Hidden School Dropout Among Adolescents in Rural China: Individual, Parental, Peer, and School Correlates

A number of studies on rural students have addressed the issue of discernible school dropout; however, information on hidden dropout is relatively obscure. To fill this gap, this study examines the data of 2045 rural adolescents (regular students: 1770, hidden dropouts: 275) in Chinese middle schools. This study also theoretically differentiated the two groups via assessing environmental dynamics, including school, parental, and peer factors, in addition to considering the individual. We ascertained that these four domains are significant class disengagement predictors in rural adolescents. However, our results also showed that self-educational expectation, belief in the law, and positive peer relationships lost their correlative power with hidden dropout. In the individual, parental, peer, and school domains, almost all factors were significantly correlated with disengaged hidden dropout. Thus, school maladaptation, father’s alienation, and isolation in interpersonal relationships may be more important for explaining hidden school dropout. Our conclusions also credibly assert that similar analytical predictors could be applied to both actual and hidden school dropouts.