Dissertation Information for Wendy Walter-Bailey NAME: - Wendy Walter-Bailey
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Education
SCHOOL:
- Indiana University (USA) (2005)
ADVISORS: - Ellen Brantlinger
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Jesse Goodman - Barbara Korth - Margaret Sutton
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected
Title:
Becoming a pushout: An ethnographic study of school dropouts and their perceptions of school life in the margins
Abstract: Whether or not the issue of dropping out of school is a crisis to be solved is problematic. The solutions are not simple and the inclination to focus on the deficiencies of the individual as the point of departure for shifting the dropout trend has proven ineffective. This study is focused on the stories that students who had either dropped out of school, or who had been expelled, divulge about their educational experiences. It also includes the perspectives of teachers and other staff affiliated with the Youth Opportunity Center (YOC, a pseudonym), an alternative education center, where each of the participants in this study either attended as a student or worked as staff person. The students were studying to obtain the skills necessary to take and pass the exam to earn their General Education Development (GED). This study was designed to allow the student dropouts to discuss their own perceptions of the schooling process.
Based on the stories told by both the students and the staff at the YOC, there are ways schools could improve the chances for success in support of students such as the participants in this study, and several areas where this study can inform the educational community. Perhaps the most important issue addressed in this study deals with the culture of schooling. Within the school culture, there are variables which affect the success or failure of the students, two of which include the politics of size and an ethos of caring. The YOC maintained a small school environment where the students felt safe, and they excelled because they believed that the staff cared about their well being.
Listening to the voices of teenagers, whether dropouts or not, can provide educators with a new lens for viewing school, social, and home life for adolescents. Policy makers would be well served to take a closer look at qualitative research and ethnographies of schooling to gain a more in-depth look at the lives of students. Numbers from standardized tests, expulsion rates from zero tolerance policies, and dropout statistics only tell part of the educational story. Narratives are crucial to understanding the difficult lives and the tumultuous decisions students face on a daily basis. The culture of schools, as this study reveals, is frequently toxic for students who are left outside the mainstream.
| |
MPACT Scores for Wendy Walter-Bailey A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-09-26 20:00:47
Advisors and Advisees Graph
generating graph, please reload |