Doctoral Dissertation Research: Poverty, Middle School Dropout, and High School Completion

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1303548 Lori Peek Meghan Mordy Colorado State University Completing high school opens up new pathways to success for poor youth. Degree completion can provide access to better jobs, healthcare benefits, safer homes, and more secure communities. Yet, many poor youth, in the US and elsewhere, fail to earn this critical degree. This dissertation research examines the case of El Salvador, where only 40% of youth graduate high school and 41% of 16-18 year-olds have dropped out before completing middle school. Nearly one-quarter of the population is between the ages of 10 and 19 and these young people are growing up in the midst of a crisis in youth violence and childhood poverty. This project is a multi-year qualitative study that examines why the majority of poor Salvadoran adolescents are pushed out of school, while some are able to complete their high school degrees. It employs ethnographic fieldwork in one rural and two urban schools, including participant observation in middle school classrooms and focus group interviews. The dissertation will examine how youth disengage academically and identify the factors that put them at-risk for dropout. In its entirety, this project aims to describe the mechanisms that translate poor children's family- and community-based disadvantages into school-based ones. It brings together analysis of what schools demand from students in terms of academic performance and classroom behavior with an examination of how families and communities enable (or fail to enable) youth to meet these conditions and successfully complete high school. Broader Impacts: This dissertation has implications for educational and other social policy reform. It is highly relevant to ongoing school reform projects, particularly in El Salvador. Findings will be shared with policy makers, and with educators, school administrators, and other practitioners at meetings and through conference presentations. More broadly, the dissertation has implications for multilateral development aid initiatives. By providing evidence on the connections between poor youth?s home and community environments and their educational outcomes, the dissertation can be used to inform both educational and broader social policy that supports the goals of improving the achievement and retention of poor youth in the Global South. In addition, the dissertation will provide insights and data that can be applied in other research areas, such as studies of Central American migration patterns or youth violence in the region.