Factors Influencing Retentivity and Satisfaction with Secondary Schooling

Abstract

Having outlined some of the cultural, economic, and systems factors influencing participation rates in secondary education, this paper examines the degree to which selected school characteristics, home background, and cohort characteristics are associated with apparent school retentivity rates of 30 South Australian secondary schools, and the characteristics of 2711 secondary students with intention to quit school and student satisfaction. At the school level, the key factors turned out to be the socioeducational level of the parents and the type of school attended. At the student level, intention to quit school was found to be directly linked to satisfaction which in turn was associated with sex, academic self-concept, and parental encouragement.