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 paper is concerned with the gap in educational provision for vulnerable learners in Malawi who are at risk of falling behind and dropping out of school due to irregular attendance. It draws on a study in high HIV-prevalence areas that explores the patterns of inequality and disadvantage that disrupt learning and uses this knowledge to design…

Although school-based programs for adolescent mothers have grown, few attempts have been made to evaluate their impact. A review of recent evaluation attempts suggests that school-based programs are not serving a large segment of the pregnant and parenting school-aged population. Intervention efforts are discussed. (Author/BL)

This paper reviews the literature on urban school dropouts and the experiences of superintendents in attempting to lower the dropout rate. The paper is divided into two major sections. Part I examines how a mixture of societal, community, family and other influences increase the chances that an at-risk student will experience little success in…

This brief explores the challenges of documenting dropout rates and ways to support students with disabilities so that they meet academic standards and graduate. It begins by discussing the high dropout rate for students with disabilities and the rise of standards-based reform and high-stakes tests. Characteristics of high-risk students are…