Graduates and Dropouts: Explaining School Outcomes for Teen Mothers

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 13. Influence of Family Context and Friends/Peers

Abstract

Why do some teen mothers graduate from high school and others drop out? Employing a unique combination of methods, we compare life story interviews with 23 teen mothers who graduated from high school and 34 who dropped out using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). The QCA model rendered a typology of seven pathways to graduation or dropout using five factors -- residential location, primary language, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, and car ownership. The life story analysis underscored four other factors shaping these pathways: race, immigration history, timing and extensiveness of gendered violence, and residential mobility. We find that school outcomes were influenced positively by the advantages of speaking English, living in a small town, and having a modicum of economic stability, and negatively by the disadvantages of continuous and extensive gendered violence, frequent and disruptive residential moves, and circular migration. In our discussion we argue that: 1) the context of life events impacts their salience on school outcomes; 2) race and ethnicity are often proxies for disadvantages such as residential location and language abilities; and 3) that framing school outcomes as partial products of both advantages and disadvantages underscores that marginalized groups are heterogeneous.

Authors

• Mary Patrice Erdmans, Case Western Reserve University

• Elizabeth Nalepa, Case Western Reserve University