Recent High School Graduates Research Articles

Tourism Education as an Investment in the Future: A New Hampshire Case Study

ABSTRACT Each year, a substantial number of recent high school graduates are lured away from their home states, provinces, or nations to attend colleges and universities. Using New Hampshire (U.S.) as a case study, this analysis examines the impact of the migration-for-education phenomenon upon home areas and offers a model that can be used to increase the rate of student retention, thereby benefiting both students and the region's tourism industry.

Remembering Others: Using Life Scripts to Access Positive but Not Negative Information

The current research extended to memories of others the life script theory of abstract, idealized mental representations of transitional experiences. Recent and earlier high school graduates rated positive and negative characteristics of popular, average, and unpopular girls from their schools. "Average" girls were rated as higher than average on possessing positive characteristics. Recent but not earlier graduates distinguished between popularity conditions on negative characteristics (negative information is not included in life scripts). For positive characteristics, earlier graduates remembered unpopular girls less favorably (perhaps using stereotypical scripts) than recent graduates remembered them (having greater access to episodic memories of individual girls). A smaller graduation time difference in the same direction resulted for average and popular girls.

Stopping the Dropouts: Guiding Adolescents toward a Lasting Faith following High School Graduation

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of religion and faith in the lives of recent high school graduates and to seek better ways to prepare teenagers for faithful participation in church and religious life beyond the youth years. Finding answers to why youth drop out following high school graduation has been a persistent problem for youth and young adult leaders, church leaders, and parents for some time. Quantitative surveys were completed by 1,362 young adults aged 18–30. Qualitative group interviews were conducted with 24 groups (n=178) including both active and non-active young adults, exploring factors involved in lifestyle, relationships, and religious participation. Active church attendance was defined as attending two or more times per month. Results indicated four domains that influenced young adult dropouts: relationships, discipleship and spiritual depth, family influence, and intergenerational influence.

The evolution battles in high-school science classes: who is teaching what?

How frequently and in what manner are evolution, creationism, and intelligent design taught in public high schools? Here, I analyze the answer to this question, as given by nearly 600 students from major public universities nationwide in a survey conducted during the spring of 2006. Although almost all recent public high-school graduate respondents reported receiving evolution instruction, only about three-quarters perceived that evolution was taught as a “credible scientific theory”. Creationism and intelligent design were reportedly presented almost one-third and one-fifth of the time, respectively, though respondents recalled that both concepts were presented as lacking scientific credibility much more often than not. The survey results are presented in composite form and also disaggregated with respect to the strength of evolution-related state standards, red state–blue state divisions, and the regional location of states within the country.

Cultivating Trust Among Urban Youth at Risk

By examining data from interviews with students in the Upward Bound program (a federally sponsored program that provides academic support to students at risk who are preparing for college entrance), this study seeks to strengthen an understanding of the role of trust among urban youth at risk in the educational organizations that serve them. This work makes a unique contribution to the work of school public relations by highlighting the perspectives of urban students at risk on the role of trust in their educational organization. This qualitative piece uses data from a study of student participation in leadership, and it uses interviews, observations, and document analysis of participants and informants to build an understanding of the role of trust among urban youth at risk in educational organizations. Participants included 20 recent high school graduates enrolled in the summer Bridge Program of Upward Bound at a university in a midsize city. Students provided important insights into the role of trust. Some facets of trust (e.g., benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence) emerged from the interviews providing empirical support for recent theoretical work on the concept. For students, establishing and maintaining trust with each other, with faculty, and especially with staff members contributed to their decisions to help the Upward Bound program meet its purpose of motivating students to graduate from high school and enter college. Educational administrators in academic support programs and schools whose students benefit from these programs serving urban youth at risk will benefit from making efforts to forge trusting personal relationships with the students, parents, and other community members within students’ spheres of influence. Findings from this study suggest that urban students at risk may already view themselves as being capable of working with educational organizations that are willing to share power and flatten hierarchies.

Schooling, Careers, and the Future

AFTER years of trying to figure out why the public school bureaucracy has clay feet, I think I may have an answer. It is not very at multitasking. When the demands it faces get harder and the messages about what to do seem to run counter to one another, the bureaucracy seems to think that the safest thing to do is to stay as still as possible and work on one problem at a time. This is a basic flaw with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. It has created a very narrow definition of the challenges facing public schools and an even narrower set of solutions focused on developing qualities that are just the opposite of the ones the education system should be fostering. More recently, the panic over globalization has been shifting attention and resources to the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) areas so fast that all other issues could be left behind. These trends were apparent at a seminar on education for a global economy, funded primarily by the Broad Foundation and sponsored by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media. As statisticians and experts warned the journalists, there is no doubt U.S. leadership on innovation in the sciences and math is meeting stiff competition and slipping behind. At the same time, the demographics pose unprecedented problems--declining birthrates here, increasing numbers of students needing extra help to succeed, and an abundance of smart young people in other countries. The message that seemed less certain concerns the nature of work force opportunities for young people and how to prepare students for them. While American public education is much more than job preparation, it is myopic to deny that it has always served that purpose as well. The message educators are hearing is that the quick and easy path to job preparation today is to make all students college-ready. But this is a panacea that does not always stand up to analysis. One part of this argument became clearer at the Hechinger Institute seminar. A major proponent of college preparation for all is the American Diploma Project, sponsored by Achieve, Inc., which has enlisted a number of states in efforts to increase core subject requirements and prepare students for college and the workplace. The Project claims that the skills/knowledge base is the same for both. However, when asked if the employers who defined work force skills for the Project hired many recent high school graduates, the director of Achieve, Inc., Michael Cohen, replied that the Project was only interested in higher skills requiring at least an associate's degree. The Project's focus is on the good jobs that will earn workers decent wages. That would seem to leave out those young people who find entry-level work with a promising future and who don't need algebra II to get a job. Few homeowners, for example, who receive a bill for emergency plumbing would consider it to be low-paying work. For sure, skill demands are higher across the board, and young people cannot get very far without adequate reading and writing skills. Yet the message they are hearing is that they must succeed in courses taught abstractly or on standardized tests limited to abstract skills. The lack of relevance to what they perceive they need could be a major factor in the chronically high dropout rates. Many state policy makers recognize this disconnection and have mandated that students select a career interest early in high school. …

Postsecondary Education Among Mexican American Youth

This study investigated how experiences in the family context contribute to the postsecondary educational attainment of Mexican American youth. The sample consisted of 104 recent high school graduates. One half of the sample was attending a 2-year college, and the other one half was not enrolled in any postsecondary institution. This study examined the relationships among family (i.e., parents' and older siblings' educational experiences, family income, and parental involvement) and education variables (i.e., high school and college grade point average, college attendance, and college aspirations). Variations within the Mexican American community, in particular acculturation and generational status, were examined in relation to youths' educational experiences.

Growing up within a Community in Conflict: The Rockford Files

A law suit for racial discrimination brought against the School District of Rockford, IL, over the last decade and more has meant that recent high school graduates have been educated for almost the whole of their school careers within an environment of conflict. The paper outlines the conflict as the context in which the young people have grown up, demonstrating the ways that adults purport to fight for their children, yet transform the issues into their own priorities. It analyses the ‘sensitivity’ and ‘resilience’ of recent high school graduates to such an upbringing. It also explains how the schools are sites where the community conflict is reworked in new ways and perpetuated among the young people. While perhaps an extreme case, Rockford illustrates a continuing, but underplayed, wider social malaise in the USA.

Marijuana motives: Young adults' reasons for using marijuana

Previous research has evaluated marijuana motives among adolescents and emerging adults using a predetermined set of motives, largely adapted from the alcohol literature. This research was designed to identify marijuana motives from the perspective of the user. Recent high school graduates who reported using marijuana ( N = 634) provided self-generated reasons for using. The most frequently reported reasons included enjoyment/fun, conformity, experimentation, social enhancement, boredom, and relaxation. Regression analyses revealed that experimentation was consistently associated with less use and fewer problems whereas enjoyment, habit, activity enhancement, and altered perception or perspectives were associated with heavier use and more problems.

Jobs and Schooling

YOU have to give those middling students--the ones who just get by academically--some credit for doggedly finishing high school and going to work. You might even give them an A in economics because they appear to have a better grasp of reality than the experts who tell them their only option is college. These kids aren't reading tea leaves. But they probably are reading the media reports about job prospects, soaring college costs, diminishing incomes, and conflicting explanations for what's going on in the economy. Many recent high school graduates who enroll in community colleges do so just to please their parents, according to a recent study by MDRC. They really don't have any other motivation to be there until they are several years older. Then they may well come to realize that more education might help them escape low-wage work. Why, these young people might ask, should I go into debt for an uncertain future? Half of college students now borrow money to attend college, up from 35% in 1993. Today, those who graduate have an average debt load of $19,000, and this sum is modest when compared to those who enroll at prestigious campuses. If they do graduate from college, these young people will be making less than college graduates of a few years ago, and only two-thirds of them will have jobs with health-care benefits, down from 71% five years ago. Meanwhile, a young person who focuses on career and technical education courses and enters the labor force immediately after graduating from high school can earn a decent salary. If that young person has good work skills, shows up on time, and exhibits initiative--professionalism on the job, as one study describes it--employers are more likely to invest in his or her training. According to a recent column in the New York Times, more college education is no guarantee of success in a globalized economy. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, a former vice president of the Federal Reserve, was quoted as challenging those who blithely assume that the labor market will be divided between those with more education and those with less. In the future, Blinder said, children are educated may prove to be more important than how much ... but education specialists have not begun to think about that problem. Nevertheless, public policies these days hold out postsecondary enrollment as the ultimate goal for everyone. And when all the advantages are at last sorted out, postsecondary may indeed be the factor that eventually protects members of the work force from leading low-income lives. Like many other analyses of this sort, it's not simple. High school students who concentrate on career and technical courses are less likely than the college-prep students to enroll in college or to persist in earning any kind of degree. However, 65% of the class of 1992 who focused on career and technical curricula in high school had enrolled in college by 2000, according to a longitudinal study by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). And though these students entered high school with lower grades on average, their postsecondary enrollment is on a par with that of students who enrolled in a general education plan in high school. Moreover, almost 20% of career and technical concentrators scored in the top quartile on eighth-grade reading and math tests, and one-fourth of the high school class of 1992 completed both a career and technical education and a college-preparatory curriculum. If the job market and job security seem to be in chaos right now, at least policy makers are seeing value in kids' interest in career training. Several state legislatures this year mandated that secondary school students choose a career path, both to hold their interest in school and to encourage them to mix academic and career-related courses. …

The effect of computer use on earnings in Italy

This paper studies the effect of computer use on earnings among a cohort of recent Italian high school graduates. The IV and Heckman techniques are used in order to control for endogeneity of computer use. Results show that the wage premium associated with computer use disappears once selection into computer use is accounted for. On the other hand, using the computer to perform a number of specific tasks leads to higher earnings. It is therefore suggested that not all individuals who use a computer at work receive a wage premium, but only those possessing complementary computer skills such as communication, networking and problem solving abilities.

Deciding to Forgo College: Non-College Attendees’ Reflections on Family, School, and Self

This article, based on work funded by the American Association of University Women, examines how personal and environmental factors shape non-college attendees’ decisions to forgo college directly after high school. Group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 48 racially diverse recent high school graduates (27 men and 21 women) who had not attended any 2-year or 4-year college since completing high school. All graduated from public high schools in Los Angeles, California, and were between 18 and 21 years of age at the time that were interviewed. Findings highlight study participants’ current pursuits, their perspectives on college, the factors that influenced their post-high school life decisions (particularly home and school environments), and their reflections on whether they would do anything differently given the opportunity to turn back time. Considered within Persell's multidimensional framework, the findings lend support to the combined effects of societal, institutional, interactional, and intrapsychic variables in producing differential educational outcomes and post-high school life paths. Especially noteworthy is the transcendent effect across race, gender, and socioeconomic status of efficacy beliefs in shaping educational choices.

Deciding to Forgo College: Non-College Attendees’ Reflections on Family, School, and Self

This article, based on work funded by the American Association of University Women, examines how personal and environmental factors shape non-college attendees’ decisions to forgo college directly after high school. Group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 48 racially diverse recent high school graduates (27 men and 21 women) who had not attended any 2-year or 4-year college since completing high school. All graduated from public high schools in Los Angeles, California, and were between 18 and 21 years of age at the time that were interviewed. Findings highlight study participants’ current pursuits, their perspectives on college, the factors that influenced their post-high school life decisions (particularly home and school environments), and their reflections on whether they would do anything differently given the opportunity to turn back time. Considered within Persell's multidimensional framework, the findings lend support to the combined effects of societal, institutional, interactional, and intrapsychic variables in producing differential educational outcomes and post-high school life paths. Especially noteworthy is the transcendent effect across race, gender, and socioeconomic status of efficacy beliefs in shaping educational choices.

The Development of the Self in the Era of the Internet and Role-Playing Fantasy Games

The Development of the Self in the Era of the Internet and Role-Playing Fantasy Games

Physics for all? A million and counting!

Fully one-third of recent high-school graduates have taken physics. Much of the increase comes from nontraditional courses geared toward students not headed for careers in science or technology.

Financial Aid and Students’ College Decisions

Abstract The District of Columbia Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG), instituted in 1999, allows D.C. residents to attend public colleges and universities throughout the country at considerably lower in-state tuition rates. We use the sharp decline in the price of public colleges and universities faced by D.C. residents to estimate the effects of price on college application and enrollment decisions. We find that DCTAG increased the likelihood that students applied to eligible institutions and markedly increased college enrollment rates among recent high school graduates. Enrollments increased primarily at less selective colleges and universities, with no decrease at more selective schools.

Good News! College Enrollments of Recent Black High School Graduates Are on the Rise

Good News! College Enrollments of Recent Black High School Graduates Are on the Rise

Do parents still matter? Parent and peer influences on alcohol involvement among recent high school graduates.

This study investigated the influences of peer and parent variables on alcohol use and problems in a sample of late adolescents in the summer immediately prior to entry into college. Participants (N = 556) completed a mail survey assessing peer influences (alcohol offers, social modeling, perceived norms), parental behaviors (nurturance, monitoring), and attitudes and values (disapproval for heavy drinking, permissiveness for drinking), and alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated significant associations between both peer and parental influences and alcohol involvement, and showed that parental influences moderated peer-influence-drinking behavior, such that higher levels of perceived parental involvement were associated with weaker relations between peer influences and alcohol use and problems. These findings suggest that parents continue to exert an influential role in late adolescent drinking behavior.

High school students’ levels of thinking in regard to statistical study design

The study describes levels of thinking in regard to the design of statistical studies. Clinical interviews were conducted with 15 students who were enrolled in high school or were recent high school graduates, and who represented a range of mathematical backgrounds. During the clinical interview sessions students were asked how they would go about designing studies to answer several different quantifiable questions. Several levels of sophistication were identified in their responses, and are discussed in terms of the Biggs and Collis (1982, 1991) cognitive model.

Questions and Answers

In a departure from our usual respondents, Elizabeth Chang is a recent high school graduate. We asked her to tell us what life is like in high school. Ms. Chang is a 2001 graduate from Princeton High School. She is the former President of the Eating Disorders advocacy organization, "Fight It" and has published a newspaper on eating disorders, which has received funding from Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the American Diabetes Association. She is now studying at The University of Michigan and hopes to pursue a career in psychology in the future.