EARLY SCHOOL LEAVERS IN BELIZE: PERSPECTIVES ON SCHOOL EXPERIENCES, THE PURPOSE OF SCHOOL AND WHY THEY LEFT by Bevin Etheridge A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction Boise State University December 2015 © 2015 Bevin Etheridge ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE COLLEGE DEFENSE COMMITTEE AND FINAL READING APPROVALS of the dissertation submitted by Bevin Etheridge Dissertation Title: Early School Leavers in Belize: Perspectives on School Experiences, the Purpose of School and Why They Left Date of Final Oral Examination: 28 October 2015 The following individuals read and discussed the dissertation submitted by student Bevin Etheridge, and they evaluated her presentation and response to questions during the final oral examination. They found that the student passed the final oral examination. Jennifer Snow, Ph.D. Co-Chair, Supervisory Committee Richard Osguthorpe, Ph.D. Co-Chair, Supervisory Committee Scott Willison, Ph.D. Member, Supervisory Committee Sara Fry, Ph.D. Member, Supervisory Committee David Gabbard, Ed.D. Member, Supervisory Committee The final reading approval of the dissertation was granted by Jennifer Snow, Ph.D., Co-Chair of the Supervisory Committee, and Richard Osguthorpe, Ph.D., Co-Chair of the Supervisory Committee. The dissertation was approved for the Graduate College by John R. Pelton, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate College. DEDICATION This work is dedicated to the early school leavers who inspired this research. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am forever grateful to all of the people that encouraged and inspired me as I worked on this dissertation. First, I want to thank the participants who were willing to spend their time with me, sharing and reflecting on their own experiences. I have learned a lot from them, and I hope that this work will allow others to do so as well. I thank them for their generosity and their courage to explore their own beliefs, experiences, and events in their lives with me. This work would not have been possible without them. I truly hope that it can serve a purpose and bring awareness to the importance of students and early school leavers’ perspectives. I could not have done this without the support, encouragement, and constructive criticism of my committee. I want to especially thank my co-chairs, Dr. Jennifer Snow and Dr. Richard Osguthorpe, who helped me to shape this project from the beginning. Because of their patience and willingness to explore ideas with me, I was able to embark upon this research. Along the way, their encouragement and feedback helped keep me going and I am truly indebted to both of them for their time and careful attention to this project. I also want to thank the rest of my committee – Dr. Sara Fry, Dr. Scott Willison, and Dr. David Gabbard, for their comments and insights. All of you provided me with new ideas and avenues to explore and I thank you for that! Others inspired me and made opportunities available for me that eventually led to this research focus. I want to thank Dr. Bill Parrett for giving me the opportunity to work with him to organize the international visit of teachers from the northwest to Belize. v Both Dr. Parrett and Dr. Kathleen Budge took time to think about and discuss ideas for this project from the beginning. I want to thank those who have given me opportunities to work in education, have worked with me in some capacity in Belize, or have simply been willing to dialogue about the project, all opportunities that have helped me in this research: Victor Pott, all of the staff and students at “PHS,” Michelle Murray, Dr. Eve Aird, Dr. Filiberto Penados, and Dr. Ellajean Gillett. I especially want to thank Dr. Roberto Bahruth for inspiring me to begin the educational journey again, and unbeknownst to him, Dr. Stan Steiner, for simply saying in passing, “You should apply to our Doctorate program.” Sometimes small gestures of encouragement are all that it takes to get the ball rolling. I am also indebted to my professors at the University of Chicago, who shared with me new ways of seeing and making sense of the world. Marshall Sahlins and his “Systems” class influenced the way I see and read everything. I also want to thank a few professors who helped me immensely during the time that I worked with them: Jean Comaroff, John Kelly, Alan Kolata, Phil Kohl, Ed Schortman, Pat Urban, and the late Annemarie Shimony. My heart goes out to all of my family and friends who have been more than supportive and understanding—I couldn’t have done this without you! vi ABSTRACT The research herein focuses on how early school leavers described why they left school, their school experiences, and their beliefs about school’s purpose in their lives. This interpretive, multiple case study is based on 21 semi-structured interviews with early school leavers, a Likert-scale survey generated from the themes that emerged in the interviews, as well as national and school policy documents, evaluative reports on education and social issues, and various media pertaining to youth and education (Stake, 2005a). In order to understand the perspectives of participants, I tie them into the larger sociocultural, historical, and economic context. Although secondary education can be a financial burden for many Belizeans, the findings show that school became financially inaccessible for only a minority of participants. For the rest, issues of affordability combined with a particular trajectory of disengagement often informed other more primary reasons for leaving. Most participants were either excluded by school policies or left because of experiences within school, often culminating in a final event of leaving. Both participants’ lived experiences of social inequalities within schools, as well as their own “coming of age” outside of schools, reflected in themes such as motherhood, pregnancy and living with a partner, often led to their leaving school early. Themes herein are situated in Smyth and Hattam’s (2004) recognition that adolescents often experience two strands of identity formation, which they call “becoming somebody.” These ongoing processes of identity formation focus both on forming a sociocultural identity and on transitioning to economic vii independence. As the findings herein show, these strands of becoming somebody often clashed with the specific ways, through school practices and policies, schools set about “making somebody.” Beliefs about both the legitimacy of a school and the utility of the diploma in helping one navigate the transition from school to work figured prominently. These beliefs reflected both the colonial legacy of an unequal secondary school system, as well as perceptions of the current socioeconomic realities, in this case influenced heavily by a local economy based primarily on tourism. Participants’ assessments of the way one attains a certain type of job, largely based on either social capital or a much higher degree, diminished the value of a high school diploma as a terminal degree. These findings illustrate the need to give priority to the commonly silenced perspectives of early school leavers as a way to understand how they experience school and how they think about and negotiate the school to work transition. Furthermore, this research demonstrates that early school leaving must be looked at, as Erickson (1987) discussed, as “co-constructed.” Leaving school early was not something that participants did on their own, but rather schools - their policies and practices, often resulted in excluding the same students whom they sought to serve. Both the schools and the perspectives of early school leavers reflect the larger historical, sociocultural, and economic forces of which they are a part. As this research indicates, taking the larger context into account is necessary to gain a better understanding of the questions investigated herein. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ......................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................ xvii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 Research Focus and Questions ...................................................................................... 5 Defining the Scope of the Research .............................................................................. 7 Brief Introduction to Belize .......................................................................................... 8 Geography ....................................................................................................... 10 Population and Ethnic Diversity ..................................................................... 10 Linguistic and Religious Diversity ................................................................. 12 Political Economy ........................................................................................... 13 Poverty, Unemployment and Crime ............................................................... 14 The Educational System of Belize .............................................................................