The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of school experience of students at risk of dropping out. Early in the study, I was interested in the extent to which 9 th grade students' interest in dropping out was related to organizational justice; that is, fairness in the classroom. This study viewed organizational justice according to the concepts of procedural justice, distributive justice and interactional justice. Organizational justice refers to the extent to which people perceive organizational actions as being fair. I hypothesized that students who expressed an interest in dropping out would also report strong perceptions of unfair treatment from their teachers.
The study was concerned with students who were at risk of dropping out of school and conditions that may be associated with that decision. The condition of interest in this study was the perspective of unfairness that students may have because of treatment by their teachers.
The findings indicate that students perceive a lack of caring on the part of their teachers. High absenteeism revealed their levels of frustration. Overwhelmingly, students felt that dropping out of school would not be a good idea. Dropping out they felt would hinder their chances of getting good jobs and being educated.
