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The Relationship Between Engagement and High School Dropout

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Abstract

This chapter first reviews some prominent models of dropping out and the role that individual factors, including engagement, and contextual factors play in the process. It then reviews empirical research related to those factors, with a focus on engagement-related factors. Scholars have proposed a number of models to explain the process of dropping out of school. While there is a fair amount of overlap in the models, they differ with respect to the specific factors that are thought to exert the most influence on dropping out and the specific process that leads to that outcome. The review of conceptual models of the empirical research literature leads to several conclusions about why students drop out. First, no single factor can completely account for a student’s decision to continue in school until graduation. Just as students themselves report a variety of reasons for quitting school, the research literature also identifies a number of salient factors that appear to influence the decision. Second, the decision to drop out is not simply a result of what happens in school. Clearly, students’ behavior and performance in school influence their decision to stay or leave. But students’ activities and behaviors outside of school—particularly engaging in deviant and criminal behavior—also influence their likelihood of remaining in school. Third, dropping out is more of a process than an event.

Much of the material for this chapter comes from a book by the first author, Dropping Out: Why Students Quit School and What Can Be Done About It (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). We would like to thank the editors, Sandra Christenson and Cathy Wylie, for their helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Russell W. Rumberger

  2. MPR Associates, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Susan Rotermund

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Correspondence to Russell W. Rumberger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, E. River Road 56, Minneapolis, 55455, Minnesota, USA

    Sandra L. Christenson

  2. Dept. Educational Psychology &, Instructional Technology, University of Georgia, Aderhold Hall 325N, Athens, 30602, Georgia, USA

    Amy L. Reschly

  3. Educational Research, New Zealand Council for, Wellington, New Zealand

    Cathy Wylie

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© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Rumberger, R.W., Rotermund, S. (2012). The Relationship Between Engagement and High School Dropout. In: Christenson, S., Reschly, A., Wylie, C. (eds) Handbook of Research on Student Engagement. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2018-7_24

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