Many young students in the Caribbean face an educational system that places them into secondary schools based upon their performance in critical competency examinations at the end of elementary school. Students who are assigned to lower tracked secondary schools or classrooms may feel their career paths and future are decided for them at the age of ten to twelve. This may be associated with increased feelings of hopelessness and depression. While academic tracking is one factor possibly associated with depressive symptoms, past research has suggested that students who reported high levels of depressive symptoms may be less motivated to achieve academically, have poorer cognitive skills [1] and have lower academic aspirations [2], all of which may lead students to be assigned to lower academic track.
The Caribbean educational system provides an ideal opportunity to examine the relationship between academic tracking and students' emotional health. In this paper we explore the research question, "what association does the highly tracked educational systems in Jamaica, St Vincent and St Kitts and Nevis have with adolescents' depressive symptoms?" While there are many different factors that are associated with depressive symptoms in adolescents, we argue that one factor may be the overt tracking of students into schools and between classrooms such that students assigned to low performing, less academically oriented schools or classrooms may experience higher levels of depressive symptoms.
In the Caribbean, low performing secondary schools are those whose students historically pass fewer critical competency examinations at the end of high school. Many countries endorse and create overt educational tracks whereby the best and brightest students are tracked into the most academically challenging classrooms and schools. Students who attend these "elite" schools often are rewarded with greater social and occupational positions in adulthood[3, 4].
Depression in high school students
Major depression was the fourth most prevalent human disease in 1990 and is expected to rank second by the year 2020 [5] based on research conducted in Europe and North America. It is the most common psychiatric disorder of European and North American adolescents [6]. Adolescent depression in these populations has been linked to psychiatric and substance abuse, unplanned pregnancy, academic and social derailment and most seriously, attempted and completed suicide [7]. Longitudinal studies of depressed European and North American adolescents have documented high rates of recurrence, a progression of the problem into chronicity and conversion into adult affective disorders [7]. Epidemiological studies of these populations suggest that female adolescents are at greater risk for developing depression, with this difference first emerging sometime around the period of mid adolescence [8]. Past research using Caribbean samples has found high levels of moderate to severe depressive symptoms among adolescents. These range from to 24.5% in St. Kitts & Nevis [9], 25.3% in Trinidad [10] to 40.6% in Jamaica [11]. These studies suggest that Caribbean adolescents tend to report moderate to severe levels of depressive symptoms at a higher rate than those reported in studies using North American and European samples [12–16].
While much research has been conducted using North American and European samples of adolescents [12–15], relatively little research has examined depressive symptoms among adolescents in the Caribbean [9, 11, 17, 18]. In contrast to North American and European societies, several factors in Caribbean society may place students at an elevated risk for experiencing depressive symptoms, including high levels of general poverty [19], high prevalence of female headed single parent families [20], and lower levels of general education [21]. The combination of these social and economic conditions may combine to create a depressogenic environment. Living under these conditions may lead youth to experience a sense of futility and hopelessness which contributes to the development of depressive symptoms.
Compounding these social, economic and personal conditions, the school systems of various Caribbean islands engage in educational practices that contribute to the social and economic differences between their citizens [3, 4]. Many countries endorse and create overt educational tracks whereby the best and brightest students are tracked into the most academically challenging classrooms and schools. Students who attend these "elite" schools often are rewarded with greater social and occupational positions in adulthood [4].
While the islands of the Caribbean share a common past and many social and economic similarities, their educational systems are distinct. In particular, each nation has chosen a slightly different approach to the educational tracking of students. The three nations that are the focus of this research have developed three different approaches to the tracking of students.
The Jamaican educational context
The Jamaican system of secondary education is highly stratified with schools divided into traditional high schools and upgraded secondary schools, paralleling Jamaica's socio-economic class differences [4, 22]. Strudwick [4] in his analysis of Jamaican secondary schools noted that few students from the lower social classes (less than 4%) attended a traditional high school, while approximately 75% of students attending traditional high schools were from the upper or middle class backgrounds. Similarly, only 33% of students attending upgraded secondary schools were from upper or middle class backgrounds.
Interestingly, while students are assigned either to a coveted traditional high school or a less prized upgraded secondary school based on their scores on an exit examination administered at the end of elementary school - The Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), this system is not a pure meritocratic system as students academic achievement is highly correlated with their social class [4]. Only students who have exceptionally high scores on the exit examination are selected for attendance in traditional high schools [23].
This assignment to schools has practical consequences for students' future opportunities. Attendance in high academic performing traditional high schools increases students' chances of obtaining high grades (e.g. A grades) on the critical competency examinations given at the end of high school (grade eleven)[4]. High grades in these exams are needed to move on to university and technical colleges which are the pathways to higher paying and more prestigious occupations [3, 4]. Consequently, students who are placed in upgraded secondary schools may be at higher risk for the development of depressive symptoms.
The educational context in St. Vincent
Similar to the Jamaican educational system, students in St. Vincent are assigned to either a traditional or upgraded secondary school based on their performance on a high school placement examination. The five hundred students with the highest test scores are given the opportunity to choose a traditional high school of their choice. All other students who score below the top 500 are placed by the Ministry of Education into a lower academically performing non-traditional government high school close to their place of residence [24].
Students who attend traditional high schools are more likely to score highly in the regional critical competency, exit examinations. In 2008 the traditional high schools had pass rates ranging from 73% to 93% while the non-traditional high schools received pass rates ranging from 37% to 60% [24]. Obtaining passes in several courses is a requirement for further education as well as securing a good job.
The educational context of high schools in St. Kitts and Nevis
Like the Jamaican and Vincentian educational systems, the school system in St Kitts and Nevis has an examination for students leaving their elementary schools and entering high schools - The Grade Six Test of Standards (GSTS) [25–27]. However, unlike Jamaica and St. Vincent this test is not used to track students into different high schools, as students from four different elementary schools feed into a single high school nearest to where they live. As such, students are tracked to classrooms within high schools rather than to high or low achieving high schools. The GSTS along with students' classroom grades in grades five and six are used to assign students into four to six academic tracks within each high school - six tracks in the larger high schools and four tracks in the smaller high schools [25]. Where students' school grades are consistent with their performance on the GSTS, the GSTS is used to assign students to a particular classroom track within their local high school. However, when students' classroom grades in grades five and six suggest they should be placed in a higher track than that suggested by the GSTS, then classroom grades are used to assign students to an academic track within their local high school [25].
The impact of academic tracking on students' achievement and adjustment
Research has recently begun to examine the relationships between academic tracking and students' academic and socio-emotional adjustment. In terms of academic achievement, there have been conflicting findings. Some studies have suggested that academic tracking may lead to increases in students' academic achievement [28, 29] while other research suggests that this may be true only for high achieving students [30, 31]. Other research has focused on the association of academic tracking to student misconduct and school violence [32, 33]. This research suggests that there may be an association between assignment to a low academic track and higher levels of self-reported reported misconduct [32, 33]. Similarly, societies which track students into high achieving or low achieving schools or classrooms have higher levels of school violence then societies which do not track students [32].
Research has examined the effect that tracking has on students' later occupational, economic and human capital. Using data from several large, international, and nationally representative surveys of European, North American, and Asian countries, Brunello and Checchi [34] found that being assigned to a low academic track reduced students' chances of being employed, their wages when employed, their occupational attainment, the probability of attendance in post-secondary education and their highest level of education [34]. Further, the longer time students were subjected to tracking the greater the negative effects for low tracked students [34]. Educational tracking was also found to combine with parental background compounding the negative effects of tracking [4, 34]. Within the Caribbean, research has suggested academic tracking to high schools is positively associated with students' later level of education, income and occupation [4].
Researchers in Great Britain [35] have studied the impact that educational setting (the rigid grouping of students to homogenous ability groups within schools) has on students' psychological and future occupational success. Boaler [35] found that rigid academic tracking had a strong, negative psychological effect on students' attitudes towards school, life and their future opportunities [35]. Students who were assigned to all but the top ability group reported they felt that their class assignment had constrained their future academic and occupational achievements as well as setting them up for low attainment in life [35]. Students assigned to low tracks reported feeling as if they had been placed in a psychological prison that limited their knowledge of their capabilities [35]. Further, the assignment to a lower academic track broke their ambition. In following up students five years after graduation, students who had attended schools that did not rigidly track students by ability levels attained significantly more prestigious jobs [35].
Rationale and hypotheses
There has been a paucity of research on depressive symptoms among Caribbean adolescents and even less on the association of academic tracking with adolescent students' emotional health in the Caribbean. The present study sampled students from various academic tracks in high schools in three Caribbean nations using a cross-sectional research design. We hypothesised that students who attended lower academic tracks in high schools would have higher levels of depressive symptoms than those in higher academic tracks. Consistent with past research, we further hypothesized that girls will report higher symptoms of depression.
