Withdrawing from public urban high school: Explanations based on theories of college student departure.

Abstract

This study tested the usefulness of Tinto's (1975) and Hossler and Bean's (1990) models of college student departure in explaining dropout in public urban high schools. The "fit" of the models to high school data was tested using path analysis. The sample consisted of 2,625 high school students from the High School and Beyond Study. The findings showed that Tinto's model alone did not provide a good representation of high school data, but that adding causal paths from the constructs of organizational and environmental variables to other variables in Tinto's model, as proposed by Hossler and Bean (and as modified through the findings of this study), produced a model that was a good explanation of the processes leading to high school dropout. The implications of these findings for theory, policy, and future research concerning high school withdrawal are discussed.