A survey of 168 American Indian (primarily Navajo) high school seniors in New Mexico examined experiences with alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs; sources of information about these substances; and student attitudes, perceptions of risk, perceptions of parent attitudes, and reasons for not using. Implications for drug education are discussed. (SV)

Describes the planning and integration of the Earthkeepers Programme into the curriculum at Orchard Park Secondary School, Ontario. Benefits included student development of community skills and relationships with the natural world, as well as leadership and responsibility through cross-age teaching of elementary students by high school seniors.…

Describes in detail the four sessions of a pre-college technology seminar designed to upgrade high school seniors' skills and give them confidence as they enter college. Critical areas addressed are search strategies, college online catalogs, database selection, and evaluation of Web sites. (AEF)

Looked beyond socioeconomic indicators to seek underlying influences on rural high school seniors' dropout/completion decisions. Data came from school records and student surveys. Students were grouped by gender, and variables of Everett's (1996) model were analyzed. The predictor model for males had a 88.89 percent correct classification rate.…

The author talks about graduation ceremonies getting out of hand, wherein graduates misbehave and act without proper decorum. Here, she presents the graduation ceremony at Plainfield High School as an example, when students bounced inflated condoms among their ranks. News of the resulting chaos was plastered in headlines in Chicago-area…

A joint study by Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has shed new light on the role of Hispanic parents in their child's education and shattered the myth that Latino parents have minimal educational aspirations for their children. Released in June, With Diploma in Hand: Hispanic High School Seniors Talk…

Twenty-six work-bound, college-able, rural high school seniors were interviewed regarding their post-high-school aspirations, their views of the transitions associated with leaving high school, and the processes by which they came to think of themselves as work-bound. One of several emergent themes is presented: students' perspectives of the real…

Faced with a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state higher education officials are trying to relieve the burden on the state by redirecting several thousand high school seniors from California's public four-year universities to community colleges for their first two years of school. The California effort emerges…

Substantial research demonstrate that high school graduates are not being prepared to succeed. There are gaps between the education received in high school and the overall skills, abilities and work habits needed for the demands of postsecondary education and the workforce. Seventy-six percent of employers in Arkansas state that less than half of…

This article examines themes of academic resilience in the descriptions of academic achievement by three students at Benjamin High School, one of the least affluent high schools in Bayside, Florida. Through ethnographically informed interviews conducted during their senior year, coherent themes emerge that provide insight into these students'…

The aim of this study was to examine the roles of sense of belonging and gender in the academic outcomes of urban, Latino adolescents. It was expected that sense of belonging would play a different role in males' and females' academic adjustment. Participants (N = 143) included mostly Mexican and Puerto Rican seniors from a large, urban high…

Despite reforms that argue for parental participation in schools, little is known about parents' and teachers' views on curriculum issues. This paper presents findings of a case study of a suburban high school that identified parents' perceptions of what constitutes the "ideal" English curriculum for today's high school seniors, and compared…

Career education programs, such as co-operative education, have been shown to influence career development. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether secondary school co-operative education had the benefit of enhanced career maturity, as measured by the Career Development Inventory. An experimental design called the Solomon four-group…

The Appalachian Access and Success Project analyzed the barriers to and influences on access to higher education in the 29-county area of Ohio Appalachia. The research attempted to identify possible points of intervention to improve access rates for high school students entering 2- and 4-year colleges in the region. Surveys of 1,553 high school…

This book examines a national sample of high school seniors, some of whom went on to college and some of whom did not. The focus is on how college actually impacted these students' attitudes and values, social and political participation, conceptions of self, and responses to college. Chapter 1 discusses the methods and data for the study. Chapter…