“Social Promotion:” current research or findings?

During reflection on a grad school assignment about graduation rates, I kept fixating on the term “social promotion.”

Most research that is casually referenced cites the significant NEGATIVE impacts of retaining a student in later grades (middle school and beyond), and indicates little to no impact of social promotion (meaning it doesn’t help outcomes at all, but is not associated with the starkly negative outcomes of additional retentions).

HOWEVER, as I look at the research itself, it’s all pretty dated. The studies we’ve all heard of are primarily from the 80s and 90s. A rudimentary search doesn’t produce much literature on social promotion in the last 10-15 years. Is anyone here familiar with any current research on this topic? Is social promotion actually the better option, or does it just theoretically fit?

For additional context, this is something I’ve struggled with in my own position as a school admin: generally, I find retention ineffective in middle school (it’s more appropriate when students are younger and research indicates that retention in middle school has significant impact on drop out rates in high school), but there are 1-2 cases each year that I really think WOULD benefit from repeating a year of middle school. This year, I was barred from retaining ANY students in middle school, and the rationale provided was the risk of lack of completion of high school was too high. If the data indicating that risk is nearly 30 years old, is it really reflective of our current landscape?

Submitted June 29, 2022 at 12:58PM by stepinthenameofmom https://ift.tt/tckTywz