Does parental educational level predict drop-out from upper secondary school for 16- to 24-year-olds when basic skills are accounted for? A cross country comparison
Original version
Lundetræ, K. (2011) Does parental educational level predict drop-out from upper secondary school for 16- to 24-year-olds when basic skills are accounted for? A cross country comparison. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 55(6), pp. 625-637 10.1080/00313831.2011.555925Abstract
Drop-out from upper secondary school is considered a widespread problem, closely connected with youth unemployment. The aim of the current study was to examine whether parents’ level of education predicted drop-out for 16 – 24-year-olds when accounting for basic skills. For this purpose, data from the Norwegian (n ¼ 996) and American (n ¼ 641) samples in the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) were used. Stepwise logistic regression showed that parents’ educational level was a significant predictor of early school leaving in both countries, but explained significantly more of the variance in USA than in Norway. Mothers’ educational level predicted early school leaving in USA also when accounting for youth’s basic skills, but this was not the case in Norway.
Description
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research in October 2011, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2011.555925