Discuss the trends, gender differences, and most frequent causes for high-school dropouts.

What will be an ideal response?

In the last half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, U.S. high school dropout rates declined. The dropout rate of Latino adolescents remains high, although it has been decreasing considerably in the twenty-first century. Gender differences in U.S. high school dropout rates have been narrowing, but males were still slightly more likely to drop out than females. Students drop out of school for school-related, economic, family-related, peer-related, and personal reasons. School-related problems are consistently associated with dropping out of school. Students from low-income families are more likely to drop out of school than those from middle-income families. Adolescents who had poor relationships with their families were more likely to drop out of high school despite doing well academically and behaviorally. Many school dropouts have friends who are also school dropouts. Approximately one-third of the girls who drop out of school do so for personal reasons, such as pregnancy or marriage.