They presented on their research paper, "Timing and Turbulence: A New Look at Mobility and Dropout": We examine whether school mobility puts youth at risk for high school dropout, or whether mobility reflects underlying individual level factors. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and propensity score matching to reduce selection bias when estimating the effects of residential and school mobility in early adolescence on dropout. We provide new evidence that mobility may not lead to dropout, as previous research has concluded. Results suggest that pre-move differences, or factors that select youth into moving, account for previously cited effects of mobility on dropout. Mobile youth are already operating with many risk factors for dropout, such as economic disadvantage and lower levels of parental involvement. Mobile youth also evidence behavioral problems and prior school disengagement.

Other session participants included:  

• Making Connections: Social Networks, Elite Schools, and Residential Decision Making Among Recent Immigrants. Elliot B. Weininger, College at Brockport - SUNY; Diana Khuu, University of Pennsylvania
• Creating a Sense of Belonging Through Group Mischief: Rule-Breaking, Fitting in, and Academic Engagement. Erendira Rueda, Vassar College
• Unequal Childhoods and Unequal Adulthoods: How Class Differences in Parents’ Intervention Create Turning Points. Annette Lareau, University of Pennsylvania; Amanda Cox, Stanford University