European vocational education is faced with the challenge of preparing a young generation for working life in society. Expectations are high since a well educated skilled professional population is needed to develop the European knowledge economy as able to concur with those of other nations around the world. A strong column of vocational educational pathways (leading to higher education) where pupils can enter at different levels and develop to the highest of their abilities offers a system of great potential. However, at the lowest levels of pre and secondary vocational education in the context of the major Dutch cities this young generation has shown to be vulnerable for early school leaving. Especially youngsters from a low socio economic background (SES) tend to drop out more often and complete their educational career at a lower level than student groups from a higher socio-economic status. Challenged by the Lisbon agreements in 2000 of reducing early school leaving in the Netherlands with 34% to 35000 in 2012 (Herweijer, 2008, p. 146) we need to understand the mechanisms through which (pre) vocational education can contribute to the successful development of their variety of pupils. Therefore, in this paper, a focus on the mechanisms that lead to pupils from a low SES background succeeding, in addition to discussing the reasons for these children not succeeding is proposed. The theory of resilience offers a fruitful frame of reference. Drawing upon bio-ecological and symbolic interactionist theories of human development we define resilience as continuous growth and successful development in spite of being a member of a group with a high risk status (Masten, Best & Garmezy, 1990). Subsequently, resilience is the result of repeated constructive negotiation of perceived daily challenges that are typical of the ordinary course of life (e.g. Richardson. Neiger, Jensen & Kumpfer, 1990; Margalit, 2003; Martin & Marsh, 2008). We argue that resilience is both influenced by and reflected in different perceptions and utilisation of both challenges and opportunities for constructive negotiation. Our purpose is to understand these differences and to generate a theoretical model for the ways in which the school environment contributes and could contribute to the resilience.

In the presented study, the primary method of investigating adolescents’ perceptions and utilization of both challenges and opportunities was grounded theory (Glaser & Straus, 1967). We studied the relationships between the data of high and low resilient adolescents in the same school environment in a multiple case study design (Miles & Huberman, 1994), using maximum variation sampling of participants. Therefore we purposefully sampled three schools as multiple cases. The schools were selected on the basis of their similarity in percentage of urban adolescents from low SES backgrounds and maximum variation of pupils’ cultural diversity. We used interviews as the main source of data collection. Interview data were completed with logbook and field notes of the researcher. Data analysis was based on transcriptions of 30 hours of 21 semi-structured in-depth interviews using constant comparison between high and low resilient adolescents. The interviews and analyses were distributed over four research cycles.

In the study, safety and challenge were identified as resilience enhancing factors for both high and low resilient adolescents. However, highly resilient adolescents strategically contribute to, utilize and benefit from safety and challenge while low resilient adolescents don’t. It was concluded that the school environment can contribute to low resilient adolescents’ successful development by facilitating directly; an overview over the environment’s challenges and opportunities; insight into strategies to constructively deal with those and into one’s own abilities to engage in these strategies; and realistic future expectations about goals and career paths. Such an educational contribution in (pre) vocational education implies a powerful design of challenging learning environments and systematically, structured and transparent support. This support means explicating rules and expectations clearly; offering a variety of working- and thinking models; stimulating reflection on one’s own working and learning styles and organizing direct and constructive feedback (e.g. De Bruijn, 2006).