Positive Educational Outcomes among School-Age Mothers.

Due to the unusually high number of adolescent mothers in the United States, public concern surrounding the issue of teenage motherhood has accelerated. In order to understand this birth trend, an ecological framework which considers multiple aspects of the lives of teenage mothers is presented here. The study, which uses the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88), identifies characteristics measured at the family, individual, and school levels and which are associated with positive educational outcomes. The models suggest some buffering factors associated with positive educational outcomes among school-age mothers; the data indicate that 49.4 percent of teen mothers had dropped out by the equivalent of the twelfth grade. The main family background characteristics that the models revealed included race\ethnicity (African-American teen mothers are more likely to be enrolled in high school or in an alternative program than are whites); family structure (living with two biological parents in eighth grade is associated with a greater likelihood of staying in school); and location (mothers in the eighth grade in central city schools or in the South were less likely to be enrolled in school than to drop out of school). Models describe different characteristics of mothers in school, in an alternative program, out of school, and a control group. (EMK)