This paper invokes the voices of young people who had been separated from mainstream schooling because they were positioned as "disengaged" and "at risk of failing". The authors argue that streaming students out of schooling needs serious questioning as an escalating number of young people are framed as non-performers within a…

This paper tackles what is arguably one of the most pressing and intractable educational issues confronting western democracies--the disengagement and disconnection from schooling of alarming numbers of young people. The paper looks at the policy response in Victoria, Australia, and through ethnographic interviews with a small number of young…

This study focused on young women's perceptions of the factors that influenced their lack of success in traditional high school settings and the factors that led them to enroll and complete the alternative program, Gateway to College. The Gateway to College program is a coeducational program, but this study l focused solely on young women who…

The General Educational Development (GED[R]) Tests, established in 1945, helped determine soldiers' high school qualifications for the workforce, as they returned home from WWII. Because many soldiers dropped out of school to join the military, achieving a certain score on the test was a way for them to demonstrate that they had attained high…

Describes Critical Dialogues, an instructional approach based on the background knowledge and experiences of at-risk middle school students. Critical Dialogues can be used to help teach students the interactive processes vital to learning. Students grasp the importance of using their own knowledge to interpret situations, make decisions, and solve…

"The goal of this study is to investigate, analyze, and elaborate upon the social background, 'influential others,' and personality characteristics of 300 youths, half of whom continued their education at least to graduation from high school and half of whom dropped out of high school." Six general areas of investigation are reported:…

Project Achieve, New York City's new dropout prevention program, might benefit from the failures of the city's earlier Dropout Prevention Initiative. Project Achieve will organize all ninth and tenth grade students into houses, integrate support and academic staff, and achieve maximum personnel continuity throughout a student's high school career.…

This series of bilingual newsletters (English and Spanish) provides information to migrant youth who have dropped out of school. Newsletters describe the experiences of migrant youth who have obtained their General Educational Development (GED) certificate or have enrolled in vocational or college programs. Other topics treated in this volume…