Religious Education Commons^™

Understanding Catholic School Attrition: Catholic Elementary School Students’ And Parents’ Perceptions And Matriculation Decisions, Thomas Gasper

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

This mixed methods study shed light on the issue of attrition within Catholic education and points to opportunities for leaders to improve the effectiveness of elementary and secondary schools as well as identify barriers impacting access to poor and vulnerable populations. The purpose was to: describe factors eighth-grade Catholic school students and their parents consider in choosing a high school; determine correlations between degree of satisfaction with Catholic elementary schools and perceptions of programs in Catholic high schools; and understand the extent students’ and parents’ identified attributes corresponded to their high school selection.

Quantitative data was generated from surveys of …