Who drops out of and who continues high school? A 20 year follow-up of Black urban youth. 

by Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne. Guo, Guang. Furstenberg, Frank F .

Journal of Research on Adolescence. Vol 3(3), 1993, 271-294.

Explored the antecedents of dropping out of high school and continuing beyond high school in a 20-yr follow-up of the first-born children of about 250 Black teenage mothers who gave birth in the late 1960s in Baltimore. In 1988, the first-born children (mean age 19 yrs) of the teenage mothers were making the transition to young adulthood. 37% had dropped out of school, 46% had completed high school, and 17% had gone on for postsecondary school education. Number of years the father was present, high maternal educational aspirations in the child's first year of life, being prepared for school, and not repeating a grade during elementary school were predictive of completing high school. Few years on welfare, high preschool cognitive ability, attendance in preschool, and no grade failure in elementary school were predictive of continuing beyond high school.