School Characteristics and Experiences of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American Youth in Rural Communities: Relation to Educational Aspirations

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to examine differences in the school characteristics and experiences of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American youth in rural high schools as well as their relation to educational aspirations. We also investigated the characteristics and experiences of students and their families given that these are important in rural youths’ preparation for the transition to adulthood. Data were from the Rural High School Aspirations Study, which collected surveys from 6,150 youth across the country attending a high school designated as rural or small town during the 2007–2008 school year. Descriptive analyses demonstrated there were differences in the school characteristics and experiences of African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American youth in rural areas. Regression analyses also showed variations in the predictors of educational aspirations across different racial/ethnic groups of students attending rural high schools. The results demonstrate that there are differences in the school characteristics and experiences as well as their relation to educational aspirations that may have important implications as African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American youth in rural high schools prepare for the transition to adulthood. The discussion includes additional findings, implications, limitations, and directions for future research.

Notes

Our study includes towns in part because the sample was originally identified under the previous Census locale system that included towns in locale code categories that most considered rural (i.e., 6, 7, and 8). While collecting our data the newer locale codes were introduced. We then began to use those because the newer locale codes provide more descriptive and distinct categories of rural but also more clearly differentiate towns. In addition, many other rural researchers and organizations (e.g., Rural School and Community Trust) also include towns in their definitions of rural.

We used a hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) approach (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) to assess within- and between-school variations in educational aspirations among rural youth. We found 97% of the total variance was attributable to the student level, while only 3% was attributable to the school level (results not shown but available upon request from the authors). This suggested that the use of HLM offers little advantage over OLS regression. Thus, we report the results from OLS regression with robust standard errors.