This Chapter reviews 26 empirical studies, done between 1980 and 2004, focused on Out of School Youths in Jamaica. The areas covered by these studies were:

Determinants of Schooling in Jamaica and Dropout

Formal and Non-formal education programs for out of school youths

Drug Usage and Abuse

Youths and the Labor Market

Adolescent Sexuality and Fertility

Street Children and programs and projects addressing some of their needs

The author makes comments on each set of studies but takes a particular interest of the findings of studies done in vocational training as well as findings on gender patterns which are not consistent with conventional patterns and seem to operate in reverse at the top and bottom of the social hierarchy of Jamaican society. Miller claims that the gender patterns found are consistent with the analysis of Jamaican society from the perspective of the Theory of Place.

(1999) In Caribbean Adolescents and Youth: Contemporary Issues in Personality Development and Behaviour. Editor Arthur G. Richardson. Caribbean Diaspora Press Inc. Brooklyn, New York. Pp 189-229