Early school leaving is considered a notable obstacle for the economic  development and the social inclusion all over the Europe. In that respect, there is a joint effort of European countries to develop policies of remediation and prevention that may reduce the negative impact of early school leaving for supporting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Sociological literature on early school leaving is quite extensive, and relate early school leaving to socio-economic status, social class, school effects as well as individual agency (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Coleman, 1966; Lamb et alii, 2011; NESSE, 2010). Accordingly, early school leaving is considered as a measurable effect of many social, educational, and individual variables In this paper, by drawing on a mobile sociologies of education (Landri & Neumann, 2014) I would like to constrast two ways of dealing with early school leaving: 1) a tactical approach aiming at ‘harm reduction’, and 2) strategic approach that assumes a holistic view on transforming the school and the ecology of education practice. We will describe the practice of tackling of early schooling as an assemblage of knowledge, people, and educational technologies that enacts ‘early school leaving’, responds, and modifies it in different ways. To describe in detail these practices we will move ‘in the middle of things’ to illustrate two ways of tackling with early school leaving emerging in  a program funded by Comenius Regio Project “A care for every child”, aimed at reducing high risk school leaving children living in highly deprived socioeconomic territories of Spain (Albacete) and Italy  (Naples). The project assumes that early school leaving  reveals a mismatching among educational institutions (schools, families, ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, associations, social services, etc.), circuits of expertise, and arenas of education policy making.  The project focuses on irregular attendance in compulsory school, here considered a ‘warning signal’ for early school leaving. The question of ‘irregular attendance’ raises several questions: What are the causes of intermittent school attendance ? To what extent, it relates to early school leaving ? In which ways, school and the ecology of education practice may be mobilized  to combat the intermittent attendance? How discourses, policies and practices are associated to address the intermittent school attendance, and how they relate to early school leaving.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. 1977. Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Bruni, Attila, Gherardi, Silvia. 2007. Studiare le pratiche lavorative, Bologna, Il Mulino. Coleman, James S. 1966. Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Landri, Paolo, Neumann, Eszter. 2014. Introduction. Mobile Sociologies of Education, European Educational Research Journal, 13 (1), 1-8 Lamb, Stephen, Markussen, Eifred, Teese, Richard, Sandberg, Nina and Polesel, John. 2011. (eds.) School Dropout and Completion: international comparative studies in theory and policy. Dordrecht-Heidelberg-London-New York: Springer NESSE. 2010. Early School Leaving , Lessons from research for policy makers. An independent expert report submitted to the European Commission . Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.