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DROPPING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL: THE IDEOLOGY OF SCHOOL AND WORK Author(s): Michelle Fine and Pearl Rosenberg Source: The Journal of Education, Vol. 165, No. 3, SCHOOLING AND WORK (SUMMER 1983), pp. 257-272 Published by: Trustees of Boston University Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42772821 Accessed: 08-10-2018 19:59 UTC

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 257

DROPPING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL: THE IDEOLOGY OF SCHOOL AND WORK

Michelle Fine and Pearl Rosenberg University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania

This paper explores the tension between prevailing ideologies of the high school dropout as "loser" and data which indicate that many dropouts are highly motivated , intelligent , and crìtical of educational institutions and labor market opportunities. Attention is paid to who drops out , with a particular focus on gender , race /ethnicity, and class , and to how these dropouts are portrayed in social-science, popular, and teacher-training literature. It is concluded that ex- planations offered for the " tragedy of the dropouts " which isolate individual or family factors function to delegitimate dropouts' crìtique of schools and the labor market, bolster the image of education as the great equalizer, and deflect attention away from race, class, and gender biases which operate in schools and at work.

And now when I see her searching the garbage- for what? The thing we assassinated? I talk about how I did not plant the seeds too deeply, how it was the fault of the earth, the land, of our town. I even think now that the land of the entire country was hostile to marigolds that year. This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own voli- tion, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn't matter. It's too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the gar- bage and the sunflowers of my town, it's much, much, much too late.

The Bluest Eye (Morrison, 1970, p. 160)

Critical perspectives on social institutions are often best obtained from exiles, that is, persons who leave those institutions. This is perhaps why exiles' views are frequently disparaged as deviant and in some cases are conspicuously silenced. High school dropouts in the United States fit this pattern very well. Many of these adolescent men and women have been pushed out of school; some have opted out; all are regarded as failures. While many are critics of American education, their voices are rarely heard. Describing dropouts as "helpless," "trouble making," "in- cipient welfare recipient," or "delinquent" shifts attention away from the educational institutions from which these youths flee. Such labels reproduce a meritocratic belief about who achieves academically and then vocationally, and they delegitimate the criticisms of educational in- stitutions voiced by the 25% of adolescents who do not graduate from high school.

Journal of Education Vol. 165 No. 3 Summer 1983 Copyright Trustees of Boston University

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258 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

In this paper we examine who drops out of high school in the United States, with particular attention paid to gender, social class, and race differences; we consider the critique of educational and labor market con- ditions these students voice; we look at the portrayal of dropouts in the popular, social science and teacher preparation literatures; and we ex- amine a specific group of school dropouts in the South Bronx. We will use the colloquial term "dropout" throughout, with an understanding that many of these youths have been thrown out, pushed out, or never been allowed into the mainstream of secondary education. Despite many dropouts' critical perspectives on educational outcomes and meritocracy, they are frequently portrayed as "losers." We will argue that this image delegitimates their critique of schools and the promise of mobility, and preserves the legitimacy of high schools as a social "equalizer." The critic is functionally silenced. In our culture, high school dropouts represent individuals who chal-

lenge the dominant belief that education leads to labor market suc- cess-employment and income guarantees. It may be in the best interests of business and government officials and educators to maintain the belief that dropouts leave school because of personal deficits and ultimately pay an enormous price for that decision. But we have learned that many dropouts are indeed fully capable of academic achievement and leave school with a critique of institutional inadequacies and discrimination. Many, particularly blacks and Hispanics (and females more than males) leave recognizing that with or without a diploma they will never ap- proach the employment and income opportunities available to white males. While we have been led to disparage or pity the dropout, it is our thesis that these adolescents expose contradictions in prevalent cultural beliefs about meritocracy, individualism, and self-motivation, and for that reason are socially constructed as "losers," if not dangerous. In the 1930s, only one-third of all students completed high school

through the 12th grade. By the 1950s, over half of all students completed high school (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1982). But the rates and reasons vary profoundly according to social class, ethnicity, race, and gender. For example, 33% of Hispanic adolescents and 20% of black adolescents drop out. Hispanic students from predominantly English-speaking homes leave school at nationally average rates, whereas Hispanics from predominantly non-English-speaking homes leave at twice the national rate (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1982b) . It is estimated that a fuil 50% of adolescent females who drop out do so because of pregnancy (Russell, 1982), and social class affects drop- out rates in a predictable pattern. In one study, none of the highest-social- class students dropped out of high school while 71.4% of the lowest- social-class students dropped out (Elliott, Voss & Wendling, 1966). Thus,

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 259

dropping out represents a complicated outcome- of individual decision and/or institutional coercion- emerging for different reasons and gener- ating different consequences for individuals across social-class, race, and gender lines. In March 1983, the New York City Board of Education reported that 13.9% of high school students drop out per year and that "45% of students who entered 9th grade in 1980 will no longer be in school in the Spring of 1985... when they would otherwise be seniors." Dropouts comprise 13.9% of white males; 12.8% of white females; 19.4% of Black males; 20.0% Black females; 31.5% Hispanic males and 34.2% Hispanic females (USDHEW, 1979). Approximately 25% of youths in the United States leave school with neither degree nor diploma.

Who are the Drop Outsl

Who leaves school and why are critical questions for educators and policy makers. Although the answers vary by gender, race, and social class, the prevailing image of dropouts simplifies complex realities. Dropouts are presented as hopeless, inadequate, or too poorly motivated to compete in traditional academic settings. However, empirical data demonstrate that many adolescents who leave school are academically and intellectually above-average students, keenly aware of the contradic- tions between their academic learning and lived experiences, critical of the meritocratic ideology promoted in their schools, and cognizant of race/class/gender discrimination both in school and in the labor force. These dropouts are often willing to challenge authorities over a perceived injustice (Fine, 1983), and at the same time are unwilling to accommo- date to the social relationships and definitions of knowledge that schools legitimate. These forms of knowledge and social relationships which tend to reproduce the existing class structure have been termed "the hidden curriculum" of schools (Anyon, 1980; Giroux, 1983; Willis, 1977). In rejecting this hidden curriculum, dropouts in fact are resisting the dominant ideology of school and work. But their critique of schools has been unrecognized - delegitimated by the prevailing view that drop- outs are deviant, lazy, or inadequate.

A variety of contradictory views exist on who the dropouts are and what motivates their behavior. In the academic debates, Howard and Anderson (1978) note that dropouts tend to have relatively poor grades and a history of having been held back in school. Kowalski and Cangemi (1974) name "low reading ability, low IQ and low scholastic aptitude" as the primary predictors of dropping out. Yet Poole and Low (1982) find that while male dropouts have low academic potential, female dropouts have high academic potential. Richardson and Gerbach (1980), like Felice (1981), demonstrate that many black dropouts have academic ability that

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260 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

is above the mean. Lajoie and Shore (1981) report that 19% of high school dropouts can be classified as gifted. A similarly complex story emerges with theories on dropouts' moti-

vation. Beck and Muia (1980) describe dropouts as alienated and helpless, and Cervantes (1965) documents dropouts' "weak self image." However, Lajoie and Shore (1981) report that males who drop out are more asser- tive, independent, self-assured, and competitive that those who stay in school, and Fine (1983) reinforces this latter profile with her finding that males and females who ultimately drop out, compared to students who remain in school, are significantly more likely to challenge an academic injustice when in school.

If dropouts include a group who are academically capable and motivated, why do they leave school? We are told by Kowalski and Cangemi that dropouts give up because they focus on concrete needs. Others assert that dropouts may flee from failure (Beck & Muia, 1980; Cervantes, 1965). However, the data from Fine (1983) and Felice (1981) challenge these views. In both of these latter studies, Black and Hispanic dropouts called injustice and discrimination as they saw it, and were most willing to challenge it. Critical of educational practices, they also saw through the promises of employment opportunities that are sup- posed to be opened up by a high school degree. By no means helpless, these Black and Hispanic dropouts were skeptical of a system which promised occupational mobility and traditional markers of success but did not seem to deliver (Fisher, 1981; Pähl, 1978; Richardson & Gerlach, 1980).

Before we continue: we do not wish to romanticize adolescents who

leave high school before graduation. No doubt, some do feel hopeless; others may not be capable of meeting academic standards for a diploma; some are unmotivated. But neither can we neglect evidence that suggests more radical potential within many of these youths. Their critical voices within schools are obscured in educational, psychological, and sociologi- cal literature which targets the "psychological problems," "educational deficits," or "family problems" plaguing dropouts. From the margins of a system from which they have been pushed out or have been exiled, drop- outs have exposed hidden curricula, threatened hierarchical relations in schools, challenged intolerance for dissent in classrooms, and resisted the trade-off between conformity and success operating in traditional schools.

Central to any analysis of high school dropouts is the question of whether the "dropout problem" is one of individual differences and in- adequacies or one of educational and economic structures (cf. Irvine, 1979; Kaplan & Luck, 1977). One position maintains that incapable students seek their own level and drop out because of individual inade-

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 261

quacies. Another holds schools (or families) responsible. While it is safe to say that the decision to drop out of high school derives from many sources, it is clear that class domination and alienation affect students' school experiences, particularly working-class and poor youths and Blacks and Hispanics across social classes (Anyon, 1980; Fisher, 1981; Willis, 1977). Even former New York City Chancellor Frank Marchia- rolla, who rejects any analysis that social conditions can explain dropout rates, identifies the outlook for dropouts as the failure of the school system: "The alienation these kids experience is real" ( New York Times, March 14, 1981, 1:1).

It has been shown that school characteristics systematically affect dropout rates. Felice and Richardson (1977) have discovered that minority students are least likely to drop out when bused to schools of higher social class with teachers holding high expectations; they are most likely to drop out when bused into less affluent districts, encountering teachers with relatively low expectations. Carranza (1975) correlated students' dropout rates with the number of students in a class, the number of classes taught by individual teachers, and the number of teacher job moves and transfer requests. Teachers' working conditions seem to have an effect on dropout rates.

Dropouts as a group pose critical questions for educational struc- tures. By exposing contradictions in school curricula and the alleged link between schooling and jobs, dropouts make uncomfortable those educa- tors, policy makers, and business representatives who preach that hard work and academic credentials breed success. By focusing on deficits in dropouts, academic research discredits dropouts' own critical voices and obscures the racism, sexism, and classism which limit their academic and vocational lives. A similar diversion is to focus exclusively on the "failure of the family." By focusing on student and/or family deficits, the view that educational systems are "great equalizers" (Bowles & Gintis, 1976) remains intact. The view that merit alone determines suc- cess survives unchecked. But as Bowles and Gintis point out, the nature and function of schooling cannot be understood apart from the matrix of economic life, specifically the social and economic dynamics resulting in the reproduction of the labor force in school (and out). In their view schools do not help people rise but more often keep them in their places, training people to take allotted positions in a structure of inequality.

The Consequences of Dropping Out

So what happens to adolescents who drop out of high school? Do they, as often prophesized, fill welfare rolls, collect unemployment, and

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262 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

populate our nation's prisons at disproportionate rates? If not, what does become of them? In either case, do these outcomes result because these youths lack a high school diploma or because our society punishes - economically, socially, and psychologically - those individuals who reject traditional credentialing procedures? Many researchers agree with Beck and Muia (1980) that dropouts

suffer ' 'unemployment or low paying blue collar jobs, together with feel- ings of inferiority and alienation." Howard and Anderson (1978) concur:

With one-quarter of the students dropping out and the number of jobs available for unskilled persons decreasing each year while the number of people to fill them increases, it is not surprising that the unemployment rate is of national concern. . .employment rate of male dropouts is over twice the rates for male high school graduates in college, (p. 222)

Jacques (1982) writes that the Metropolitan Youth Education Center ' 'was established to offer short, job specific courses to prepare high school dropouts for immediate employment. But it soon became clear that em- ployers valued high school diplomas or GED certificates as highly as they did specialized training" (p. 136). While unemployment rates, job opportunities, income, and even

relations with family are assumed to worsen after students drop out, a close examination of the data reveals that (1) for Black and Hispanic youths, those most likely to drop out, dropping out only exacerbates un- employment rates, job opportunities, or income already extremely low, and (2) these negative consequences of dropping out are in part socially constructed by societal practices and ideologies which punish individuals who lack formal credentials. Kaplan and Luck (1977) write that dropping out is a symptom, not a cause, of an individual's economic and social difficulties. Dropping out is fundamentally rooted in material and intangible conditions of poverty" (p. 45). They argue further that a "high school diploma is worthless without racial equality." A Black with a high school degree enjoys fewer accompanying advantages than a white stu- dent with a comparable degree. A recent report demonstrates that white high school dropouts have lower unemployment rates than Blacks with some college (U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1979). It is politically and intellectually diversionary to focus exclusively on dropping out as the determinant of economic and social difficulties. Race is simply more important than a diploma in predicting econ-

omic and social opportunities (Kaplan & Luck, 1979). While the high school degree increases employment prospects for both whites and Blacks, the edge gained by a diploma is small for Blacks relative to their absolute level of adolescent unemployment. Black and Hispanic youths- particularly females- face bleak employment and income pros-

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 263

pects whether they hold a high school degree or not (Young, 1982; see T able 1 ) . White high school graduates had a 17.1% unemployment rate in October 1981, compared to 29.2% for white dropputs; Black high school graduates had a 53.5% unemployment rate compared to 71.4% for Black dropouts. There is evidence that this is a trend which has been worsening. "In 1950, more than 50% of black male teenagers were employed; by 1970, 33% were employed and by 1978, only 25% were employed" (Cogan, 1982, p. 621). The acquisition of a high school diploma does not reverse the effects of biases in education, on-the-job training, hiring, and promotion which contribute to the likelihood of being under- or unemployed (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1983).

In this context, gender operates somewhat more complexly. Females not in college and female dropouts have consistently high unemployment rates than their male counterparts. But a high school diploma "buys" more for females. Male dropouts in the group are somewhat less likely than male graduates to have white-collar jobs, more likely to have blue- collar or service jobs. In comparison, 61% of the female graduates held white-collar positions (47% clerical) vs. 25% of female dropouts; 20% of female graduates held service positions vs. 51% of female dropouts. The occupational advantages gained for females with a diploma are consider- able. It is important to note that occupational status comparisons ob- scure the fact that "white-collar" females, for example, earn signifi- cantly less than similar-status males, and often less than blue-collar males. Female graduates earn a median income of just less than 50% of

Table 1

Unemployment Ratesa for 1981 High School Graduates not in College and 1980-1981

High School Dropouts Age 16-24 Years Old

Males Females White Black

1981 High School 19.5% 23.4% 17.1% 53.5% Graduates not in College

(21.4%)

High School Students Who 29.2% 47.5% 29.2% 71.4% Dropped Out 10/80-10/81

(36.4%)

aThese are unemployment rates as percentage of civilian labor force; graduates not in college have a civilian labor force participation rate of 83.9% vs. dropouts, 63.2% (74% for male dropouts and 51.7% for female dropouts). (Young, 1982, October 1981 data)

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264 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

male dropouts, and 39% of male graduates; female dropouts earn 29% of what male graduates earn. With women earning an average of 59<t to the male dollar, with Aid

to Families with Dependent Children, CETA, and other entitlement pro- grams reduced in the federal budget (Abramovitz, 1982), and with women's unemployment rates rising faster than men's (Young, 1982) women can ill afford a further obstacle to income. At the same time, women, regardless of educational level, hold disproportionately low- paying jobs. Almost twice as high a percentage of female graduates as of male dropouts hold service positions (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1982b). The implications for "female householders" are even more staggering: while 25% of all families headed by high school drop- outs survive beneath the poverty line, 49% of families headed by a female dropout live in poverty (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1983). Dropout status indeed exacerbates gender inequities which are even more severe for minority women. In 1983, over 25% of Black and Hispanic female "householders" who have attended college still live in poverty. That years of education do not fully explain differentials in earnings was dramatized by The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights publication (November 1982) Unemployment and Underemployment Among Blacks, Hispanics and Women. This analysis yields several conclusions.

First, Black high school graduates have higher unemployment rates (25.3%) than majority males and females who drop out of high school (21.2%).

Second, at every level of education, Blacks and Hispanics have higher unemployment rates than majority males.

Third, as education years increase, white males gain significantly more per-level increase than Blacks, Hispanics, and females. According to Featherman and Hauser, women's returns on education, in 1973, were less than 40% of men's; Blacks' approximately 63% of whites. (For Black females the combina- tion is indeed grim) .

Fourth, marginal jobs, involuntary part-time work, and inequitable pay account for significantly more of the underemployment of females- especially of female graduates (over 30%)- than males.

And fifth, for the total population across race/ethnic groups, males are more likely to be considered "neither unemployed nor under- employed" than females. For Black females, only 39% fall into this category compared to 65.2% of white men.

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 265

The facts and figures compel the reader to recognize that dropout status cannot explain observed race and gender differences in hiring, promo- tions, and labor-force ghettoization.

Redeering and Cook (1980) investigated the presumption that "without a high school diploma a person is less likely to get a job" and that "the only type of job available is poorly compensated and unattrac- tive" (p. 158). They compared high school graduates with and without vocational training to dropouts with and without vocational training, on income earned and job complexity. They found that graduates and drop- outs with vocational training earned more and held more complex jobs than graduates and dropouts without vocational training ($6,732 and $6,600, respectively, vs. $5,010 and $4,236, respectively). Dropouts with no vocational training do not earn significantly less than graduates with no vocational training. The authors conclude, "It is a false assumption that all youths can profit by high school as the system currently exists. . . . Providing alternatives for a hypothetical student could actually facilitate the educational process for students who need the traditional high school program" (p. 161). It would be irresponsible not to also recognize that while race, class, and gender are very significant correlates of unemploy- ment and income, it is still true that within racial, class, and gender groups the absence of a diploma can diminish employment prospects even further.

The Critic Exiles : Dropouts in the South Bronx 1

Motivated by the continued debate about the nature and conse- quences of dropping out, we conducted a study of dropouts in the South Bronx. We were particularly interested in considering whether or not dropping out could indeed be considered an act of resistance rather than of helplessness. A group of Black and Hispanic students from the South Bronx, ranging in age from 14 to 21, were followed for one year. They included 51 females and 37 males, and 66% came from homes receiving public assistance. They scored a mean reading level of 7.8th grade. All had dropped out or been thrown out of school at least once and had been out of school for a minimum of six months. As a group they did not view dropping out as very unusual but were interested in an equivalency degree. By May, these students had fallen into three subgroups: GED (graduate equivalency diploma) recipients, students still active in school, and dropouts. From this study we hoped to learn more about the dropout as critic, and to test the stereotype of dropouts as helpless, hopeless, and depressed (Fine, 1983). After administering a battery of tests, surveys, and interviews in September, we conducted a discriminant analysis to determine who had dropped out and who stayed active by March (see Table 2).

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266 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 267

The dropouts (48% of them female) were comparable in their reading levels to students still active, and did not differ in their explanations of academic success or failure. They did not exhibit a more helpless disposi- tion, i.e., a tendency to attribute failure to personal inability and success to external causes (Dweck & Licht, 1980). Dropouts were furthermore less depressed than students still active in school. Of students in the three groups, dropouts were significantly the most likely to challenge an injustice in the classroom. Asked "What would you do if you expected an A in class and got a B?" dropouts were most likely to say "talk to teacher" or "complain" whereas still active students were more likely to say "nothing" or "teachers are always right." Finally, dropouts provided significantly the least conforming responses to a Social Desirability Scale.

What emerged is a profile of the dropout who is academically aver- age, relatively not depressed, typical in attributions of success and failure, not conforming, and most willing to resist an unjust act by a teacher. In marked contrast, the still active students parody the stereo- types of dropouts. Those still active are relatively depressed, conforming, and reluctant to take initiative on their own behalf. Are these the stu- dents who best accommodate the hidden curriculum which Giroux

(1983) describes? Are dropouts the ones who resist, as Anyon (1982) sug- gests, by challenging hierarchical authority relations in classrooms and by questioning the utility of the GED?

These data raise a number of provocative questions. We would never claim that dropouts fully recognize the hidden curriculum or fully critique the illusion of meritocracy reproduced in schools. They were nonetheless quite aware of the absence of employment opportunities for Black teens even with a GED and for many of them dropping out must be seen as an act of resistance. While dropping out is an individualistic act which will not disrupt or challenge the economic and social reality which renders a GED useless to diminish Black adolescent unemployment rates, it cannot be mistaken for an act of helplessness.

Given the prevailing myths about the causes and consequences of dropping out and the emergent profile of the dropout as critic, an important set of questions emerges about the social function of an ideology which disparages high school dropouts. It is useful to examine teacher training texts to see how dropouts are introduced to future teachers.

Future Teachers: Training Through Silence

To determine how future teachers are trained to think about the

"dropout problem," we examined 10 educational psychology textbooks, and surveyed 37 education majors about their perceptions of high school

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268 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

dropouts. Our analyses of educational psychology texts involved an avail- able sample of 10 current texts. In each we checked the index under "dropout" and under "failure." Of the 10, only 2 (20%) included any reference to dropouts. One book mentioned dropouts in the following manner:

We reject the opinion that there would not be much of a drop out problem if only teachers and schools were functioning properly.... Of course schools and teachers can do a better job, and they do bear some responsibility for pupil failure. In our view, however, students must also assume some of the responsibility of their lack of achievement. (Strom & Bernard, 1983, p. 565)

A text by Lindgren (1980) pays unusual attention to the topic. In a comprehensive review of dropout literature, Lindgren cites studies of the dropout who "is likely to have difficulty with the curriculum. Yet an uncomfortably high proportion of school leavers have above-average to superior aptitude" (p. 688). Correlating retention rates with social and economic factors, Lindgren comments that "A large number of students drop out because they come to feel further efforts are useless" (p. 689). Lindgren' s text is unusual; most teacher training texts either ignore drop- outs or portray them as demoralized and hopeless. This systematic absence of any discussion of dropouts implies that the dropout problem does not exist or is only an aberration, that dropping out is the respon- sibility of neither the school nor the teacher, and that schooling through graduation is the path to future "success." To test the perceptions of dropouts held by teachers in training, a

survey was administered to 37 undergraduate education majors at a pre- dominantly upper-middle-class urban private university. Contrary to what teacher training texts are telling them, these future teachers (male and female, ranging in age from 19 to 41 years old) do believe that there is a dropout problem (even if they claim not to know of any dropouts per- sonally), and recognize that teachers and other school personnel have a responsibility to these students. At this particular school of education, students are trained to understand the relationships between school, culture, and society. When asked what they thought could be done to prevent students from dropping out of school, many recommended liberal school-based reforms (e.g., "individual tutoring," "more supportive teachers," "greater interest in individuals," "peer group counseling," "teacher should recognize diversity of their students"). Students endorsed schooling as necessary for future success. When asked why they thought certain individuals drop out, many recognized the need for some students to make money to support a family; others blamed the individ- ual dropout ("they have no ambition," "they don't set high goals for themselves," "their values are not consistent with a good education").

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 269

Many of the student comments seem based on a stereotypic dropout. They remind us of a senior vice-president of a major corporation who, when asked how he pictured a "typical minority dropout" responded: "...a kid on a subway, smoking a cigarette, with a radio the size of a grand piano staring at me hatefully." He added apologetically, "I know thaťs not fair or accurate because I've hired many of them" ( Psychology Today, 14:06, 1980).

Conclusion

The "typical dropout" is a social construction, employed to rein- force the belief that education is the path to equal opportunity. In a capitalist society in which race, class, and gender significantly affect economic and social status, and schools are heralded as the "great equalizers" (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Ryan, 1981), dropping out is easily appropriated to legitimate discrimination against poor and working-class adolescents, especially those who are black or Hispanic and especially those who are female.

One is struck by the social construction of this stigma when Biddle et. al. (1981) find dropouts in the U.S. vs. those in Australia to be more isolated from family and report higher rates of "loafing" and problem behaviors:

The act of dropping out appears to be different depending on how the act is interpreted and structured within the society in which it occurs. Dropouts always "suffer" the loss of school experiences and must contend with filling the hours that schooling would otherwise represent but it surely makes a difference whether those hours are filled with employment, job related training, family activities, recreation, loafing or problem behavior. We suspect that some of the deleterious consequences that have been argued (or have been shown) to follow from dropping out in America reflect the daily experience of dropouts in this country rather than the act of dropping out. (p. 117).

When we consider the implications of our research, we find ourselves in a conceptual as well as a political bind. We have tried to explore the ironic tension between the ideology of the high school dropout as a ' 'loser" and the actual data indicating the dropout to be at least a resister, unwilling to accommodate to a hidden curriculum that fails to meet her or his needs, or at most an informant, aware of the contradictions of one of our major social institutions. We have found that students who drop out of high school came disproportionately from the social classes, races, and ethnic groups most alienated from schools (Fisher, 1981; National Center for Educational Statistics, 1982b). Standard curricula tend not to reflect their lived experiences, nor provide much encouragement for their

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270 BOSTON UNIVERSITY

pursuit of education. Teachers hold disproportionately low expectations and students often recognize the formal promise of mobility as an illusion.

While it may "make sense/' then, for these adolescents to leave their schools, that event is not without costs. Life without a high school diploma exacerbates the oppressive conditions affecting these youths and their kin- particularly the females. Dropping out, while not the primary cause of their difficulties, does intensify the income and employment problems they confront.

Our central argument, however, concerns the view that high school dropouts are academically and motivationally helpless and economically doomed. This belief perpetuates the notion that academic attainment is the primary predictor of economic success. Indeed, the facts and figures presented above demonstrate that gender, class, and race are better predictors of one's employment and income prospects in our culture. The belief that academic attainment breeds success, and that dropouts are helpless and doomed allows social scientists, policy makers, and govern- ment and business officials to escape responsibility for a serious problem. It lets them bemoan the "tragedy" of the high school dropout (Beck & Muia, 1980), search for individual or family deficits that will "explain" the problem, and meanwhile fail to educate future teachers about this group of youths- as if they did not exist. Schools and national jobs programs are unimplicated.

If education is presented as the path to success, dropping out can be viewed as individualistic, private, and pathological- the "wrong choice" or what happens to "bad students." The structures of our educational and economical systems are protected, if you will, from critique. Dis- crimination and biases which permeate education and support our economy are painted over with the dropout lacquer, making "individual" what are indeed structural problems.

Dropping out of high school needs be recognized not as aberrant and not as giving up. Often it voices a critique of educational and economic systems promising opportunity and mobility, delivering neither. Thus far, the critique stems disproportionately from those least likely to be heard; hence the silence in teacher training texts. But the costs endured, of course, burden the lives of those who can least afford them. As the dropout embodies the metaphor for failure, the diploma is reified as a credential of success. The credentialing function of schools is legitimated by the "tragic lives" of dropouts.

Obscured by this view are the race, class, and gender biases woven into educational institutions and labor market activities. Camouflaged by the "dropout" hysteria are the facts that Black teens with a high school diploma suffer 54% unemployment; that 20% of female high

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JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 27 1

school graduates hold service positions, and that over one-quarter of Black women "householders" with some college live beneath the poverty line. While dropping out of high school does create economic problems for many, the exploitative ideology surrounding "dropping out," like the institutions thereby protected, needs be exposed. The critics need be heard, and structural responses need to be mobilized.

Footnotes

^his study was conducted as part of a program to train and evaluate projects for "high risk" adolescents in the South Bronx and other areas of New York City. Much of this work was conducted collaboratively by a team of psychologists, edu- cators, administrators, and trainees. The Huntington Associates helped to make this research possible, in part funded by a grant from the New York Division for Youth.

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