The Philadelphia Educational Longitudinal Study tracked approximately 2000 public school students in the School District of Philadelphia from the summer after eighth grade, in 1996, through 2003. Detailed telephone surveys of students and their parents were conducted with survey questions covering topics such as attitude towards school, feeling of safety, sexual behavior, postsecondary expectations, access to information about colleges and careers, extracurricular activities, and civic engagement.

Led by Frank Furstenberg, distinguished professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, the study was primarily funded by The William Penn Foundation. During the course of the original study, other funders included the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education, the Spencer Foundation, Johnson & Johnson, the Leo Model Foundation, the Philadelphia Education Fund, Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The William Penn Foundation awarded a follow-up grant to the Philadelphia Education Fund (PEF) in 2005 to further work with the PELS dataset. With an emphasis on making the data available to the research community, conducting further analysis, and disseminating the results to education professionals and policymakers, the Philadelphia Education Fund is ensuring that this important work is made known and widely applied.

High School Planning: What PELS Tells Us about Student Engagement

Postsecondary Education: What PELS Tells Us about Pathways

Surveys

Here are links to the survey instruments for each wave of the study. Philadelphia Education Fund staff are in the process of adding summary descriptive statistics for each item. These statistics are in red text.

• Wave Overview
• Wave 1 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S
  (Summer 1996-after 8th grade)
• Wave 2 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S
  (Fall 1996-9th grade*)
• Wave 3 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S
  (Spring 1997-9th grade*)
• Wave 4 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S
  (1997-1998 School Year-10th grade*)
• Wave 5 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S
  (1998-1999 School Year-11th grade*)
• Wave 6 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S1 Stats-S2
  (1999-2000 School Year-12th grade*)
• Wave 7 Parents Stats-P Students Stats-S1 Stats-S2
  (2002-2004)

* Grade level indicates expected grade in school, assuming on-time promotion; some students surveyed were in grades other than that indicated or no longer in school.

School District Data

• Attendance and Credits

City Agency and State Data

• Criminal and Birth Records

Analyses using PELS

• Research Using the PELS Database
• Research in Progress

Using the PELS Data

• Request access to survey data
• Request analysis by PEF Research Team

Contacts

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact the PELS research team.