ABSTRACT
Defining who is and who is not a dropout is complicated by the lack of common agreement even among educators and other youth professionals about what constitutes dropping out. Much of what is known about why youth drop out of school comes from national surveys of youth dropouts within 2 years of leaving school. The National Educational Longitudinal Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics tracked the number of dropouts from an eighth-grade cohort in 1988 throughout a 4-year period. Some theories and research on dropping out have focused on developmental causes, particularly the formation of a sense of self and how schooling experiences and institutional factors can thwart this for some youth. To some degree, potential and actual dropouts act on their role as students and the opportunities and constraints of this role in their deliberate or evolving choice to quit school without graduating.
