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These tandem papers – authored by Niels-Hugo Blunch and Craig Gundersen, Thomas Kelly, and Kyle Jemison – add to a long line of work that identifies the features of childhood and family that influence youngsters’ propensity to enter and stay in school. What's intriguing from the start of both reports is the variability in conditions in which children are growing up, evident in both Ghana and Zimbabwe. In these societies, between one-sixth and one-fifth of children, roughly between the ages of 6 and 16 years, are not attending school.

We examine the effect of orphan status on school enrollment in Zimbabwe, a country strongly impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with a rapidly growing population of orphans. Using data from 2002, after controlling for other determinants of enrollment we find that orphans are less likely to attend school than non-orphans. Two additional results have implications for targeting: we find that the effect of being an orphan is especially large for older children and that, after controlling for previous education, the effect of being an orphan on school enrollment sharply declines.

Recognizing the effects of dropping out of high school on society, several questions still remain: (a) Why do urban, African American male students drop out of high school? and (b) What makes these students more prone to dropping out than their counterparts who remain in school? In an attempt to better understand the lives and circumstances of African American males, this study uses a comparative case method to examine similarities and differences in the life histories of a matched sample of African American male high school graduates and dropouts. This study, specifically, focuses on how the interrelated factors of family, neighborhood, peers, and education may shape these youths’ perspective on school. Findings reveal that, while both groups experience high levels of risk factors, high school dropouts had significantly more risk experiences in the family, community, and criminal justice domains. The dropouts also had fewer protective factors in these domain areas. Based on the findings, recommendations are offered.

Emily Hannum is Assistant Professor of Sociology and (by courtesy) Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on education, poverty, and social inequality, particularly in China. Recent publications include “Market Transition, Educational Disparities, and Family Strategies in Rural China: New Evidence on Gender Stratification and Development” (Demography, 2005) and “Global Educational Expansion and Socio-Economic Development: An Assessment of Findings from the Social Sciences” (with Claudia Buchmann, World Development, 2005). With Albert Park, she co-directs the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, a longitudinal study that investigates family, school, and community factors that support children's education and healthy development in rural Northwest China.