Exploring the Influence of School and Community Relationships on the Performance of Aboriginal Stude

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Exploring the Influence of School and Community
Relationships on the Performance of Aboriginal
Students in British Columbia Public Schools
Findings from PhD Dissertation Cheryl Aman
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The Research Story

• Differences in school trajectories of Aboriginal
  and non-Aboriginal student groups.
• Differences across time, across communities and
  across schools.
• ACCOUNTING FOR VARIABILITY

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3-Dimensional Data Set
1.5 million students (10 Aboriginal)
13 years
60 School Districts, 525 High schools 200
Communities
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Additional DataSES Community Context

• Statistics Canada
• Unemployment Rate
• Proportion of families living under
• 20K
• Education attainment (proportion less than high
  school)
• Average Income
• 2-mile radius

• Community Social
• Deprivation Index
• Aboriginal Community
• NonAboriginal Community
• LHA

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Longitudinal Cohort Design
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
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Graduation Dates and Grade levels by Year
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Graduation Dates and Grade levels by Year
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Graduation Dates and Grade levels by Year
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Schools by Year
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Additional Student-Level Variables

• 6-year completion, or graduation
• School Attrition
• School Interruption
• Number of High Schools Attended
• Within-District or Out-of-District School Change
• Total years identifying as Aboriginal or Band
  Status
• Total years enrolled in Aboriginal cultural,
  academic support, or other school programs
• Total years in BC public school system

AGGREGATION TO THE SCHOOL LEVEL to investigate
school differences
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Data Exploration

• Time series to see school rates change over time
• Trend lines to show direction of change
• Correlation of change to time to estimate
  strength of the trend
• Confidence Intervals to see whether school-level
  rates are different
• Regression to show strength and direction of
  association of variables
• HLM in recognition of the nested structure of the
  data.

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DISSERTATION Observations

• Student Level
• Numbers of Aboriginal students over time
• Graduation rates over time
• Band student graduation rate over time
• School attrition rates over time
• Band student attrition over time
• Aboriginal grade to grade attrition rates differ
  from Non-Aboriginal
• Aboriginal grade to grade transition rates differ
  from Non-Aboriginal
• Aboriginal school interruption rates differ from
  Non-Aboriginal
• Aboriginal Secondary Ungraded rates differ from
  Non-Aboriginal
• Band student and Non-Band student differences in
  years enrolled in Aboriginal programs

• School Level
• Variability of graduation rates of Aboriginal
  and NonAboriginal students across BC
• Positive and negative trends in Aboriginal
  graduation at school level over time
• Association of community SES and Aboriginal
  graduation
• Variability of proportion of Band students, Non
  Band students to Non-Aboriginal students across
  BC.
• Within school differences of Band student
  completion and Non-Band student completion
• Association with community SES with mobility and
  graduation rate
• Variability of mobility within population centres
  

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Differences in School OutcomesAboriginal
students compared to Non-Aboriginal students

• School Attrition 13 vs. 5
• Grade to grade transition 60 vs. 87
• High School Interruption 15 vs. 2
• Secondary Ungraded Status 13 vs. 2

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Looking at Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal
differences across Schools
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Outliers of Aboriginal Graduation
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EXAMPLE Differences over Schools over Years
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Outliers Over Similar Community Context
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Differences between Non-Band and Band Aboriginal
Students

• It appears that Aboriginal graduation rates
  are improving province-wide over time.

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Non-Band and Band Students Cohort Completion at
the School-level
NonBand Students Band students
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Look More Closely at the Churn
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How mobile are students?
Where is the mobility located?
Do mobile students graduate?
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20 of Aboriginal Students moved School Districts
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Some School Districts Have High Rates of Students
Leaving and Arriving
Terrace
Nisgaá
Prince Rupert
Prince George
Cariboo -Chilcotin
Kamloops
Gold Trail
Vancouver AREA
Victoria
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Many Aboriginal Students moved to School
Districts in the lower mainland
Vancouver
New West
Chilliwack
Surrey
Abbotsford
VICTORIA
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SCHOOL PATHS OF 4 ABORIGINAL STUDENTS
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Differences of Aboriginal Mobility rates across 3
Vancouver schools
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Do mobile kids graduate?
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Type of Student Mobility and Graduation
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Type of Student Mobility and Graduation
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Differences in School Histories

• School change (or student mobility) associated
  with school completion

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Accounting for Variability in Aboriginal
Graduation across BC Schools over Time
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Accounting for Variability in a 3-Level (Nested)
Data Set
1.5 million students (10 Aboriginal)
103 High schools of different SES contexts
13 years
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Explanatory Model

• Expected graduation diminishes by 16 if students
  are mobile across districts,
• Diminishes by 17 if students are Aboriginal,
• Diminishes an additional 16 if students are Band
  status students,
• Diminishes an additional 5 if Aboriginal
  students attend a low SES school, (per 10
  increase of low income families)
• But, Aboriginal graduation increases by 2 in
  schools where there are higher proportions of
  Aboriginal students (per 10 increase in
  Aboriginal school population)

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Explanatory Model
The proportion of the variance of Aboriginal
graduation rates across schools accounted for is
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