Aside from a student's personal desire to pursue higher education, a culture of high expectations in a school can have important consequences on the individual's achievement. However, the school's 'collective expectation' is affected by many contextual factors like urbanicity. Contributing to the research on urban-rural difference in education and…

At a time when most students aspire for college but not all necessarily attain it, do educational expectations still matter? High self-expectations are said to influence future educational success, but studies have often focussed on expectations at a single point in time. Thus, this research asks how stable, unstable, and later expectations…

Hispanic adolescents have high expectations for their own educational attainment, but educational attainment outcomes for Hispanic young adults are relatively low on average. Limited scholarship links Hispanic adolescents' educational expectations with attainment in adulthood. Using a longitudinal within-group approach, the authors examined…

This study examined the relations among sport involvement and social and personal influences on high school students' educational expectations and attainment, using National Education Longitudinal Survey-88. Athletic engagement, educational expectations of significant others, peer support for academics, parental involvement in academics, and…

Prior research shows that rural students' education expectations and aspirations, as well as their postsecondary enrollment and persistence rates, tend to be lower than those of nonrural students. However, much of that prior research may not apply to today's students because it uses old data or focuses on individual states or purposive samples.…

This study investigated one potential mechanism mediating continuity and discontinuity in low-income status across generations: children's educational aspirations and expectations. Data were drawn from a community sample of 808 participants who were followed from age 10 to 30. Four trajectory groups of children's educational aspirations and…

This dissertation examines the gap in college enrollment between Asian Americans and Latino Americans regarding the effects of family and school factors, classifying them into the six ethnic/generational status groups (Asian American first generation, Asian American second generation, Asian American third generation and plus, Latino American first…

National trends and goals have pushed beyond the dropout crisis and are now focused on raising the percentage of graduates prepared for college and career. This study examined a longitudinal cohort (n = 6443) of students in an urban, public school district in order to explore how districts and communities can redirect off-track high school…

Why some individuals choose to become business owners is not entirely clear. Some scholars have argued that a more holistic approach that includes examining personality traits, social context, and developmental periods in the lifespan should provide a deeper understanding of these choices. Tracing the relationship between adolescents'…

There is a growing concern that some youth are overscheduled in extracurricular activities, and that this increasing involvement has negative consequences for youth functioning. This article used data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS: 2002), a nationally representative and ethnically diverse longitudinal sample of American high school…

Adolescents' expectations about school and work may be key antecedents of adult attainment and this relationship may vary by specific racial, ethnic, and gender groups. This article examines how educational and occupational expectations change in adolescence and how expectations predict corresponding attainment in adulthood. Participants included…

The current study, using data from 374 African American students (59.4% female) in grades 7-12 attending a rural, southern county public school, addressed associations of self-efficacy, ethnic identity and parental support with "future education orientation." Both gender and current level of achievement distinguished adolescents with…

This study examines the tendency of twelfth grade students to apply to a postsecondary institution in light of their stated plans as tenth grade students. I have categorized students into three groups based on whether they had aspirations for college in the tenth grade and whether they applied to college in the twelfth grade. The three groups are…

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002), we developed and empirically tested a conceptual model to assess the longitudinal impact of school-based athletic participation and parental involvement, along with other factors, on the college-bound behaviors of male high school seniors attending public schools in the U.S. The…

Policy makers are especially concerned about persistently high dropout rates among U.S. Latinos, the largest minority population in the United States. This study used a national longitudinal database to show that the behavioral and social aspects of schooling are dynamically linked in the process of school completion and dropout among Mexican…