Drugs And Dropouts PDF Download

The study reported in this document is a follow-up to earlier reviews of drugs and other youth problems. It addressed the current status of and the recent trends in teenage drug use, pregnancy, and dropping out of school, and the post-1987 research about the relationship between teenage drug use and either pregnancy or dropping out. Statistics from public and private agencies were evaluated to describe trends in basic rates of these behaviors. Although the data on teenage drug use displayed a downward trend, reporting problems and estimating errors hindered their interpretation. It seems unlikely that actual drug use has risen between 1979 and 1988 among youths overall, or among individual racial or ethnic groups. The 1985 data on teenage pregnancy indicated large disparities in the pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates for women 15 to 19 years of age, while nonWhite and Hispanic teenagers appeared much more likely to become pregnant. Research on dropouts indicated that teenagers were leaving school less frequently than in the past. Also, Black students had substantially decreased the gap between their dropout rates and those of White students. Hispanics and Native Americans continued to drop out of school at rates considerably higher than those of White or Black students.