This symposium departs from the trajectories of early school leavers (ESLers) and tries to extract some lessons from it. It includes papers of 3 of the 9 countries that participated in the RESL.eu project (Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe, 2013-2018, financed by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, Grant Agreement n° SSH-CT-2011-1-320223) and that involved 9 European Universities and a wide number of educational mainstream and alternative institutions and educational stakeholders (from the European to the local level). Participants engaged in the discussion of the macro, meso and micro factors leading to this phenomenon and of the promising practices that have helped young people in their educational trajectories, including ESLers (early school leavers).

Within the wider approach of the project, this symposium will discuss: i) developments in the social positioning of early school leavers in Austria over the last decades; ii) school-based support measures for students at risk of leaving education after lower secondary (ISCED 2) in two public high schools serving local communities with different students’ backgrounds by class and origin in Catalonia (Spain); iii) the impact of measures aimed at supporting students at-risk and improving school engagement in the light of the educational trajectories of 12 youngsters, in Portugal; and iv) how to reverse the trajectory of school disengagement, by anallysing Warsaw's youth’s educational trajectories.

The topic of early school leaving (ESL) has been a major one for policy cooperation at the European level within the framework of ET2020. The contours, extent and dimensions of this social and individual problem differ among countries. As an example, in 2016, in the countries that participated in the RESL.eu* project the percentage of ESL varied from a maximum of 19% in Spain, with 14% in Portugal, 12,4% in Hungary,11,2% in the United Kingdom – all above the EU28 average of 10,7%, - to a minimum of 5,2%, in Poland, and increasing trends at a relatively low level with 6,9% in Austria, 7,4% in Sweden, 8% in the Netherlands, and 8,8% in Belgium.

Deduced from rich data that will be drawn from the RESL.eu project, all articles will address causes, pathways and consequences of ESL on the micro-, meso- and macro-levels. The papers will offer sustained views from both national and cross-national perspectives, based on qualitative, quantitative and mix methods.

The theoretical framework, driven from the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Iris Young, Basil Bernstein and others, and the comprehensive empirical data of the papers indicate how the field of education and the professionalisation of teachers and principals would need to change in order to tackle early school leaving and to improve social inclusion in education and society.

Concern about meeting the values of social justice in education has been present in national educational systems throughout the EU. Mass education is in force complying with the European guidelines but many European countries have not yet reached the democratisation of education, expressed in providing real opportunities and the capacity to find adequate responses for all. What challenges face ESLers and what can schools, researchers and educational policy-makers learn?

With its strong theoretical and empirical foundations, this proposed symposium will be of interest both to teachers and researchers in the field of social justice and education and to regional, national and European policy-makers.

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