High school dropout is commonly seen as the result of a long-term process of failure and disengagement. As useful as it is, this view has obscured the heterogeneity of pathways leading to dropout. Research suggests, for instance, that some students leave school not as a result of protracted difficulties but in response to situations that emerge late in their schooling careers, such as health problems or severe peer victimization. Conversely, others with a history of early difficulties persevere when their circumstances improve during high school. Thus, an adequate understanding of why and when students drop out requires a consideration of both long-term vulnerabilities and proximal disruptive events and contingencies. The goal of this review is to integrate long-term and immediate determinants of dropout by proposing a stress process, life course model of dropout. This model is also helpful for understanding how the determinants of dropout vary across socioeconomic conditions and geographical and historical contexts. There have been repeated calls in the scientific literature to consider high school dropout not as an event but as a process (see Christenson & Thurlow, 2004;Rumberger, 2011). In this view, dropout is the endpoint of a long trajectory of disengagement starting as soon as, and even before, children enter school. This long-term approach has led to breakthroughs in our understanding of the roots of dropout. Longitudinal studies spanning the first two decades of life have illuminated the role that early family circumstances and school experiences play in putting some children on a high-risk trajectory for dropout (e. Beechum, 2014). Understanding the causes of dropout among students who do not follow a clearly identified pathway out of school is necessary to tailor interventions to their needs (Feinstein & Peck, 2008). Among these dropouts, precipitating factors (i.e., situations emerging for high school students not long before the decision to dropout is made) could play an important role (e.g., see Bowers & Sprott, 2012b; America's Promise Alliance, 2014).In addition, even among students already considered at risk when they enter high school, there is considerable heterogeneity in terms of timing and outcomes, with some leaving school later than others and others unexpectedly graduating (Bowers, Sprott, & Taff, 2013;Vitaro, Larocque, Janosz, & Tremblay, 2001). This heterogeneity could be determined in part by circumstances emerging late in students' schooling careers. In fact, improved circumstances in adolescence can close wide achievement gaps established during the elementary school years (Dobbie & Fryer, 2011). Conversely, peak vulnerability could arise when early failure intersects with challenging circumstances in high school, such as when students are under important stress or are offered new opportunities incompatible with schooling (e.g., a full-time job). Attention to such precipitating factors among students following a recognizable long-term problematic path could contribute to a ...

The goal of this study was to examine the mechanisms underlying associations between neighborhood socioeconomic advantage and children’s achievement trajectories between 54 months and 15 years old. Results of hierarchical linear growth models based on a diverse sample of 1,364 children indicate that neighborhood socioeconomic advantage was non-linearly associated with youths’ initial vocabulary and reading scores, such that the presence of educated, affluent professionals in the neighborhood had a favorable association with children’s achievement among those in less advantaged neighborhoods until it leveled off at moderate levels of advantage. A similar tendency was observed for math achievement. The quality of the home and child care environments as well as school advantage partially explained these associations. The findings suggest that multiple environments need to be considered simultaneously for understanding neighborhood-achievement links.

Adolescents who drop out of high school experience enduring negative consequences across many domains. Yet, the circumstances triggering their departure are poorly understood. This study examined the precipitating role of recent psychosocial stressors by comparing three groups of Canadian high school students (52% boys; M = 16.3 years; N = 545): recent dropouts, matched at-risk students who remain in school, and average students. Results indicate that in comparison with the two other groups, dropouts were over three times more likely to have experienced recent acute stressors rated as severe by independent coders. These stressors occurred across a variety of domains. Considering the circumstances in which youth decide to drop out has implications for future research and for policy and practice.

Students' inattention is predictive of reading problems and of non-response to effective reading intervention. In this randomized study, 58 first-grade classrooms located in 30 schools were assigned to a control condition or to one of two intervention conditions. In these last two conditions, peer-tutoring activities were conducted to improve classroom reading instruction. In one of the intervention conditions, the Good Behavior Game was also implemented to maximize students' attention during reading lessons. Both interventions were effective: peer-tutoring activities helped students improve their reading skills and attention was generally higher when the Good Behavior Game was implemented. Contrary to expectations however, students identified as inattentive at pretest did not become better readers when the two interventions were implemented.

The sequential analysis of self-observations was used to study the reactions of Physical Education student teachers (N = 154) toward elementary school pupils’ misbehaviors. Reactions were categorized as direct or indirect indicating whether or not they represent a direct appeal to the student teacher’s authority status. Causal attributions of misbehaviors made by student teachers as well as their level of intensity were noted. In general, student teachers resorted to direct reactions and attributed the cause of the misbehavior to personal characteristics of the pupil. Their reactions and attributions differed, however, as a function of the level of the misbehavior’s intensity. In response to misbehaviors of high intensity, student teachers were more likely to resort to a combination of direct and indirect reactions and even more to systematically attribute the cause of these misbehaviors to the pupil. This pattern of results suggests that direct and indirect reactions have complementary functions in the management of high intensity misbehaviors.