. The chapters detail oversights and assaults-visible and invisible-but also affirm the capacity of many of these young people to survive, flourish, and often educate others, despite the painful and even desperate circumstances of their lives. By sharing the voices of the young, providing basic information about particular groups of children and young people, and offering thoughtful analysis of their social situation, this volume combines education and advocacy in an accessible volume responsive to the life-and-death issues of our time. New in the Second Edition: Most of the chapters are totally new or have been thoroughly updated and revised. In a new introduction, Sue Books reflects on the social context of children's lives and how this has changed since the first edition was published in 1998-before September 11th and before welfare "reform." Suggestions for further exploration-books, films, Web sites-have been added at the end of each chapter.