Women, Gender, and Families of Color

Dropout and Pull-out Factors

Nationally, over a million students drop out each year from the United States K-12 public school system. Termed the “silent epidemic” (Rumberger and Rotermund 2012), dropping out of school or early school withdrawal has been stereotyped as a problem in urban schools, and with youth who are deemed to be troubled, violent, or exhibiting deviant behavior. “Dropping-out” has been defined as a long-term process of disengagement that can begin at any stage of a child’s academic career. Burrus and Roberts (2012, 3) suggest that there are warnings or risk-factors that are visible at least one year prior to a student dropping out. Warning signs can include: absenteeism, truancy, poor academic performance, behavioral issues, and home conditions. Consequently, these warning messages can be misconstrued by educators when girls of color are viewed through deficit-oriented frameworks that neglect [End Page 29] racism and sexism in how they are observed and regarded as young women in the classroom. Dropping out has also been depicted as an individualized decision that a student makes independent of school conditions. Researchers have examined through quantitative methods factors associated with early school withdrawal without exploring the spaces that students navigate on a daily basis (Glennie et al. 2012; Rumberger and Rotermund 2012). Rather, “dropouts” have been viewed as “idiosyncratic, irrational, or even pathological instead of grounding them in the social context in which they occur” (Leventhal-Weiner and Wallace 2011). Failing to consider the space (school culture, hegemony, and normalcy of racism and sexism) as contributing factors to dropping out further trivializes students’ narratives on leaving school.

Researchers have examined various in-school and out-of-school conditions that predict early school withdrawal (Disla 2003; Fine 1991; Rumberger 2011; Schargel and Smink 2014). For example, Rumberger and Lim (2008) assert that two categories are attributed to dropping out: individual and institutional characteristics. Individual characteristics include family relationships, employment, and personal reasons outside school. Institutional factors are described as teacher–student relationships, Zero Tolerance policies, interactions with school resources officers, and attending a school with limited resources. Both individual and institutional characteristics influence academic disengagement for girls of color. In From the Classroom to the Corner: Female Dropouts’ Reflections on Their School Years, Robinson (2007) suggests that female students were pushed and pulled out of school. In Robinson’s case study, she defines school push-out as “influences found within the school itself, such as interactions in the classroom with teachers and classmates, the administration, the in-school curriculum, extracurricular activities.” (3). Students were pushed out of school through formal and informal systems of marginalization that made remaining in school more arduous than leaving. In comparison to school push-out, “pull-out” factors are conditions outside school and are viewed as a result of a cost-benefit analysis (Bradley and Renzulli 2011). Youth who are pulled out of school often negotiate the long-term value of a diploma with their short-term and immediate needs to survive.

Pull-out factors have been defined as leaving school due to employment, financial instability, pregnancy, personal health concerns, familial issues, and after-effects of the criminal justice system (Doll, Eslami, and Walters 2013; Lodwick and Teske 2009). Students can be pulled out because of out-of-school stressors and family obligations. Stearns and Glennie (2006) argue [End Page 30] that pull-out theories view school as a mediating factor shaped by family responsibilities, the economy, church, and peer groups. There are multiple interacting and often oppositional factors that influence why and how students leave school. For instance, girls of color who drop out of school due to racially biased school discipline practices and policies could also encounter adverse out-of-school factors that compel them to leave the classroom. Therefore, further examination of how out-of-school conditions shape dropping out and re-engagement is needed to understand how girls of color experience early school withdrawal.

Girls of Color and Early School Withdrawal

Pregnancy is the most common reason that Latinas drop out of school at 36 percent, a rate approximately 6 percent higher than other females of color (Gándara 2015; Luttrell 2014). In Unfit Subjects: Educational Policy and the Teen Mother, Pillow (2004) explores through qualitative research how teen mothers navigated motherhood and schooling and how educational policies and practices were punitive rather than inclusive. Pillow found that “pregnancy and parenting” encouraged girls to return after dropping out, despite being marginalized by schools (118). Returners came back to school during pregnancy and after the birth. Pillow contends that “having dropped out from school once, and disenfranchised, they are now returning to school precisely because they are pregnant” (119). Comparatively, Kaplan’s research on black teen mothers analyzes the role that systemic oppression of girls across various domains (home and school) contributes to her theory of the “poverty of relationships” (1997, 11). She found that, despite the girls feeling disengaged, having poor parental interactions, and being neglected by schools, they were able to develop constructive relationships that fostered their development as young women.

Fine’s (1991) ethnographic study of black and Latin@³ students in New York examines how male and female students of color were pushed out of school through the use of teacher practices and school policies that silenced youth voices and encouraged their withdrawal. Silencing from teachers and administrators through rewards and punishments emphasized the interconnection of racism and sexism in how students experienced dropping out. Fine found that approximately one-third of students dropped out of school due to family problems, including parent relationships, pregnancy, or employment. Girls in the study who were pregnant blamed themselves and believed that they were on the “last rung” or bottom of the hierarchical ladder (116). Fine [End Page 31] contends that the girls were attempting to “position themselves with dignity in a society organized around the degradation of women, of poor people, and of people of color. . . . [They] saw themselves trapped, and yet they often granted legitimacy to precisely those social arrangements that contributed to their degradation” (116). Several girls were concerned about being pregnant and were uncertain about how to manage single motherhood with school. Still, Fine found that students attributed their social positioning as young women of color to their own “bad” decisions and found themselves “trapped,” rather than acknowledging the role of racial and gender oppression in pushing them out of the classroom.

Another study conducted by Kelly (1993) on dropping out in alternative schools examines through qualitative analysis how gender shaped early school withdrawal. Kelly found that “family complexity” influenced girls’ engagement in school due to their domestic roles at home, including raising siblings and preparing meals (158). Balancing multiple roles at home conflicted with the daily requirements of performing well academically in school. Robinson’s (2007) study on female dropouts uses feminist theory to examine pull- and push-out factors that impacted early school withdrawal. The study indicates that the girls were pulled out of school due to family problems and prostitution, and examines how stereotypical images of girls and women of color influenced their decision to drop out. Robinson argues that girls are pulled out of school due to caretaker roles, such as raising siblings, needing employment, and caring for ill parents. Additionally, girls in the study had to cope with being pregnant along with the pressures of having to seek alternative housing options while attending school.

Morris’s (2016) qualitative study on the criminalization of girls of color and school push-out examines how black girls are disproportionately disciplined and the effects of discipline policies on their placement in juvenile justice institutions. In addition to being pushed out of school, Morris found that girls were pulled out of school because of becoming pregnant and having to negotiate the pressures of being in foster care. Several of the girls described how housing instability and living in multiple foster care facilities negatively impacted their school attendance. The girls had few housing alternatives and lacked income for purchasing personal hygiene items. Morris contends that several of the girls entered into prostitution as a means of gaining financial legitimacy while still being enrolled in school. Other students discussed how motherhood influenced their academic engagement in the classroom. Although balancing parenting with school was difficult, Morris asserts that [End Page 32] many of the girls viewed their pregnancy as motivation to finish school despite negative stereotypes of teen mothers. However, Morris also found that black girls were often silenced by schools and prohibited from attending due to being pregnant. Girls who were allowed to attend school lacked child care services and in many cases repeated courses in school.

In the next section, I discuss Role-Identity Theory and Social Stress Theory as theoretical frameworks for understanding how out-of-school conditions shape the dropout and recovery experiences of girls of color in an urban school district. I discuss how racial microstressors, the various roles that girls have ascribed to them and that they performed outside school, influenced their decision to leave.

Role-Identity Theory

Urban girls of color who are labeled ”at-risk” of dropping out are often viewed by educators and schools as misfits, dangerous, or unwanted bodies that enter and exit classrooms like a revolving door. How urban girls of color are able to negotiate being labeled “at-risk” with how they are racialized in the classroom will influence their engagement in school. Students who leave school will have distinct reasons for their withdrawal that can not be completely understood without consideration of their identity as young women of color in school and as adolescents in out-of-school settings. How they manage in-school pressures with being pulled out of school will impact their sense of belonging or disengagement in the classroom. Girls of color who are negotiating two worlds—in school as students, outside school as adolescents and, in many cases as adults—will have to perform various roles that can impede their focus on school.

Flores-González (2002) used Role-Identity Theory to examine the schooling experiences of Chicano/a youth. Her examination of how black and Latin@urban youth embody particular school values, norms, and expectations is significant to understanding the paths that students take to reach graduation. Role-Identity Theory examines how individuals occupy specific roles within society, the value that is placed on their position, and their interpretation of that role. How an individual perceives of the self is dependent on their defined, perceived role and their positionality (White 2008) within the social structure. Therefore, how girls of color then acquire and perform their perceived position in racialized and gendered ways will influence how they [End Page 33] understand their gender roles in school and outside the classroom. Girls of color who are perceived as undertaking roles as caretakers and homemakers will embrace a different role orientation than females who are viewed as career professionals who work outside the home.

Flores-González categorizes Role-Identity Theory into subordinate and dominant identities on a hierarchical scale. The type of role identities that urban youth acquire are racially and ethnically situated and socially constructed. Negative representations of girls and women of color in mass media reinforce symbols of normalcy that make them more invisible and marginalized across various social institutions. Images of black and Latina women and girls as promiscuous or sexualized figures in society misrepresent their identity, body, and worth in school. For example, black girls are stereotyped as being “ghetto,” not “good girls” (Miller 2015), “jezebels” or hypersexualized and are subjugated to overt forms of criminalization. Morris (2016) contends that black girls’ identities are valued and appraised based on white middle-class norms in ways that “degrade and marginalize both their learning and their humanity” (8). In comparison, Latinas are often seen as “addictively romantic, sensual, sexual, and even exotically dangerous” (Merskin 2007, 136). Negative stereotypes and misrepresentations of girls of color in school and mass media have direct implications for how they will perceive of themselves in school and out-of-school contexts. Way et al. (2013) argue that the lens that an individual sees herself in society is rooted in stereotypes and prejudices within her environment. An individual’s identity is a result of “typologies significant to them” about their racial, ethnic, or gendered identity (409). How girls of color are able to make meaning of their role identity in out-of-school spaces is mediated by the type of daily interactions, racial microstressors, and ways they cope with pull-out factors after leaving the classroom.

Social Stress Theory and Daily Hassles

Social Stress Theory poses that examining the ways society is organized is imperative to understanding byproducts of how stress is manifested. More specifically, Social Stress Theory asserts that “disenfranchised populations might experience increased stress because of the inequalities found in the social organization in which the individual or family is embedded” (Cervantes and Cordova 2011, 337). Thus, social inequalities are embedded within the contexts that girls of color encounter and are visible through underemployment, housing discrimination, and the criminal justice system. Social stress can be reproduced through incidents or events of racial and gender [End Page 34] bias that stem from systematic inequality mitigating how women and girls of color experience society. Social stress can be produced through long-term incidences of racial injustice or through daily interactions with racial microstressors that are situated within an environment.

Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) research on the effects of social stress and coping indicate that “baseline conditions of a person’s life affect which of many transitions will be viewed and endorsed as hassles or as uplifts” (313). The authors suggest that daily hassles are events that an individual experiences that can be intimidating or distressing and that adversely affects a person’s welfare (376). Social stress is reproduced through daily hassles that are events that produce worrisome behavior or that impede on personal time. Girls of color who are pulled out of school and re-engage can be faced with a host of negative internal and external schooling conditions that can produce social stress by having to manage family responsibilities and personal obligations. Continual agitation from adverse social interactions with peers, teachers, and associations outside school can foster or disrupt students’ engagement in the classroom.

Miller and MacIntosh (1999) suggest that daily hassles are manifested through various relationships that individuals have across different settings. Research on daily hassles indicates that they are 1) reinforced through the context that an event takes place, 2) recurrent within an environment, 3) of continual emotional concern, and 4) anguish experienced in reaction to an event (ibid.). Daily hassles can act as stepping stones or as impassable hurdles that steer girls of color off track in their effort to earn a diploma. Rather than serving as short-term obstacles, they can become inescapable stressors that cannot be navigated but only endured. Moreover, daily hassles that stem from racism and sexism can produce racial microstressors that can adversely impact the schooling experiences of girls of color. Harrell (2000) contends that racial microstressors or daily hassles are “innocuous, preconscious or unconscious derogations and putdowns, can be produced in the form of interpersonal discrimination, or being treated like a stereotype” (45–46). Investigating the influence of role-strain and social stress on the dropout and re-engagement experiences of girls of color is critical to addressing how schools can adequately serve the needs of all students.

The Dropout Stigma: Racial and Gender Stereotypes of Pregnancy

The “girl with the baby” is a common depiction of females of color who drop out of school regardless of the reason associated with their withdrawal. Several girls discussed racial and gender stereotypes of Latina and black girls and how having a pregnancy status stigmatized them and shaped how they perceived of themselves as young women. Consequently, girls who participated in the study who were not mothers were still subjected to racialized misrepresentations of their identity. I asked the students if there were stereotypes or negative perceptions that their peers had about girls of color who drop out of school. Gabriella, a Latina in twelfth grade who dropped out of high school in tenth grade, responded:

There was a Dominican in my school. She ended up pregnant. And a lot of my friends were like, “Oh my goodness.” Like a lot of friends or people in general, any race, they believe that it’s mainly Spanish girls that get pregnant at a young age and have to leave school. [End Page 38]

Gabriella explains how Dominican girls that become pregnant became the poster child for teenage motherhood. She discusses how perceptions of her peers impact how girls of color who are pregnant experience school in ways that are shameful and ridiculed by other students. In Pillow’s (2004) study of teen mothers, she found that females of color who become pregnant faced various obstacles in graduating high school that white teen mothers were able to avoid. Pillow found that white females’ pregnancies often remained invisible because they were home schooled, received out-of-school tutoring, and subsequently returned after giving birth. Teen pregnancy was depicted as a “minority” issue because girls of color were overrepresented in school-based initiatives for pregnant students. Reflecting Pillow’s assertion, Gabriella highlights misconceptions about teenage pregnancy and the racialization of motherhood for girls of color.

Theresa, a black girl in eleventh grade who dropped out of high school in the tenth, similarly discussed how black girls are racialized in similar ways. She contended that black girls are stereotyped as dropping out of school due to pregnancy without consideration of the reasons associated with their withdrawal:

They [black girls] drop out, and they gotta take care of their baby.

Misrepresentations of girls of color in school have adverse implications for how students view females of color, their bodies, and how they develop a positive sense of self in school.

I also interviewed Mia, a Latina in twelfth grade. She dropped out of high school when she was pregnant with twins. Mia discussed how she responded to criticism at school:

Yeah, we made a mistake, but, you know, if a person who has a kid and still wanted to push forward . . . I don’t think no one should ever think . . . because they don’t know whose story you know now-a-days. I can look like crap one day, but you don’t know my story. So I feel like before anybody judges . . . I feel like they should have to get to know the person.

Mia spoke adamantly about expecting teen mothers and suggested that “we made a mistake.” She contended that getting pregnant was not a desirable choice at that stage of her life, but she focused on her future within the context of her resiliency.

Another student, Darri, a black girl in eleventh grade, became pregnant in middle school at the age of 13. Darri discussed how negative perceptions from peers influenced how she perceived herself as a parent: [End Page 39]

Dorothy:

Do you feel like, when you weren’t in school, a lot of people thought bad about you?

Darri:

Yes I did.

Dorothy:

Why would you say that?

Darri:

Because, like, people thought I wasn’t gonna make it and I was just gonna be a stay-at-home mom all the time.

Darri believed that her peers thought negatively about her because she was pregnant at such a young age. She said that other students believed that she would never make her way back into school. Instead, Darri’s new place would be at home without receiving a high school diploma. During the interview, Darri stated that her peers doubted her intellectual and personal worth when she left school without graduating. Still, merely focusing on teenage pregnancy as “good” or “bad” overlooks the influence of context in shaping why girls become mothers and how they can be supported during their transition into motherhood.

Dropping Out and Leaving Home: Fragmented Parent Relationships

How girls of color maintain relationships outside school with other adults including their parents impacts their ability to remain enrolled in school. Several of the girls described how fragmented relationships with their mother influenced their commitment to their education. A majority of the girls lived in single-parent households and lacked an active relationship with their father. Gabriella discussed how negative interactions with her mother led to her leaving home and school.

I lived with my mom mainly my whole life through school. This year, senior year, it’s basically, we went into a conflict and I just left. She kicked me out of the house. I told her that—it was getting so heated . . . I told her that once I go to . . . once I applied to college, I am going to live at the dorm. She said, “No, get out now!” So I had to move out. So I moved out . . . I moved into my aunt’s house, which is her sister.

Now kids like me . . . it was . . . the negative environment for me was my house. There were days, like, I didn’t want to even get up. Like, not even to, like, shop or go to school . . . nothing. Everything was . . . all my interests [were] just basically I don’t want to do anything. I don’t even want to live. Because it was just too much for me; it was like problems in home and in school. That’s why I was like, why should I be in school? Like I don’t get free . . . like not even at home I’d get a break from drama. I don’t even get a break in school. [End Page 40]

Instead of focusing on her senior year of high school, Gabriella was moving from her mother’s house to live with her aunt. During the school year, Gabriella moved in and out of her mother’s house on various occasions. This resulted in her feeling emotionally and physically drained, and she contemplated suicide after being hospitalized for depression. Research suggests that low-income youth who have high rates of mobility are more likely to experience a series of negative outcomes (Gasper, DeLuca, and Esacion 2011). For example, students who have high rates of school mobility are more prone to have poor academic performance and increased levels of disengagement. However, students in this study had high rates of housing instability rather than school mobility. Several of the girls were transient between various homes but remained at the same school. For Gabriella, having to move constantly from her mother’s house to her aunt’s residence caused her to be in a cyclical state of transition. She was managing various role orientations within two separate households while attempting to remain in school. Gabriella was trying to negotiate numerous social stressors including depression, a strained relationship with her mother, and attempting to meet academic requirements. Ultimately, she became disengaged in school, dropped out, and began receiving treatment for her depression.

Similar to Gabriella, eleventh-graders Taya and Kara mentioned how having a strained relationship with their mothers resulted in them leaving home and subsequently dropping out. Taya is black, and Kara is Puerto Rican:

Taya:

I lived with my mom for a little while. My brother he wasn’t around . . . he was locked up . . . and my sister she lived on her own; she had her kids, and so she left. So I was really by myself. But me and my mother didn’t really agree on a lot of things . . . so I left my house when I was 16. I didn’t live with my mom; I lived with my aunt.

Kara:

I stay with my mom and my boyfriend because . . . I . . . really get frustrated being at my mom’s house and . . . the way how she is . . . irks me so . . . you know? When she gets in her moments I be like . . . you know what, I’m leaving . . . I can’t be here . . . and I leave.

Taya and Kara had social stressors at home that intensified when they moved from house to house. For example, Taya and Kara lived in a single-parent household and had unstable relationships with their mothers. Taya lived with her mother but felt that she was alone. Confrontations with her mom led to her moving out of the house at 16 years old to live with her aunt. Taya believed that she would get along better with her mother if she were [End Page 41] in another environment. Kara also had problems with her mother, but it resulted in her living at two residences. Kara, however, had a unique housing situation because she lived with her mother occasionally. When Kara and her mother would have disagreements, she would live with her boyfriend until things cooled down.

Taya described why she had a negative relationship with her mother:

Taya:

My mother put me through a lot! Like . . . she . . . I just had a rough life with my mom. My father died when I was eight and like . . . basically I blame her . . . like I don’t blame her, but like she moved me out of Roswell.

Taya expressed resentment toward her mother. During the interview, she was often unsure of how to express her feelings and what to say about their relationship. Taya mentioned how she would blame her mother for her father’s death, although she did not want to talk about what exactly happened. Taya believed that her mother put her in various stressful situations as a child, and this intensified after they moved out of Roswell to attend a school in another district. After moving, Taya was jumped at school for identifying as a LGBT student. She expressed anger toward her mom for some of the events that happened during her adolescence. The type of relationships that students have with their parents can be one of support or of discord. Their ability to manage these types of interactions is important to how they communicate with other adults and impacts their decision to remain in school.

Returning to School: Motherhood and a Lack of Resources

A major category that emerged from the girls’ narratives is how they negotiated the responsibilities and social stigmas of motherhood after returning to school. This finding will focus on two girls who participated in the study and were pregnant at different stages in their school careers. Mia explained, “I had problems staying in an actual high school because I had kids. They told me, they needed me to be in school. . . . I was unable to be there.” Mia struggled with negotiating daily obligations of being a student and being a mother of two small children:

Dorothy:

How was that having kids but then also trying to go to school?

Mia:

It is a struggle because you have to find day care. You have to find a school that has the right hours, if they can make it. You have to find a way to transportation. So it took a good eight months just to find a way back into school.

Dorothy:

Why do you think it took like that long? [End Page 42]

Mia:

Because my kids were newborns . . . and I wasn’t comfortable leaving them in daycare. And then there was one daycare I had trouble with, so I had to transfer them to another daycare because one daycare was really messing with my kids’ stuff, so I was like, “Oh, I gotta transfer “. . . and then the other daycare had different hours, different rules, and stuff like that.

Mia discussed how having a lack of childcare options and transportation influenced her decision to drop out of school. Mia described the inherent value that she placed on her children’s needs and welfare as primary and attending school as secondary. She explained that locating daycare with acceptable days and times was challenging because she had to determine how to transport herself and her children to school. Her main forms of transportation were the subway and the city bus. Mia’s assertion that going to school is a “struggle because you have to find daycare” speaks to the importance of childcare services for teen mothers to finish their education while caring for their children. Although staying at home with newborns may have been more desirable for Mia, her role as a mother and student overlapped in the time, space, and the energy required to be able to manage both worlds.

In another interview, Darri explained why she left school:

Dorothy:

Why did you end up leaving school?

Darri:

Due to pregnancy and . . . feeling not . . . feeling like I’m not like everyone else basically . . . yeah. I felt abnormal, and I just wanted to be pregnant, I guess.

Dorothy:

You said you feel like you weren’t normal?

Darri:

Because other youth girls were like doing things . . . ya know, with their lives . . . and . . . I was pregnant, and I didn’t really do much.

Dorothy:

How would you describe being pregnant?

Darri:

Overwhelming.

Dorothy:

Why would you say that?

Darri:

It’s like numerous things you have to do . . . you have to be really ready . . . and you have to have, like, your focus on school and you have to also focus on that . . . you’re about to have a baby and stuff like that. . . and it’s really hard!

During the initial part of the interview, Darri expressed that she felt depressed from being pregnant and having to negotiate school responsibilities. Her comments illustrate how she experienced role strain and the difficulties of balancing her student role with parenthood. Performing these multiple roles was challenging because the responsibilities of motherhood increased her level of social stress and daily hassles outside the classroom. When recalling being pregnant in middle school, Darri described how she felt “abnormal” [End Page 43] and out of place. This is symbolic of how girls can internalize negative stigmas about their identity as young women, girls of color, and mothers. Additionally, Darri explained the challenges of locating resources during her pregnancy.

Darri:

Umm . . . ‘cause I was just . . . I was 13 . . . I didn’t know what next steps . . . what next step to take . . . so . . . it was just very confusing for me.

Darri discussed how balancing the student role with motherhood can be challenging for girls who are not provided resources and information to assist them. Darri believed that she had few opportunities and supportive structures to help her with her baby, and she expressed uncertainty about the process for requesting assistance at school. She previously stated that her pregnancy made her feel embarrassed and isolated. Lacking adequate information about school options can leave teenage mothers confused and ill-equipped to care for their children adequately while attending school. In addition to balancing motherhood with the student role, many of the students explained how girls of color who are pregnant have to battle pre-existing negative stereotypes about why females of color drop out of school.

Despite Darri’s and Mia’s struggles to balance motherhood with parenting, both students returned to the classroom to pursue a high school diploma. Mia discussed why she returned to school, despite struggling to find child care and having to miss school:

Yeah, so I felt really proud of myself that I went back to school. I’m graduating in June if I pass these three classes in time, so I feel really good. One of them [a friend] is on their way now, and then the other one is coming tomorrow to finish coming to school. And, like, they dropped out in 8th grade, so it’s, like, you know. . . . We all had kids. So, that kind of, like . . . we had to pause, and we had to miss days because of appointments [because the] kids are sick. So, like, I feel like we shouldn’t have to rely on the government to support us. I feel like, if we all finish school, it would feel good to actually, like, get an apartment . . . through us. Like yeah . . . we did that! You know? I don’t think none of us should have to worry about they need to do this or they’re gonna take away this. I feel like we did it. We don’t have to worry about nobody taking it away because we did that. We worked for it, you know? So now I just feel like, if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Mia’s comments demonstrate how the high school diploma is viewed as a valuable commodity for students even after they leave the classroom and illustrates the intersection of race, gender, and social class in structuring the re-enrollment experiences of girls of color. Mia expressed concern about [End Page 44] having to rely on government assistance, because she lived in a housing project and stated during the interview that it made her feel “less than.” She expressed a keen interest in having independence and self-sufficiency that would allow her to care for her children without public assistance.

Darri also explained why she returned:

Darri:

Umm . . . for my son and also for myself and for my brother . . . ‘cause they inspire me, and I just wanna stay motivated. I can still achieve my goals.

Motivation is a factor associated with returning to school after dropping out (Iachini et al. 2013). Despite having a lack of resources, Darri’s and Mia’s comments illustrate how motherhood was a protective factor that encouraged them to return to school after leaving.