Truancy, absenteeism, and student dropout are complex of nature and represent major challenges in society. Such challenges need to be understood in the larger social and economic context (Markussen, & Sandberg, 2011). Positioned within institutional theory and sociology of law (Baier & Svensson, 2009; Scott, 2014), the paper is linked to a larger study funded by the Research Council of Norway. The project studies how central authorities translate, understand, and handle problems with respect to retaining students in secondary education by formulating national policies and introducing regulations. In this paper, focus is mainly on these system-level strategies, although policies targeting change at the local level are included. In 2018, an average of 10.6 % of young people (aged 18-24) in the EU were "early leavers from education and training," (Eurostat, 2019). In Norway, the government-led effort to increase completion rates has been reinforced the past decade by EU directives. While most of the education policies introduced in Norway since the 1990s have been aimed at lifting the general level of qualification of the population and promoting equal opportunity, the emergence of dropout as a ‘‘wicked problem” seems to have favored the development of new intervention measures at a system-level. The first step in the project, and focus in this paper, is to conduct a document analysis informed by a discourse-oriented approach (Taylor, 2004). The analysis examines the understanding and translation of truancy, absenteeism, and dropout expressed in regulation and key policy (e.g. Ministry of Education, 2018a). The paper will present early findings and will generate knowledge concerning how multiple actors, such as school leaders, on the national level translate, understand and handle challenges and expectations in regards to retaining students in upper-secondary education.

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