Effects of a Compensatory Program on Self-Report, Achievement and Aspiration Level of "Disadvantaged" High School Students

Abstract

The number of compensatory education programs for disadvantaged youth increased dramatically during the second half of the decade of the 1960s. Several influences converged to focus more national attention upon this segment of the population than at any time since the 1930s. As Goldstein (1967) noted: ... Chagrin at the high rate of rejection of young people from low-income families by the Selective Service leads to the question of education and its relation to family status, attitudes and values. The very affluence of American society in the 1960s serves to call attention to those who have seemed destined to remain in the backwaters rather than to move in the mainstream of American life.2 A major manifestation of this new awareness was the creation, in 1964, of the Office of Economic Opportunity and the subsequent funding of numerous programs whose interest was to break the cycle of poverty and to provide new opportunities for individuals in the lowest income range of the population. One of these, Project Upward Bound, was designed to develop the skills and motivation necessary for success in higher education among potentially capable high school students from low-income backgrounds and inadequate academic preparation. It attempted to remedy poorly developed academic skills, as well as motivational and aspirational deficits, and to thus increase the young person's probability of acceptance and success in a college or university