Why High School Dropouts Return to Adult High School Completion Classes.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge and awareness of the adult education practitioner concerning the reasons why high school dropouts return to adult high school completion classes and to use that information to recruit new students. The data were collected by means of a researcher-administered survey and selected interviews. The first part of the survey included questions concerning the demographic characteristics of the subjects. The second part included questions about events and feelings the subjects might have experienced in the last two years. If the subjects experienced the events or feelings they were to rate how important they were in their decisions to return to school. The subjects included 280 students enrolled in twenty credit classes in the L'Anse Creuse Adult Education Program in Mount Clemens, Michigan for the 1983-84 school year. The demographic characteristics of this sample showed the subjects were mostly single, white, unemployed females between the ages of 20 and 40, with a tenth or eleventh grade education. In general, the dropouts who returned had recently been concerned about the future and their employment status. Those who returned had support systems in friends or relatives. They also had experienced lifestyle changes in the last two years. The interview data revealed several pervasive themes which substantiated the survey findings: awareness of the unemployed of the relationship between the acquisition of basic and vocational skills and the securing of a job; adult education viewed as the avenue for both occupational and social mobility; presence of support systems as a predictor for adults returning to school; and uncertainty about the future closely allied with considerations for seeking further education. There were additional themes that came exclusively from the interview findings: dropouts have high aspirations for their children; positive images of school are fostered through adult education classes; fear and poor images of school keep people out of schools; feminization of poverty is a reality in our society today; social agencies can be stimulators for positive personal growth.