Session Information
05 SES 03 B, Comparative Studies on Drop-Out Reduction and on Cyber Bullying
Paper Session
Contribution
My PhD work, which will undertake a comparative study of strategies to reduce dropout-rates in three European nations: England, Denmark and Hungary.
Reducing early school leaving (ESL) to less than 10% by 2020 has been agreed as a headline target and key objective of the Europe 2020 strategy and one of the five benchmarks of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training (ET, 2020). Student dropout is one of the most serious problems in the educational systems. Many at-risk students are not provided any additional personal or special support (OECD, 2012).
This research will contribute to the literature by highlighting the controversies of rigid education systems and discussing the potential in services targeted to individual needs of the students to raise productivity and performance.
The rationale behind sampling three European countries is to compare and contrast substantially different support systems and national strategies. England, Denmark and Hungary are all members of important international organisations that influence national education policies.
Reports and research often emphasise the role of education as crucial to socio-economic well-being and empowerment (Leonard, 2005; OECD, 2005, 2012; Coleman et al, 1995; Dronkers et al, 2008) and highlight the persistent relation between low socio-economic background and students at risk of educational failure and reduced access to good quality services.
The issue of young people who ’’drop out” and the circumstances of their failure to complete post-14 education has been the subject of debate for three decades (Smyth&Hattam, 2004). According to Fine (1995), there has been an active construction of what is being seen by policy makers and what therefore needs to be done to fix, yet there has been little attention paid to understand the meaning and context of early school leaving.
The research builds on the foundations of humanistic psychologists, most notably Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (Hall&Hall, 1988), who developed the approach of person-centered education. This approach seeks to engage the "whole person"(Rogers, 1969): the intellect, social capacities, and artistic and practical skills are all important in growth and development. Important objectives include developing children's self-esteem, their ability to set and achieve appropriate goals, and their development toward full autonomy (Lyon, 1971; Rogers et al., 2013).
By analysing the pedagogic procedures, my proposed study will explore successful institutional strategies of reintegrating students into education and training or employment in three European countries. By listening to the voices of young people, my analysis will focus on the relevance and importance of personal support with special regard to positive relationships.
The target group of the research is former students, who were in need of intensified guidance efforts and/or participated in second chance provisions in secondary education.
From a constructivist stance, early school leavers can be considered as social constructs and the three -country -contexts as social contexts, which influence the terminology and understandings of ’early school leaver’. Even though each country deals with the similar group of people, they still use different terminology to label them. The way early school leaving is defined plays a crucial role in the development of policies to prevent or to reduce it.
Bearing this in mind, my research questions embody a constructionist perspective:
- How are the education and training policies (with special regard to guidance) that aim to reduce early school leaving are designed in the three countries?
- What institutional alternatives are offered to at-risk students in the three countries? Within the national policy frames, what are the possibilities for schools to adapt to individual needs on the local level?
- What are the motivations of at-risk students/early school leavers to stay in a supportive school?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball,S.J.,Maguire,M. and Macrae,S.(2000)Choice, Pathways and Transitions post-16- New youth, new economies in the global city.Routledge, London Ball, S., Maguire, M. and Braun, A.(2012) How Schools Do Policy: Policy Enactments in Secondary Schools, London: Routledge Banks,M(1992) Youth employment and training. In:J.C. Coleman and C. Warren-Adamson(eds) Youth Policy in the 90s. London: Routledge Bourdieu,P.(1973)'Cultural Reproduction and Social Reproduction'. In: R. Brown (ed) Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change, London: Greenwood Press Charmaz, K.(2000). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Coleman, J.(1988) 'Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital'. The American Journal of Sociology 94. Crotty, M.(2012) The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the research progress.Sage:London Dewey, J.(1916) Democracy and Education. www.ilt.columbia.edu/Publications/dewey.html Dronkers, J. et al(2008) 'Educational performance of native and immigrant children from various countries oforigin'. In:Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(8). Eurostat: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/search_database Fine, M.(1995) The politics of who’s “at risk.” In B. B. Swadener & S. Lubeck (Eds.) Glaser, B.A.&Strauss A.L.(1967) The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter Geertz, C.(1973) The interpretation of cultures. London: Fontana Hall, E.&Hall, C.(1988) Human relations in education. Psychology Press. Leonard, M.(2005)'Children, Childhood and Social Capital: Exploring the Links’.In: Sociology, 310 Lyon, H.(1971) Learning to Feel - Feeling to Learn. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill. NESSE (2011) Early school leaving: lessons from research for policy makers, NESSE Publish OECD (2005) Education Policy Analysis. 2004 Edition.www.oecd.org/dataoecd/22/57/34979702.pdf OECD (2012) Equity and quality in education - supporting disadvantaged students and schools, OECD Publishing Meyer, C. (2001) A Case in Case Study Methodology. In: Field Methods. London:Sage Plant, P. (2012) Individual careers: individual learning and guidance. In: Educational and Vocational Guidance Bulletin 64., Bruxelles Rogers, C.R., Lyon, H.,Tausch, C.(2013) On Becoming an Effective Teacher- On–Person-centered Teaching, Psychology, Philosophy. London Routledge Smyth, J&Hattam, R. (2004) Dropping out`, drifting off, being excluded - becoming somebody without school. New York: Peter Lang. Thematic Working Group on Early School Leaving (2013). Reducing early school leaving: Key messages and policy support. Yin, R (2003) Applications of case study research. Applied Social research Series, Vol.34. London:Sage
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