Student mobility and school dropout

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2005.10.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Although several studies have linked adolescent residential and school mobility to an increased risk of dropping out of school, the reasons for this association have not been examined thoroughly. Using data from approximately 8500 respondents to the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we explore the ability of several domains of adolescent life—parent–child relationships, peer networks, academic performance, school attachment, and psychological well-being—to account for the higher rate of school dropout among mobile than non-mobile adolescents. Characteristics of adolescents’ peer networks, particularly students’ centrality in those networks and the academic performance of their friends, emerge as the most important mediators of the mobility-dropout association. We also find an increased risk of dropping out among both mobile and non-mobile students attending schools with high rates of student mobility, which appears partially attributable to lower levels of school attachment and weaker academic performance in high-mobility schools.

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

References (76)

  • N.M. Astone et al.

    Family structure, parental practices, and high school completion

    American Sociological Review

    (1991)
  • N.M. Astone et al.

    Family structure, residential mobility, and school dropout: a research note

    Demography

    (1994)
  • B.J. Bank et al.

    Effects of peer, faculty, and parental influences on students’ persistences

    Sociology of Education

    (1990)
  • Bearman, P.S., Jones, J., Udry, J.R., 1997. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health: Research Design....
  • Bearman, P.S., Moody, J., Stovel, K., 1997. Add Health Network Data. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,...
  • P. Bonacich

    Power and centrality: a family of measures

    American Journal of Sociology

    (1987)
  • W.J. Carbonaro

    A little help from my friend’s parents: intergenerational closure and educational outcomes

    Sociology of Education

    (1998)
  • Chantala, K., Tabor, J., 1999. Strategies to Perform a Design-Based Analysis Using the Add Health Data....
  • J.S. Coleman

    Social capital in the creation of human capital

    American Journal of Sociology

    (1988)
  • J.S. Coleman

    Foundations of Social Theory

    (1990)
  • R. Crosnoe

    Social capital and the interplay of families and schools

    Journal of Marriage and Family

    (2004)
  • S. Demuth

    Understanding the delinquency and social relationships of loners

    Youth and Society

    (2004)
  • O.D. Duncan et al.

    Peer influences on aspirations: a reinterpretation

    American Journal of Sociology

    (1968)
  • P. Eckert

    Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in the High School

    (1989)
  • D. Eder

    The cycle of popularity: interpersonal relations among female adolescents

    Sociology of Education

    (1985)
  • D.R. Entwisle et al.

    Children, Schools, and Inequality

    (1997)
  • J.L. Epstein

    Friendship selection: developmental and environmental influences

  • J.L. Epstein

    The selection of friends: changes across the grades and in different school environments

  • L.M. Fenzel

    Role strain in early adolescence: a model for investigating school transition stress

    Journal of Early Adolescence

    (1989)
  • D.C. French et al.

    School dropout as predicted by peer rejection and antisocial behavior

    Journal of Research on Adolescence

    (2001)
  • J. Hagan et al.

    New kid in town: social capital and the life course effects of family migration on children

    American Sociological Review

    (1996)
  • Harris, K.M., Ryan, S., 2001. Family Processes, Neighborhood Context, and Adolescent Risk Behavior. Paper presented at...
  • R. Haveman et al.

    Childhood events and circumstances influencing high school completion

    Demography

    (1991)
  • D.L. Haynie

    Delinquent peers revisited: does network structure matter?

    American Journal of Sociology

    (2001)
  • Haynie, D.L., South, S.J., 2002. Friendship Networks of Mobile Adolescents. Paper presented at the annual Add Health...
  • A.B. Hendershott

    Residential mobility, social support, and adolescent self-concept

    Adolescence

    (1989)
  • C. Humke et al.

    Relocation: a review of the effects of residential mobility on children and adolescents

    Psychology: A Journal of Human Behavior

    (1995)
  • G.M. Ingersoll et al.

    Geographic mobility and student achievement in an urban setting

    Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

    (1989)
  • Cited by (0)

    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.

    1

    Fax: +1 614 292 6687.

    2

    Fax: +1 845 257 2970.

    View full text