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Addressing Diversity in Rural Education

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Title: Addressing Diversity in Rural Education


1
Overview of Rural High SchoolAspirations Study
Judith L. Meece, UNC-CH Matthew Irvin,
UNC-CH Robert Petrin, Penn State Univ. Kai
Schafft, Penn State Univ.
U.S. Department of Education, Institute of
Educational Sciences Research and Development
Center Grant R305A040056-06
2
Collaborators
Thomas W. Farmer, Co-Principal Investigator Soo-yo
ng Byun, Postdoctoral Scholar Bryan Hutchins,
Research Associate Kimberly Dadisman,
Investigator Dylan Robertson, Investigator Glen
Elder, Investigator Vonnie McLoyd, Investigator
3
Objectives of Overview
  • Describe aims and design of Rural HSA Project
  • Present information on rural youths adult
    aspirations
  • Present information on educational barriers of
    rural youth
  • Present information on influence of community
  • context on youths future aspirations
  • Discuss the implications of the research for
    school
  • programs and school-community relations.

4
Aims of Rural HSA Study
  • To generate new information about rural high
    school students educational, vocational, and
    residential plans and aspirations for the future
  • To assess rural high school students preparatory
    activities and planning for postsecondary
    education, work, and adult life
  • To examine the impact of school experiences,
    geographical location, economic status, cultural
    or ethnic origins, family background, peer
    relations, and community characteristics on rural
    students aspirations and preparatory activities.

5
Giving a Voice to Rural Schools
  • A lot of our students dont think they have a
    future. Its hard to motivate them.
  • (School Guidance Counselor)
  • We moved to a rural community to escape city
    schools. There is a lot that city schools can
    learn from rural schools.
  • (Parent of Participant)
  • I plan to be a millionaire and to be very
    successful. Thank you for coming to our school.
    (High School Student)

6
Design of RHSA Study
7
Rural HSA Sample Selection
  • Sampling frame was 101,104 public schools in
  • the 2004-05 Common Core of Data
  • Schools with one or more students in 9th grade
  • or above were included
  • Schools were classified according to
  • subtypes based on locale designations
  • (6, 7, 8, 43), and eligibility for Rural
    Education
  • Achievement Programs (RLIS SRSA)
  • Sample currently includes 73 randomly selected
  • schools across these school types.
  • Focus groups in 12 randomly selected school
    sites.

8
Rural High School Aspiration Sitesby Type of
School
9
Rural HSA Sample
School Type Number of Schools School Size Poverty Status Minority Percent
Rural Remote 43 32 - 418 0 - 99 0 - 95
Rural Distant 19 81 - 661 18 - 82 1 - 99
Rural Fringe 3 123 - 400 31 - 81 3 - 85
Small Town 8 165 - 1883 16 - 51 1 - 56
10
Rural Education Achievement Programs
School Type RLIS SRSA
Rural Remote 7 15
Rural Distant 8 5
Rural Fringe 1 1
Small Town 3 1
Total 19 22
11
Rural HSA Measures Students
  • Demographic characteristics
  • Educational and vocational expectations
  • Perceived educational and vocational barriers
  • Family background characteristics
  • School engagement, connection, and participation
  • Peer and friend networks
  • Self-reported academic achievement, efficacy, and
    values
  • Postsecondary preparation activities from school,
    family, and community resources

12
Rural HSA Measures Parents Teachers
  • Items paralleled student survey with regards to
  • Educational vocational expectations for
    individual students in the sample
  • Perceived barriers for educational and vocational
    plans for individual students in the sample
  • Behavioral and academic characteristics for
    individual students in the sample
  • Perceptions of academic preparation, school
    climate
  • Background information on parents and teachers

13
Rural HSA MeasuresAdministrator Survey
  • Teacher quality
  • Residence
  • Class size
  • Programs available
  • High school transitions programs
  • Strengths of schools and community
  • Challenges of schools and community
  • Employment opportunities in community

14
Aspiration Questions
  • Educational Aspirations
  • How far in school would you MOST like to go?
  • Occupational Aspirations
  • What type of job or occupation do you plan to
    have right after high school?
  • At age 30, what kind of job or occupation would
    you MOST like to have at age 30?
  • Residential Aspirations
  • Where do you WANT to live when you are age 30?

15
Educational Aspirations
16
Educational Aspirations of Rural Youth Totals vs.
Rural Remote
17
Where Do Rural Youth Plan To Attain Postsecondary
Education?
18
SummaryRural Students Educational Plans
  • Approximately 7 of youth reported that they were
    unsure of their educational plans after high
    school.
  • Only a small percent (6) of rural youth expected
    to discontinue their education after high school.
  • Approximately 13 of rural youth expected to
    attend and complete two years of postsecondary
    education at a community college or
    vocational/trade school.
  • Approximately 77 of rural youth plan to complete
    college or an advanced graduate or professional
    degree.
  • Educational plans of youth in Rural Remote
    locations were comparable to other rural youth in
    the RHSA sample.

19
Future Vocational Aspirations
20
Vocational Aspirations (at age 30) of Rural Youth
Total vs. Rural Remote
Total Total Rural Remote Rural Remote
  N N
Professional 3,520 51.3 1,438 48.8
Education (School teacher) 477 6.9 216 7.3
Technical 376 5.5 157 5.3
Manager 134 2 55 1.9
Proprietor 123 1.8 48 1.6
Sales 53 0.8 21 0.7
Clerical 22 0.3 7 0.2
Craftsman 99 1.4 40 1.4
Farmer 132 1.9 79 2.7
Military 147 2.1 61 2.1
Protective Service 293 4.3 119 4
Homemaker 7 0.1 4 0.1
Service 546 8 250 8.5
Operative 159 2.3 64 2.2
Laborer 501 7.3 252 8.5
Don't know 272 4 134 4.5
No, None, Retired 5 0.1 3 0.1
Total 6,866 100 2,948 100
21
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22
Required Educational Levels of Rural YouthTotal
vs. Rural Remote
23
Summary Rural Students Vocational Plans
  • Approximately 13 of rural students planned to
    work in a full-time job right after high school
    (work-bound) only 16 of these students knew the
    type of job they planned to pursue.
  • Only 9 of rural students thought they would have
    the same job or career as a family member.
  • By age 30, 90 of rural students planned to work
    or to have a career.
  • Nearly 50 of rural youth aspired to careers in
    healthcare, education, and technical fields.

24
Future Residential Plans
25
Residential Aspirations (at age 30) of Rural Youth
Same State (54)
Another State (41)
26
Conclusions
  • A large percent of rural youth plan to pursue
    professional careers that require a college
    degree (38) or advanced degree (18).
  • Geographical isolation was not a strong predictor
    of rural youths educational and vocational
    plans.
  • Approximately one-third of sample were undecided
    about their residential plans another 24 of the
    sample planned to live in their own community or
    another rural town or area.
  • The findings have important implications for
    secondary educational programs to prepare rural
    youth for their postsecondary transition to
    adulthood.
  • The findings also have important implications for
    rural communities if their youth leave to seek
    educational and vocational opportunities
    elsewhere and not return to their home
    communities.

27
Educational Barriers
28
Theoretical Framework
  • Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
    postulates bidirectional relations between
    cognitive-person (e.g., self-efficacy),
    behavioral, and contextual variables.
  • SCCT initially posited recent work explicitly
    integrated role of barriers

29
Educational Barriers
  • Studies have begun to demonstrate their
    importance
  • perceived barriers predict career aspirations
    outcome expectations
  • findings are mixed
  • Educational barriers predict postsecondary
    educational expectations among rural Appalachian
    youth living in high poverty areas (Ali
    McWhirter, 2006)
  • Barriers predictive of career outcome
    expectations but not academic outcome
    expectations among Midwestern rural youth
    (Wettersten et al., 2005)

30
Need to Consider Educational Barriers
  • Perceived barriers central to postsecondary
    attainment as can prevent youth from pursuing
    aspirations and interests
  • Identifying individual differences especially
    important for youth that may encounter
    difficulties in reaching postsecondary goals
  • found gender and ethnic differences

31
Need to Consider Educational Barriers
  • Little work has focused on rural youth or
    involved limited samples of rural youth
  • Over 50 of U.S. districts and 10 million
    students are rural
  • Less apt to complete college
  • (Johnson Strange, 2007 Kusmin, 2007 Provasnik
    et al., 2007)

32
Purpose
  • Describe educational barriers clarify
    individual differences in perceived educational
    barriers among diverse sample of rural youth

33
Student-Report Measure of Educational Barriers
  • asked whether planning to continue his/her
    education beyond high school (No, Yes, and
    Not Sure)
  • if No asked how much each of several factors
    have affected plan not to continue his/her
    education beyond high school
  • if Yes or Not Sure asked how difficult (1
    not at all to 7 very much) each of several
    factors may make it to complete his/her
    postsecondary education

34
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35
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36
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37
Item Response Theory (IRT) Measurement Models
38
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39
Rural High School StudentsPerceptions of Their
Local Economy and Economic Prospects

Robert A. Petrin Center for Education and
Development Science Pennsylvania State University
40
Overview
  • Part of our research has focused on what we have
    been referring to as students perceptions of
    community
  • Gauging students impressions of various aspects
    of their rural communities (perceptions of
    community)
  • Understanding how these perceptions are
    associated with student life choices and plans
    for the future
  • Understanding how these perceptions are
    correlated with student, peer group, school, and
    community characteristics

41
Overview (Cont.)
  • Today provide a sense of some of the directions
    weve been taking with this research, and some
    what weve been finding
  • Focus for this talk 6 Items from survey
    pertaining to sense of local economy and economic
    prospects

42
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43
Overview (Cont.)
  • In working with these items we draw upon various
    methodologies to . . .
  • Aggregate student responses to make them more
    analytically tractable, easier to use
  • Evaluate meaningful patterns of responses
  • In particular, weve made extensive use of
  • Factor Analysis()
  • Latent Class Analysis

44
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45
Overview (Cont.)
  • In this case, the indicators are categorical, the
    resulting CFA measures are interval-scaled
  • Can use resulting measures to make simple mean
    comparisons, by selected outcomes and predictors

46
Student Perceptions Vary By Locale Overall
Rural Remote Students Have The Least Robust
Outlook Regarding Economic Prospects
47
Perceptions of Economic Conditions Matter Less
with Respect to Educational Aspirations than Do
Perceptions of Economic Prospects . . .
48
Overall, Perceptions of Economic Conditions Have
a Stronger Association with Getting Away From
Area than Do Perceptions of Economic Prospects
49
Additional Analyses
  • We have also used regression-style analyses to
    examine predictors of Economic Conditions,
    Economic Prospects
  • Throughout our exploratory analyses (not shown),
    we consistently found evidence that such
    associations differed by gender
  • Therefore we modeled differences in predictive
    relationships by gender

50
Selected Findings
  • In these gender-specific analyses we found . . .
  • For Boys
  • Self-reported academic program tends to play a
    stronger role for boys than is case for girls
  • College Prep boys have a less robust sense of
    economic prospects (vs. boys in General Program)
  • Voc/Tech/Ag boys have a more robust sense of
    economic prospects (vs. boys in General Program)

51
Selected Findings (Cont.)
  • For Boys (Cont.)
  • Preliminary analyses suggest that school
    isolation plays a stronger role for boys than for
    girls
  • Boys from more highly educated households have a
    more favorable opinion of economic prospects

52
Selected Findings (Cont.)
  • For Girls
  • Higher achieving girls have a more robust sense
    of local economic conditions (but perhaps a less
    robust sense of their own prospects)
  • There are statistically significant regional
    effects on perceptions of local economic
    conditions (all regions are more favorable
    relative to North East)

53
Selected Findings (Cont.)
  • For Both Boys and Girls
  • Students in higher grade levels tend to have a
    less favorable sense of local economy
  • Students in poorer schools have less favorable
    views of local economy, and a less favorable
    views of their economic prospects

54
Additional Analyses
  • Latent Class Analyses
  • Distinct typologies exist by gender
  • Generally the structure of girls responses is
    more complex than boys
  • Multilevel Analyses (i.e., HLM-type models)
  • Provide a richer perspective on the unique
    contribution of various community factors by
    controlling for individual schools
    idiosyncrasies
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