Student mobility and school dropout☆
Introduction
Perhaps no single event in the adolescent life course more strongly determines later social and economic success than dropping out of school (Jencks et al., 1972, Winship and Korenman, 1999). Among the many risk factors for educational failure in U.S. secondary schools are frequent residential mobility and the school changes that often accompany those geographic relocations (Kerbow, 1996). Although some of the differences in educational performance between mobile and non-mobile children are a function of preexisting differences such as race/ethnicity, family socioeconomic status, and family structure (Alexander et al., 1996, Pettit and McLanahan, 2003), a growing body of research reports significant negative effects of student mobility (i.e., changing schools) on a range of compromised educational outcomes, including diminished academic performance (Ingersoll et al., 1989), high rates of school dropout (Astone and McLanahan, 1994, Crowder and South, 2003, McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994, Straits, 1987, Swanson and Schneider, 1999, Teachman et al., 1996), and ultimately lower levels of educational attainment during young adulthood (Hagan et al., 1996, Haveman et al., 1991). The detrimental impact of mobility extends to more general emotional and behavioral problems both in and out of school (DeWit, 1998, Pittman and Bowen, 1994, Simpson and Fowler, 1994, Tucker et al., 1998, Wood et al., 1993). In a somewhat similar fashion, research also shows that changing schools is often associated with reduced academic performance and school completion, social competence, and self-esteem (Rumberger and Larson, 1998, Seidman et al., 1996, Simmons et al., 1991).
Drawing on two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), this analysis examines the effects of student mobility on the risk of dropping out of school. We go beyond prior work in this area in two main ways. First, we attempt to identify some of the characteristics and behaviors that explain why mobile students are more likely than non-mobile students to drop out of school. We consider several categories of potentially mediating factors that tap students’ relationships with their parents, their schools, and their peers. Second, we examine whether the level of mobility in the school as a whole (i.e., the percentage of students who are relatively new to their school) influences dropout risks, even among non-mobile students. While such “contextual” effects of student mobility have been posited (Entwisle et al., 1997, Lash and Kirkpatrick, 1990), studies of the effect of school-level characteristics (e.g., student–teacher ratios, average levels of student achievement, racial and socioeconomic composition) on dropout propensities have generally ignored the possible impact of school-level mobility (McNeal, 1997, Rumberger, 1995, Rumberger and Thomas, 2000).
Section snippets
Theoretical background
Although there is currently no comprehensive theory linking student mobility to educational outcomes, scholars have advanced a variety of explanations for these effects. We group these explanations under four broad rubrics: parent–child relationship characteristics, peer social networks, academic performance and school engagement, and psychological well-being.
Data and methods
To address these issues, we use data from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Add Health is a multi-survey, multi-wave study of U.S. adolescents, their parents, and their schools (Bearman et al., 1997). In the initial in-school survey, conducted in 1994–1995, all students attending each of 134 high schools and their “feeder” middle schools (grades 7 through 12) were interviewed (N = 90,118). This sample is the basis for the construction of most of the
Results
Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for all of the variables separately for movers and stayers. Although relatively few respondents dropped out of school between survey waves, movers are almost twice as likely as stayers to have dropped out (6.0% vs. 3.2%). Movers also differ significantly from stayers on several of the variables that potentially mediate the relationship between mobility and school dropout.
Compared to stayers, mobile students report significantly lower quality relationships
Discussion and conclusion
Although geographic relocations have been linked to an array of potentially problematic behaviors during adolescence, we know little about the reasons why residential and school mobility appears to increase adolescents’ risk of school dropout. We address this issue here by using two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to explore factors that help to explain the higher rates of school dropout among mobile than among non-mobile adolescents. We also examine
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This research was supported by a grant to the first two authors from the National Science Foundation (SBR-0131876) and by grants to the University at Albany Center for Social and Demographic Analysis from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P30 HD32041) and the National Science Foundation (SBR-9512290). This research uses data from the Add Health project, a program project designed by J. Richard Udry (PI) and Peter Bearman, and funded by Grant P01-HD31921 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Persons interested in obtaining data files from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 West Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). We thank Paul von Hippel for statistical assistance and several anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.
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