Dropping Out of High School: The Role of School Organization and Structure
Abstract
In this study, we explore how high schools, through their structures and organizations, may influence their students’ decisions about whether to stay in school until graduation or drop out. Traditional explanations for dropout behavior have focused on individual students’ social background and academic behaviors. What high schools might do to push out or hold in their students have been systematically ignored. Using a sample of 3,840 students in 190 urban and suburban high schools from the High School Effectiveness Supplement (HSES) of the NELS:88 study, we use hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) methods to explore school effects on dropping out, once students’ academic and social background has been taken into account. Our findings center on three features of secondary schools: curriculum, school size, and social relations. In schools whose curricula are composed mainly of academic courses, with few non-academic courses, students are less likely to drop out. Similarly, students in schools enrolling fewer than 1,500 students more often stay in school until graduation. Most important, students are less likely to drop out of high schools where relationships between teachers and students are consistently positive. The impact of positive teacher-student relations, however, is contingent upon the organizational and structural characteristics of high schools.
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