Switching Schools

Abstract

Youth who switch schools are more likely to demonstrate a wide array of negative behavioral and educational outcomes, including dropping out of high school. However, whether switching schools actually puts youth at risk for dropout is uncertain, since youth who switch schools are similar to dropouts in their levels of prior school achievement and engagement, which suggests that switching schools may be part of the same long-term developmental process of disengagement that leads to dropping out. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this study uses propensity score matching to pair youth who switched high schools with similar youth who stayed in the same school. We find that while over half the association between switching schools and dropout is explained by observed characteristics prior to 9th grade, switching schools is still associated with dropout. Moreover, the relationship between switching schools and dropout varies depending on a youth's propensity for switching schools.

New Students’ Peer Integration and Exposure to Deviant Peers: Spurious Effects of School Moves?

“…Some of these, such as low grades and low attachment to school, could have prompted their parents to move them to different schools (cf. Gasper et al, 2012; Rumberger & Larson, 1998). Others, such as inconsistent parental discipline, may have been associated with the general family disruption that precedes moves (cf.…”

“…Several studies have found that adolescents who move are themselves more involved in delinquency and substance use (Haynie & South, 2005; Hoffman & Johnson, 1998), have more psychological difficulties (Gilman, Kawachi, Fitzmaurice, Buka, & 2003; Haynie, South, & Bose, 2006a), and have lower grades, test scores, educational expectations, and educational attainment (Pribesh & Downey, 1999; Rumberger and Larson, 1998; South, Haynie, & Bose, 2007; Sutton, Muller, & Langenkamp, 2013, Swanson & Schneider, 1999). Yet three studies that specifically addressed selection bias via within-individual analyses and propensity score models found that under those methods school and residential moves were not associated with adolescents’ own delinquency and substance use (Gasper et al, 2010; Porter & Vogel, 2014), and school moves were only weakly associated with school dropout (Gasper et al, 2012). In addition, data from the experimental Moving to Opportunities study and from the quasi-experimental Yonkers Project suggest that residential moves have mixed effects on youths’ academic, psychological, and behavioral problems (Fauth, Leventhal, & Brooks-Gunn, 2005; Gennetian et al, 2012).…”

Addressing the Needs of Military Children Through Family-Based Play Therapy

“…Children of military parents are three times more likely to change schools, averaging around six to nine moves during their kindergarten to 12th grade education (U. S. Department of Education 2012). These abrupt changes have been found to put strains on existing friendships, create gaps in learning and education, and result in added stress from adjusting to new surroundings (Gasper et al 2012).…”

Child Support Receipt, Mobility, and Housing Quality

“…Mobility has been most commonly investigated in previous work using survey data collected in longitudinal studies (Freeman, 2005; Gasper et al , 2012; Kan, 2007). Most frequently, residential histories are collected from respondents to identify the timing, number, and distance of moves.…”