Dropout rates among American Indian students have not shown significant improvement since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. While extensive research exists on the dropout phenomenon, no studies were found that addressed why some Navajo girls leave school and the role education narratives play in their decision. Accordingly, this study examined the narratives shaping federal and Navajo education policies in order to understand how these influence school programs. The research questions dealt with three elements that could induce Navajo girls to leave school, the institutions and programs offered by federal and tribal government entities, and the dichotomies between school and home environments. The narrative policy analysis, grounded in social construction theory, included provisional and secondary coding of the NCLB of 2001 and the Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act of 2005. Interviews with administrators from the Department of Diné Education, and a young Navajo woman who had left school, supplemented the documentary analysis. The data were triangulated and a modified network analysis conducted to glean areas of convergence and discrepancy between federal and Navajo policy constructs, based on problem statements and proposed solutions. Results indicated that school programs aligned with federal imperatives might not engage or interest many Navajo girls, leading them to abandon their studies early. The implications for social change include the need to develop programs that increase self-direction and engagement among Navajo girls, and granting indigenous peoples autonomy in deciding which educational approaches most closely align with their cultural norms and long-term objectives.

<p>Summary:</p><p>Teenage girls’ choice of dropping out or complete a treatment.</p><p>The purpose of this study is to investigate, from a client’s perspective, why teenage girls (age 13 to 17) drop-out or complete a treatment at Familjehuset in Karlstad, Sweden. We also want to investigate if the teenage girls’ experiences coordinate with the social workers opinion of why the teenage girls choose to drop-out or complete the treatment. Earlier research shows that many factors influence the client’s choice. A good relationship between the social worker and the adolescent is of great importance when it comes to complete a treatment. A qualitative abductive method for the six interviews was used in order to gain a deeper understanding for these phenomena.</p><p>Results show that the teenage girls were in a period of emancipation in creating their own identity, which made it difficult for them to communicate with, and trust grownups. We believe that the three girls that completed the treatment had come further in this development than the three girls that dropped out. The girls which dropped out of treatment have had numerous contacts with social workers in the past, and their attitudes were very negative towards professionals. This attitude influenced their treatment at Familjehuset and it was hard to communicate in order to gain a good relationship for further treatment.</p><p>Mostly, the girls thought that the social workers at Familjehuset were easy to talk to, and that they had listened to them and understood them. They all said that at first they did not like the contact, but the three girls which completed the treatment, were of the opinion that they would give it a chance, and this developed into a relationship that increased their motivation and could be of good help for them.</p><p>The social workers at Familjehuset described several reasons why teenage girls choose to drop-out or complete a treatment. Many of these reasons coordinated with the girl’s points of view, like the importance of listening, creating a good relationship to get them motivated for further treatment. Items that the social workers mention, but the girls not, were the importance of getting the family integrated in the treatment and the importance of the first contact.</p><p>We hope that this study can come to help for the social workers at Familjehuset in their profession and that it also can be useful for further research.</p>

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of a six-week career planning dropout prevention program on the self-concepts and academic achievement of at-risk middle school students in an inner-city public school environment. The research population consisted of 1,434 students (grades seven, eight and nine) attending an inner city public junior high school in south-central Los Angeles, California. The selection of the research site and sample was based on the assumption that the student population met the criteria and demographic profile of at-risk students: Students are from low-income and/or single parent families; have low achievement scores in reading and mathematics; exhibit a high incidence of truancy, absenteeism and teenage pregnancy; have low career aspirations and plans; and exhibit other related characteristics of at-risk students. The study was conducted from September, 1993 to January, 1994 (fall semester, 1993). All students were selected by random procedure from grades seven, eight and nine. The experimental group consisted of 195 students enrolled in a woodworking class. The control group consisted of 1,239 students who were not enrolled in a woodworking class but were enrolled in other elective classes. The experimental treatment consisted of a six week career planning dropout prevention program. The career planning dropout prevention program was infused into the 20-week woodworking class during the 6th through 12th week, and consisted of seven interrelated topics and lesson plans. The objectives of the study were to research and explore career interests and options, and to construct personal career planning portfolios for students in the experimental group. It was concluded that: a) There were no significant differences between pre and post measures of self-concept in the experimental group, b) There was no significant difference in the pre and post academic achievement scores between the control and experimental groups, c) There was a substantial increase int he academic achievement scores of the experimental group, but this increase did not equal or exceed the alpha value. / Graduation date: 1997

<p>A qualitative research design in the form of a case study was employed. A quantitative method was also utilized in the form of a short questionnaire for demographic purposes in order to provide a general description of the sample. A purposive sample of 10 parenting learners, and two teachers was selected. The study was conducted in a Senior Secondary School that is located in Khayelitsha, a historically disadvantaged community in the Western Cape. Semi structured interviews of approximately ninety minutes each were conducted and audio taped. A thematic analysis was used to analyse the audio taped data from the transcribed interviews. The key findings from this research illustrate that there is a misunderstanding and miscommunication between teachers and learners about learner pregnancy. Pregnant learners hide pregnancy from the teachers to avoid comments and from being expelled from the school and consequently do not get any support from the school. On the other hand, the findings indicate that if the teachers were aware of their pregnancy and trained to deal with learner pregnancy, these learners would be supported by the school. Some of the recommendations were to develop the capacity of the teachers so that the school is able to provide an adolescent-professional-friendly service. A safe non-judgmental environment is required so that the learner is able to disclose her pregnancy status as early as possible to ensure that they receive the necessary support.</p>

Summary: Teenage girls’ choice of dropping out or complete a treatment. The purpose of this study is to investigate, from a client’s perspective, why teenage girls (age 13 to 17) drop-out or complete a treatment at Familjehuset in Karlstad, Sweden. We also want to investigate if the teenage girls’ experiences coordinate with the social workers opinion of why the teenage girls choose to drop-out or complete the treatment. Earlier research shows that many factors influence the client’s choice. A good relationship between the social worker and the adolescent is of great importance when it comes to complete a treatment. A qualitative abductive method for the six interviews was used in order to gain a deeper understanding for these phenomena. Results show that the teenage girls were in a period of emancipation in creating their own identity, which made it difficult for them to communicate with, and trust grownups. We believe that the three girls that completed the treatment had come further in this development than the three girls that dropped out. The girls which dropped out of treatment have had numerous contacts with social workers in the past, and their attitudes were very negative towards professionals. This attitude influenced their treatment at Familjehuset and it was hard to communicate in order to gain a good relationship for further treatment. Mostly, the girls thought that the social workers at Familjehuset were easy to talk to, and that they had listened to them and understood them. They all said that at first they did not like the contact, but the three girls which completed the treatment, were of the opinion that they would give it a chance, and this developed into a relationship that increased their motivation and could be of good help for them. The social workers at Familjehuset described several reasons why teenage girls choose to drop-out or complete a treatment. Many of these reasons coordinated with the girl’s points of view, like the importance of listening, creating a good relationship to get them motivated for further treatment. Items that the social workers mention, but the girls not, were the importance of getting the family integrated in the treatment and the importance of the first contact. We hope that this study can come to help for the social workers at Familjehuset in their profession and that it also can be useful for further research.

Dropping out from psychotherapy is a complex phenomenon that has impact on the mental health of the dropout patients primarily and the mental health care secondarily and needs to be understood from many different angles. Among potential predictors, patient variables are so far most thoroughly examined. This tends to simplify the causal explanations that may result in adjustment of treatment procedures that are inadequate for addressing the problem. The aim of this review is to examine the current state of knowledge about therapist and process factors influencing dropout from individual psychotherapy. After electronic searches in databases 40 relevant studies published 2000–2011 were identified. The results show that the therapist skills and degree of education and experience has a great impact on dropout rates, psychotherapeutic progress and outcome, and the quality of alliance and relationship. The conclusions are that the therapists need training, peer and organisational support for accomplishment and enhancement.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate perceptions and experiences of four Latino male students who obtained their high school diploma despite considerable adversity. An in-depth examination of the participants' academic experiences, familial impact on their education, and societal acculturation were explored to elucidate Latino male academic achievement in public high school. The dropout conundrum has serious economic and societal implications for the United States. In addition, the explosion of the Latino population in the southwestern portion of the U.S. adds another dimension to this dilemma since Latinos have a greater dropout rate than their white counterparts. However, there has been minimal qualitative literature that has given voice to students and their perceptions of academic success. Therefore, this study was conducted with individual, semi-structured interviews to give the students' voice to their story and create rich, thick descriptions for educators to understand the reasons these students were successful in school. Participants were selected from a randomized purposeful sample from the same high school. In addition, each student was interviewed three times to ensure prolonged engagement. Interviews were audio-taped and then transcribed by the researcher. Member checking, peer debriefing, artifact collection, and reflexive journaling were utilized to establish trustworthiness. The transcribed interviews were categorized to establish patterns and themes in the data. Even though the four participants were very different from each other in generational status, family environment, and personal interests, they were all able to obtain their high school diploma despite the hardships that have played a role in the failure in school of others much like these four. The students clearly articulated that treatment by the staff at school was a major factor in their academic achievement, and, even though they all came from non-traditional families, education was valued and encouraged in their homes. Recommendations for future studies include research on Latino college achievement and the role of Latino parents in their children's education.

<p>Both artificial intelligence (AI) and database (DB) communities have advantages in incorporating features from each other's areas. From a DB view, handling of complexity in today's information systems can be aided by incorporating AI features, and database environments could gain in flexibility by entrusting some of their functionality to agent systems. Contemplated from the AI view, agent systems could gain in robustness by being based on DB-systems.</p><p>By applying the semantics of database-transaction to interactions between agents in a multiagent-system, and analysing the consequences, this project endeavours to cross borders of the two research areas. In the project, states where drop-out of some agent is severe to the task fulfilment, of the system, have been identified, and examined after applying transaction semantics to the agent interactions. An existing system for multiagent applications, JADE, has been examined in order to investigate how problem situations are handled in practice. The result from this work shows the feasibility to contemplate both type of systems as very similar, but modelled and viewed in different ways.</p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): William Bowman, Kenneth Thomas. Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-92). Also available online.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Boise State University, 2002. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-193). Also available online via the ProQuest Digital Dissertations database.