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

Abstract

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 = 996) and American (n = 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.

Keywords:

• early school leaving
• drop-out
• basic skills
• parents' educational level

Notes

¹The Norwegian statistics relates to 18–24 years olds.

²EU19 refers to the 19 OECD countries that are EU-members and for which data are available or can be estimated.

³Norway: Mother: χ² (2, n = 996) = 12.84, p = .00, Cramer's V = .11. Father: χ² (1, n = 996) = 14.72, p = .00, phi = .12. USA: Mother: χ² (2, n = 641) = 44.31, p = .00, Cramer's V = .26. Father: χ² (2, n = 641) = 35.63, p = .00, Cramer's V = .24.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kjersti Lundetræ

Kjersti Lundetræ, University of Stavanger.  Many thanks to Egil Gabrielsen for valuable discussions on the paper, and to Bjørn Ellertsen for valuable help on preparing the article. Also many thanks to Knud Knudsen and the Quantitative Forum for discussions of the analysis.