Cultivating the Arctic’s Most Valuable Resource: An Analysis of Barriers to High School Completion Among Inuit Youth in Nunavut

• Main Author: Manish P
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Analysis of Education; Public Policy ∗Department of Economics; The University of Winnipeg; 515 Portage Avenue; Nunavut; inuit
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.662.9701; http://www.csls.ca/events/cea2014/cea-papers-2014-pandey.pdf

This paper discusses the results of a survey on the high school experience of youth in 5 Nunavut communities. The survey consisted of personal interviews with youth cur-rently in high school and with individuals that have dropped out of high school. Youth were asked about their attendance at school, resources at school, their home life and peers and their personal wellness. While the existing literature has, qualitatively, iden-tified important mechanisms leading to early high school exit in Nunavut communities, our data allows us to quantify the relative importance of the various factors influencing high school dropout rates for youth living in Nunavut. The variable most associated with youth in school thinking about dropping out of school is alcohol consumption- a student who drinks is 25 % more likely to think of dropping out relative to a student who does not drink. For the out-of-school sample, we investigated factors associated with dropping out of school (as opposed to graduating from high school). We find that a youth whose friends dropped out of school is 20 % more likely to have dropped out of school. A parent’s attitude toward schooling, education level and occupational status have an impact on a number of different aspects of a child’s likelihood of dropping out. A youth’s awareness of the economic returns to education also appears important for high school completion. We discuss potential policy implications of these results.