Moving Forward: Examining the Success Characteristics Influencing the Academic Achievement of Hispanic Male Teens to Complete a High School Education

Those researching the high school academic achievement of Hispanic male teens in the United States will discover that there is very little significant research identifying the positive factors that helped those who graduated from high school on time. Because of this lack of data, the purpose of this study is to broaden the research that potentially identifies the best practices of those Hispanic male teens that academically succeeded in graduating from high school and those support systems that assisted them in achieving their academic goal. This study was guided by (a) identifying the positive characteristics that influenced the academic achievement of Hispanic male teens as perceived by students, parents, teachers and administrative staff; (b) identify and compare the positive characteristic found in the national studies with those found in the City of Milwaukee; (c) compare and contrast the data revealed through the interview process with students, parents and teachers. The results from this mixed methods study (survey and interviews) identifies five positive characteristics that assist in identifying and confirming factors that other national studies have also found to be consistent with the available research. Further, the data obtained from this study represent creating possible interventions to improve the academic achievement of those students considered at risk. The data presented within this research reflects a segment of the larger population of those Hispanic male teens in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin community. By utilizing data that may be somewhat familiar from other studies, the all-important focus was on the common threads that help the students develop resilience to maintain their goal of moving forward to graduate from high school