Abstract
Focusing on the unique social characteristics of closed communities, the current study examined the predictors of high-school dropout among Ultraorthodox Jewish youth, focusing on background variables [i.e., individual’s age, family’s religious group affiliation, and other high-school dropout(s) in family]; social resources (i.e., self-esteem and mastery); and parental conditional regard (PCR) and societal conditional regard (SCR), with reference to both positive regard and negative regard. The study was conducted in Israel with the participation of 261 Ultraorthodox Jewish males, ages 14–21 (M = 17, SD = 1.17), who were at different stages in the dropout process. Path analysis modeling indicated that being a member of a newly religious family, or of a family in which another member had already dropped out of school, was a predictor of dropout. Surprisingly, personal resources were not found to be a predictor of dropout, whereas parental conditional regard and societal conditional negative regard (SCNR) were found to be the most significant predictors. Findings highlight the unique predictors of high-school dropout among youth from the Ultraorthodox Jewish community, and the role of PCR and SCR in this process.
Highlights
Dropping out of high school is a risk situation for youth, with negative personal and social consequences, as discussed in the research literature at length (Rumberger and Lim, 2008; Staff and Kreager, 2008; Makarova and Birman, 2015)
We investigated the contribution of self-esteem and mastery. We focused both on the family aspect, via parental conditional regard (PCR) (Assor et al, 2004), and on the community aspect, via societal conditional regard (SCR) (Itzhaki et al, 2018)
We examined the contribution of parental conditional regard (PCR), and societal conditional regard (SCR) (Itzhaki et al, 2018), to school dropout among youth
Summary
Dropping out of high school is a risk situation for youth, with negative personal and social consequences, as discussed in the research literature at length (Rumberger and Lim, 2008; Staff and Kreager, 2008; Makarova and Birman, 2015). There is very little research or specific data, if any, regarding the predictors of high-school dropout among youth from closed religious communities, despite the fact that this phenomenon, and the percentage of students from these communities in society at large, is growing (Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016). The “hazarah b’tshuva” process is generally seen as being praiseworthy by religious Jews, newly religious families rarely succeed in fully integrating into the Ultraorthodox Jewish community, mostly because Ultraorthodox communities are quite closed and wary of assimilation (Doron, 2013). Perhaps for this reason, the percentage of high-school dropout among newly religious families (a minority group of the Ultraorthodox Jewish community) is higher than that of “established” Ultraorthodox Jewish families (Itzhaki, 2009; Yogev, 2012)
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