School Retention Rates Research Articles

One Step Back or One Step Forward? Effects of Grade Retention and School Retention Composition on Portuguese Students’ Psychosocial Outcomes Using PISA 2018 Data

Grade retention is a common practice applied to academically struggling students within the Portuguese context. Studies investigating the psychological experiences of grade-retained students are still scarce. In addition, most studies tend to neglect the multilevel nature of the school context. This study examines the effects of grade retention in grades 1–9 on Portuguese students’ psychosocial outcomes by the age of 15, using PISA 2018 data. Using a quasi-experimental design through full matching, we reduced the bias between 1362 retained and 4189 promoted students in relevant background variables. Results from the multilevel models showed that retained students, by the age of 15, present lower task orientation and school belonging. In addition, we found that the high retention rates negatively relate to students’ reading self-concept, task orientation, and school valuing and that school retention rates moderate the relationship between students’ retention and the psychosocial variables considered. Overall, these findings suggest detrimental effects of grade retention and that grade retention also affects the promoted peers of retained students.

Does starting school before labor day affect high school retention and graduation: evidence from Virginia’s kings dominion law

ABSTRACT Several states have required K-12 public schools to start after Labour Day in an effort to aid the tourism and hospitality industry. However, little is known about how these policies impact educational outcomes. We examine the impact of Virginia’s post-Labour Day school start law on high school retention and graduation rates. We use a difference-in-differences model to exploit exogenous variation in school division start dates. Our results show small differences of up to three weeks have little effect on high school dropout and graduation rates. Our findings inform the debate on post-Labour Day school start laws and compulsory attendance age cut-off laws.

‘No Shame at AIME’: Listening to Aboriginal Philosophy and Methodologies to Theorise Shame in Educational Contexts

Shame is a ‘slippery’ concept in educational contexts but by listening to Aboriginal philosophy and Country, we can rethink its slipperiness. This article contemplates how multiple understandings of shame are derived from and coexist within colonised educational contexts. We focus on one positive example of Indigenous education to consider how these understandings can be challenged and transformed for the benefit of Indigenous learners. We discuss a mentoring program run by and for Indigenous young people that is successfully impacting school retention and completion rates: The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). AIME has a rule, ‘No Shame at AIME’, with the view to minimising shame as a barrier to engaging with Western education. But is this as beneficial as might first appear? Might this erode important cultural understandings of shame necessary in Indigenous education? Instead, could shame be repositioned to better align with original cultural meanings and purposes? We philosophise about the AIME rule with Yuin Country and stories from Country along with our observational and interview data. We argue AIME does not so much ‘remove’ shame as reposition it to better align with Aboriginal cultural educational practice, which positively impacts mentees.

Managerialism in UK business schools: capturing the interactions between academic job characteristics, behaviour and the ‘metrics’ culture

ABSTRACT Recent decades have seen the evolution of UK business schools into international mass education providers. This transformation has developed against a background of institutional changes that jeopardise work conditions in academia. As few studies have examined the relationships between organisational, social and psychological aspects of academic work life, this paper employs the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model to explore empirically the interplay between business school workplace conditions, burnout and retention rates, based on a national sample. We show that higher demands and lower resources are significant in increasing burnout and turnover, whereas the ‘metrics’ culture has done much to increase workloads and reduce academic freedom and workplace support. These negative impacts can be offset by creating a collegiate and engaged work environment that promotes greater skills utilisation, autonomy and recognition. Such findings are reported for the first time in the literature with important implications for higher education and the academic community.

Does Starting School Before Labor Day Affect High School Retention and Graduation: Evidence from Virginia's Kings Dominion Law

Several states have required K-12 public schools to start after Labor Day in an effort to aid the tourism and hospitality industry. However, little is known about how these policies impact educational outcomes. We examine the impact of Virginia's post-Labor Day school start law on high school retention and graduation rates. We use a difference-in-differences model to exploit exogenous variation in school division start dates. Our results show small differences of up to three weeks have little effect on high school dropout and graduation rates. Our findings inform the debate on post-Labor Day school start laws and compulsory attendance age cutoff laws.

‘Education comes second to surviving’: parental perspectives on their child/ren’s early school leaving in an area challenged by marginalisation

This paper examines early school leaving from the perspective of parents of early school leavers in an inner-city local authority housing estate in the Republic of Ireland living with the challenges of significant marginalisation. While the vast majority of post-primary pupils now sit a Leaving Certificate examination, and improvements in school retention rates have also been found in ‘disadvantaged’ schools in recent years, a disproportionate number of those leaving school early come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Through in-depth, semi-structured, interviews, this qualitative study examined the perspectives of nine parents of early school leavers about the factors contributing to young people from this area leaving school early. This article focuses on three aspects of the findings through which the parent participants framed their views on early school leaving; (1) feeling let down by school, and (2) being stigmatised being from a ‘disadvantaged’ area, and (3) dealing with life traumas. For the participants, these factors significantly constrained their child/ren in engaging with education. The findings are examined through an interrogation of the shaping impact of social class and ‘place’. Recommendations include specific professional development for educators in challenging contexts about the impact of trauma and socio-demographical positionality on educational engagement and outcomes.

Postschool Engagement Predictors for Youth with Intellectual Disability: Results from South Carolina

ABSTRACTPostschool outcomes of youth with intellectual disability (ID) continue to trouble practitioners and scholars. The purpose of this study was to analyze postschool engagement outcome data for 360 survey respondents with ID in South Carolina in the areas of employment and postsecondary education/training. Specifically, we examined the relationship of special education exit reason, as well as, student, school, and district variables to youth’s postschool engagement. We used logistic regression to estimate probability of engagement one year after exiting high school. Results indicated that special education exit reason, gender, school retention rates, district attendance rates, percentage of students with disabilities within a district, percentage of students within a district receiving free and reduced lunch, district retention rates, and district suspension/expulsion rates were significantly related to three postschool engagement outcomes. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Three Steps Forward: The quest to develop a culturally informed mental health outreach framework for engaging indigenous children, young people and families within an urban community

Introduction: Almost forty percent of all Indigenous Queenslanders are younger than fifteen years of age. It is well known that Indigenous children and young people experience higher rates of mental illness within their developmental years from stressors such as discrimination, loss of language, social dislocation, isolation, violence, grief and loss. Indigenous young people also experience higher rates of substance misuse, lower school retention rates, higher rates of incarceration, over-representation in child protection, living below the poverty line and higher rates of suicidality and deaths by suicide. Many Indigenous children and young people do not access or refuse entry to mainstream mental health services due to the negative judgement, dismissal of rights to care, non-attendance and past historical dogma and discrimination. This study investigates key care components to support the engagement of Indigenous children, young people and their families in the community. It aims to increase the transparency of the outreach model, highlight barriers in achieving the expected level of performance and will emphasise the need to work inclusively with the local indigenous population and collaboratively across government and non-government sectors. Methods: To better understand and to articulate a culturally appropriate outreach model, a time and motion study was conducted. This study is critical in observing and understanding the real time activity (consumer related and non-consumer related) of a community based indigenous outreach worker and to identify the obstacles in recording services provided. Results: The experiential information collation phase conducted two days per week, for a duration of three months was inclusive of indigenous child and youth who met the criteria for mental health referral and had an indigenous background, although not all persons were open to the service (N=120). Categories to support care needs included provisions of service on health procedures, system navigation, interventions, case management, referral pathways and other advocacy and support services. Discussions and conclusions: The activities of the indigenous outreach worker are at times difficult to capture, with many not being able to be recorded within current systems. However, it was deemed that these activities form the foundation of continued engagement - without undertaking such activities young people and families do not engage and therefore the opportunity to impact on the health and wellbeing of young people are lost. We need to continue to work with system administrators as we continue to focus on further developing our partnership models within local communities to decrease the disparity for indigenous children and youth is essential. Meeting the needs of the Indigenous population requires time to develop authentic relationships and community acceptance, communicate across sectors, broaden the traditional models of care and address barriers that prevent providers from engaging in cultural informed practices. While there remains challenges in capturing the activities, the innovative outreach model developed is seen as holding considerable promise for implementation in other areas and in improving the outcomes for Indigenous children, young people and families across the spectrum of mental health care.

Early School Withdrawals and Underperformance as Indicators of Poor Attention to Learner’s Welfare: Botswana in 50 Years of Self-Rule

<p>September 30<sup>th</sup> 2016 was Botswana’s 50th birthday. Botswana, a deeply impoverished country in 1966 was on that day an upper-middle income country in the world rankings. Its education expenditure was one of the highest in the world, at around 9% of the GDP. It was on record to have provided more than 90% of universal and free primary education. Guided by the 1977 and 1994 education policies, the country committed itself to the universal declaration that education is a fundamental human right. It adopted a priority of reducing the growing percentages of non-enrolled school age children, let alone working around the clock to increase access to basic education schooling. Despite these good policies and sound financial resources, it has not escaped global challenges of unequal access which has denied some learners the opportunity to complete their education programmes. It also faced huge challenges of low school retention rates, particularly in the basic education programme, that is primary and secondary school systems. This article considers these challenges as critical indicators of lack of attention to learner’s welfare in public schools. It argues that in the 50 years of self-rule, the basic education program remained trapped in a culture of moral indifference and silent exclusion. The article argues that post 50<sup>th</sup> birthday, Botswana needs to begin a new chapter, developing an education system that cares about learner’s education welfare more than ever before.</p>

Why won't it Stick? Positive Psychology and Positive Education.

Following the launch of the positive psychology movement teachers and educators emerged as early adopters of this fledgling science. This approach was called positive education. It describes scientifically validated programs from positive psychology, taught in schools, that have an impact on student well-being. The growing body of evidence about the reach of positive psychology has formed a convincing case to consider well-being an operational goal for educational systems. It is argued that this goal is pivotal and should be pursued in the same way in which we develop strategies to harness academic growth, school retention rates, and student engagement. National education policies can have widespread influence at the grassroots level on school improvement, good quality of classroom teaching and learning, student performance, creating confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens, but not necessarily on the preventative skills for lifelong well-being. In this article I take stock on the positive education movement. Three approaches to positive education are identified and eight hurdles to the field are noted as reasons why positive education won’t stick in policy. Then, I reflect on two case studies: a Well-being Summit and Round Table held at Wellington College and No. 10 Downing Street and Dr. Martin Seligman’s role as Adelaide’s Thinker in Residence as examples of grass-roots initiatives in well-being. Finally, six strategies are suggested for researchers and practitioners to grow the field. Last, I argued that until research centers focus on the development of common definitions of the key terms underpinning positive psychology, positive education and well-being the impact of the movement will be limited to a handful of institutions as models of best practice.

Review of Practices That Promote Self-Advocacy for Students With Disabilities

Self-advocacy skills for students with disabilities have been linked to elevated school retention rates and more successful adult outcomes. Test, Fowler, Brewer, and Wood examined evidence of self-advocacy practices published from 1972 to June 2004. As an update to their study, we reviewed empirical studies ( N = 18) published from June 2004 to June 2012 that promote self-advocacy for students with disabilities. Interpretations included a continued need to study program effects on students from diverse backgrounds and more rigorous research on self-advocacy predictors and outcomes. Compared with the previously reviewed studies, recent single-case studies improved participant selection reporting and procedural fidelity but declined in controlling for internal validity; group experimental studies improved from the previously reviewed studies in measuring dependent variables at appropriate times and using appropriate analysis and declined in reporting intervention agent details. Two studies (one single-case and one group experimental) met quality indicator standards for “high quality,” and no study met the “acceptable” standards.

‘I want to get a piece of paper that says I can do stuff’: youth narratives of educational opportunities and constraints in low socio-economic neighbourhoods

The persistent failure of contemporary policies to improve school retention rates and close the achievement gap between students from low and high socio-economic (SES) backgrounds should be a matter of grave concern. In this article, we set out to show what it means to be educated in a context of disadvantage from the perspectives of young people attending a senior secondary public school in regional Australia. Acknowledging that youth are experts in their own lives, we draw extensively on student narratives of the funds of knowledge and opportunity structures that support and/or constrain education and employment opportunities in low-income neighbourhoods. Although young peoples' stories of hope and agency go some way to undermining the deficit thinking about these students and their families, we argue that the realisation of their aspirations requires institutional support and policies that address the systemic causes of educational disadvantage.

First through Eighth Grade Retention Rates for All 50 States: A New Method and Initial Results.

How many students repeat a grade each year? How do retention rates vary across states and over time? Despite extensive research on the predictors and consequences of grade retention, there is no systematic way to quantify state-level retention rates; even national estimates rely on imperfect proxy measures. We present a conceptually simple method-based on publicly available data that are routinely collected each year-that describes retention rates at the state and national levels. After describing and validating this method, we employ it to report first through eighth grade public school retention rates for 2002-003 through 2008-09 for the entire country and for each state.

The Wages of Failure: New Evidence on School Retention and Long-Run Outcomes

By estimating differences in long-run education and labor market outcomes for cohorts of students exposed to differing state-level primary school retention rates, this article estimates the effects of retention on all students in a cohort, retained and promoted. We find that a 1 standard deviation increase in early grade retention is associated with a 0.7 percent increase in mean male hourly wages. Further, the observed positive wage effect is not limited to the lower tail of the wage distribution but appears to persist throughout the distribution. Though there is an extensive literature attempting to estimate the effect of retention on the retained, this analysis offers what may be the first estimates of average long-run impacts of retention on all students.

Peer and teacher bullying/victimization of South Australian secondary school students: Prevalence and psychosocial profiles

This study examined the nature and prevalence of bullying/victimization by peers and teachers reported by 1,284 students (mean age = 15.2 years) drawn from a representative sample of 25 South Australian government and private schools. Students completed a self-report survey containing questions relating to teacher and peer-related bullying, measures of psychosocial adjustment, and personality. The results showed that students could be clearly differentiated according to the type of victimization they had experienced. Students reporting peer victimization typically showed high levels of social alienation, poorer psychological functioning, and poorer self-esteem and self-image. By contrast, victims of teacher victimization were more likely to be rated as less able academically, had less intention to complete school and were more likely to be engaged in high-risk behaviours such as gambling, drug use and under-age drinking. Most bullying was found to occur at school rather than outside school and involved verbal aggression rather than physical harm. Boys were significantly more likely to be bullied than girls, with the highest rates being observed amongst boys attending single-sex government schools. Girls were more likely to be subject to bullying if they attended coeducational private schools. The implications of this work for enhancing school-retention rates and addressing psychological distress amongst adolescent students are discussed.

Factors affecting the probability of first year medical student dropout in the UK: a logistic analysis for the intake cohorts of 1980-92.

In the context of the 1997 Report of the Medical Workforce Standing Advisory Committee, it is important that we develop an understanding of the factors influencing medical school retention rates. To analyse the determinants of the probability that an individual medical student will drop out of medical school during their first year of study. Binomial and multinomial logistic regression analysis of individual-level administrative data on 51 810 students in 21 medical schools in the UK for the intake cohorts of 1980-92 was performed. The overall average first year dropout rate over the period 1980-92 was calculated to be 3.8%. We found that the probability that a student would drop out of medical school during their first year of study was influenced significantly by both the subjects studied at A-level and by the scores achieved. For example, achieving 1 grade higher in biology, chemistry or physics reduced the dropout probability by 0.38% points, equivalent to a fall of 10%. We also found that males were about 8% more likely to drop out than females. The medical school attended also had a significant effect on the estimated dropout probability. Indicators of both the social class and the previous school background of the student were largely insignificant. Policies aimed at increasing the size of the medical student intake in the UK and of widening access to students from non-traditional backgrounds should be informed by evidence that student dropout probabilities are sensitive to measures of A-level attainment, such as subject studied and scores achieved. If traditional entry requirements or standards are relaxed, then this is likely to have detrimental effects on medical schools' retention rates unless accompanied by appropriate measures such as focussed student support.

Late Entrants Leave School Earlier: Evidence from Mozambique

Late school entry prevails in many developing countries, and a brief international comparison suggests it has a general negative impact on school retention rates. Yet this widespread phenomenon has received little attention. This essay investigates late school entry in one of the larger countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Mozambique, for which data were available that allowed a detailed investigation. It demonstrates that in Mozambique pupils who enter school late have substantially higher drop-out rates than young entrants and may have, in addition, higher repetition rates. The essay also shows that many pupils in first grade are probably older than reported by the schools. The data necessary for the calculations include school attendance statistics from the Ministry of Education and from the 1997 Population Census.

Why State Policies Matter: The Influence of Curriculum Policy on Participation in Post-Compulsory Education and Training

This study examines the effects of state curriculum policies on participation in post-compulsory education and training. Whereas studies in the past looking at this issue have tended to focus on school retention rates alone, the present study measures participation in education and training more broadly, taking account of the greater diversity of provision of post-compulsory education. This is achieved by including data on technical and further education (TAFE) and non-TAFE vocational participation as possible equivalents of high school completion. The results show that state policies do matter, that they affect overall participation rates but, more than this, they have a marked and differential impact on participation for disadvantaged groups.

Masculinity, inequality and post-school opportunities: disrupting oppositional politics about boys' education

Popular discourses about ‘boys' education’—both in Australia and internationally—have often been drawn from oppositional storylines that construct ‘boys’ at school as a new disadvantaged group. This paper rejects such a construction, arguing that it fails to take account of the economic and social advantages that boys, as a single group, still experience in the post-schooling years; that it fails to differentiate within the category of ‘boy’, to examine how particular groups of boys fare far less well than do other groups of boys; and that it neglects the impact of constructs of masculinity upon boys' lives at school. The paper considers four issues of significance for boys at school: narrow and stereotypical subject choice; unruly and risk-taking behaviours; poor literacy achievement; and low school retention rates. However, it demonstrates that these issues predominantly affect boys who are unprotected by economic and social privilege.

The Effects of Extracurricular Activity, Ethnic Identification, and Perception of School on Student Dropout Rates

With a growing Mexican American population and an increasing dropout rate predicted for this group, research is needed to examine ways of deterring this trend and increasing retention rates. The current study examined extracurricular activity, perception of school, and ethnic identification, and the association with school retention rates among Mexican American and White non-Hispanics. Individuals reporting participation in extracurricular activity were 2.30 times more likely to be enrolled in school than were those not participating in extracurricular activity. Those Mexican Americans reporting a higher White non-Hispanics ethnic identity level were 2.41 times more likely to be enrolled in school and had a more positive perception of school than did Mexican American individuals reporting low levels of White non-Hispanics ethnic identification.