At-Risk Students

However one analyzes the frustration, behaviors, and attitudes of troubled youth and their often seemingly “aimless existence,” one fact is becoming increasingly clear. In a society undergoing a revolution in its folkways, norms, and values, its youth (quite possibly all of them to some degree) are at risk. The popular definition of students who are at risk is, by default, those students who are affected most by the risk factors. Those risk factors are low achievement, retention in grade, behavior problems, poor attendance, low socio-economic status, and attendance at schools with large numbers of poor students. All of these factors are closely related to dropping out of school, which, as it turns out, is what the at-risk label is identifying.

Extrapolating selected perceptions from the entire ...