This survey obtains information on: (1) the educational and employment activities of young people after they leave school; (2) the views and experiences that these youth have on school; and (3) background characteristics affecting these youth, such as parental level of education, social class, family circumstances, and housing tenure. The survey…

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to estimate empirically the impact on the earnings capacities of young female dropouts if they were to return to complete either a regular high school education or a General Educational Development (GED) degree. To reduce the potential upward bias on these estimated rates of return,…

Navajo students have a 31% dropout rate, and it has been getting worse. Although considerable research has examined the reasons behind this dropout rate, little attention has been given to parental expectations of their children's education. Interviews with 45 parents of students attending Montezuma Creek Elementary School, a public school on the…

Previous explanations of teen pregnancy have often included uncritical use of the notion of adolescents "at risk." More recently, however, attention has shifted to structurally determined contextual factors to explain teen pregnancy. Such factors include economic and educational opportunities and costs, as well as chances for valued…

The transition from undergraduate to graduate school is a point when female students may lose interest in pursuing engineering degrees, and the percentage of women enrolled in engineering graduate programs is small in comparison to that of males. To attempt to mitigate the potential isolation of women graduate engineering students, the Women in…

In the past few years, there has been a groundswell of community partnerships to prevent crime and drug abuse. This compilation presents prevention strategies, rather than programs, to help communities focus on adapting and tailoring program ideas and crime prevention techniques to local needs and circumstances. The strategies described are…

Rather than studying the structural paths through which variables affect student persistence in education, this paper offers a reduced form model that focuses on precollege, demographic, and certain current achievement and financial aid variables. This approach does not specify structural paths, but it does have the advantage of requiring only…

This paper discusses the role of institutional researchers in changing attitudes within institutions of higher education on the importance of efforts to improve student retention. It describes activities undertaken at Virginia Tech to determine why students voluntarily withdraw from the university in the context of changing attitudes within the…

The Student Support Team (SST) is a school-based interdisciplinary team designed to maximize the resources and support available to teachers, students, and parents. This presentation describes its approach and operation. The SST attempts early identification of students at risk for school failure due to any combination of poor academic…

This factbook provides data on the well-being of South Dakota children. It is intended as a vehicle for policy makers, advocates, the media, and service providers to raise awareness on the status of children in South Dakota. Section 1 of the factbook is an introduction and overview on South Dakota demographics. Section 2 presents special reports…

Data were obtained from the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a large-scale longitudinal study in the United Kingdom following up a sample of people born in a single week in 1958 through to adult life, to demonstrate that poor numeracy skills have a major impact. At age 37, a 10 percent sample of 1,714 cohort members were interviewed and…

This paper discusses retention techniques that can be used with minority students at predominantly white colleges, focusing on four phases that are critical to the retention and academic achievement of minority students: acceptance, acclimatization, responsibility, and productivity. In the acceptance phase, the college community should attempt to…

Project RETAIN (Retention in Education Technical Assistance and Information Network) is a Florida project to assist school districts through identification and dissemination of effective practices that keep students with mild disabilities in school. One part of the project attempted to establish a consensus among experts in the fields of…

This manual familiarizes data users with the procedures followed for data collection and processing of the second follow-up dropout component of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), a survey of the educational and personal characteristics of students. The dropout data file contains records for 2,028 sample members who…

This document is a report of a panel discussion on literacy conducted at an adult education conference in Quebec (Canada). Panelists included Leona Grise, Brenda Lee, and Nicole Snaauw; Ann M. Gauvin was the moderator. The discussion centered on student recruitment, the dropout factor, and alternate methods of learning for individuals lacking…