Session Information
05 ONLINE 35 A, Addressing Disengagement and Risk
Paper/Video Session
MeetingID: 832 0344 4955 Code: 248349
Contribution
Early school leaving (ESL) is associated with educational and social exclusion and is considered one of the more serious problems for young people and their education (De Witte et al. 2013). Research on this problem is widespread internationally and tackling it is considered a priority in the Spanish and European educative agendas (Tarabini, 2015). The EU Council (European Commission, 2011; European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Cedefop, 2014) insists on the importance of tackling unemployment and inactivity among young people by offering educational responses, including "compensatory measures" that help those who have left early reengage with education and obtain the necessary qualifications. The report realized by the European Center for Development and Vocational Training, includes, among these "compensatory measures", second chance programmes, which aim to facilitate the re-entering into education or training of ESLs according to their needs (Eurostat, 2020) and, specifically, to contribute to the skills development and preparation of youth for the labor market entry (Espinoza et al., 2019).
Spain shows the highest rate of early school leaving out of the twenty-seven countries belonging to the European Union (EU). Despite the fact that in recent years this percentage has been decreasing, in 2020 the rate stood at 16% in young people aged 18 to 24 years. In addition, it also ranks as one of the countries with the greatest disparities between regions (Bayón-Calvo, Corrales-Herrero and De Witte, 2020). The autonomous city of Ceuta is one such region, with very high dropout rates. For example, in 2020 the educational dropout rate stood at 25.25%, the third highest in Europe (Eurostat, 2021). As a compensatory measure in Ceuta, there is an educational center (called “School of construction”) that develops a second chance programme. This center successfully serves, through non-formal education and vocational training, both inactive and unemployed youths and adults at risk of social exclusion, and stands out for showing a remarkable sustained success under demanding circumstances.
Taking these circumstances into consideration, the aim of this paper is to explore the reasons given by ESLs to justify their decision to stay and commit to their training in a second chance center. It is thus intended to contribute to: 1) understand the reasons and conditions that lead them to remain in a “unique” center and context; 2) identify the educational and organizational practices that are helping students to reinforce their commitment to their studies in a second chance school environment. For this purpose, firstly, we realize a literature review on early school leaving, re-engagement and second chance schools; secondly, we explain the research methodology used; and thirdly, we present a series of findings and conclusions that should contribute to increase knowledge about a unique compensatory measure (second chance schools) and how they are perceived by youth with ESL.
Method
This work results from the research project titled "Educational re-engagement at the School of Construction in Ceuta from the perspective of its students: a case study to identify best practice", financed by the Instituto de Estudios Ceutíes on Ceuta, in its 2015 call for research proposals. The methodological approach followed in this research was a "single" in-depth qualitative case study. The purpose of the research was exploratory, to learn about the subjective explanations of the participants (Yin, 2018) and to understand similar realities, situations or phenomena with a more specific look (Thomas & Myers, 2015). Therefore, the educational center "School of construction" in Ceuta was selected, which was characterized as unique due to the singularities it presented, among them, being located in a particularly difficult environment and showing notable success extended over time. The participating population consisted of all the students attending the center. The final sample consisted of 39 students (N=39), of whom 29 were identified as ESL (20 males and 9 females) and 10 were identified as non-early school leavers (non-ESL) (5 males and 5 females). The information collection instrument used was the in-depth semi-structured interview. The short set of questions used by Mills, McGregor and Hayes (2015, 156) and Smyth and Robinson (2015, 223) was taken as a reference for the design of the interview script. Specifically, although the full interview asked about your past life before coming to the center, and about your future life, in this paper we present only the answer to the present moment, to your stay within the construction school: 1) What would you highlight from your time here? What have been the most important aspects for you and why? In addition, and in order to pinpoint more precisely the participants' meanings to these broad questions, more specific questions were asked based on the answers given in the course of the interview (Patton 2015). Thirty-nine youth (29 ESL and 10 non-ESL) were interviewed in a first round of interviews. Of these, 21 (15 ESL and 6 non-ESL) were interviewed again after some time had passed in a second round of confirmatory interviews. Following the procedures for qualitative data analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994), a content analysis based on grounded theory was conducted using ATLAS.ti software (version 7.0).
Expected Outcomes
The results show that the decisions made by youth are a complex interweaving of personal, contextual and educational reasons. In this paper are presented only some of them related to “The School of Construction” that young people adduce to continue their training. According to the participants, one of the main motivations that leads them to continue training is the caring environment that is generated that contributes to developing a sense of wellbeing. The learning and the type of training were also considered very important. These results are similar to those found in other studies (Vadeboncoeur & Padilla-Petry, 2017; Macedo et al., 2018). The participants also mention specific characteristics of the type of training. Among them, were highlighted the practical approach of the training, the usefulness of what they learn, the job-oriented training, the flexibility of the curriculum and the adaptation of teaching and evaluation to the needs of the students, etc. Also, they feel that they can learn and that what they learn is useful in order to find a job. In this same sense, other research reinforces these results (Villardón-Gallego et al., 2020; Salva-Mut et al., 2016). Taking into account the elements pointed out, second chance schools to be effective should meet some fundamental characteristics (also highlighted in other research Gilton, 2006; Sullivan & Downey, 2015): caring and committed educators; safe and protective climate; relevant curriculum; personalized pedagogical practices; practical approach; encouraging students to work for their dreams and making them confident in their possibilities. The trajectories of ESL young can be reversible and, moreover, second chance schools offer a positive contribution to tackle dropouts. The pedagogical, organizational and curricular conditions of second chance schools help to fill the gaps in the training of young people with ESL and to broaden their educational horizons and possibilities for the future.
References
Bayón-Calvo, S., H. Corrales-Herrero, and K. De Witte (2020). Assessing Regional Performance against Early School Leaving in Spain. International Journal of Educational Research, 99. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2019.101515. De Witte, K., S. Cabus, G. Thyssen, W. Groot, and H. M. van Den Brink (2013). A Critical Review of the Literature on School Dropout. Educational Research Review 10, 13–28. doi:10.1016/j.edurev.2013.05.002. European Commission (2011). Tackling early school leaving. A key contribution to the Europe 2020 agenda. Brussels: European Commission. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/ European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice/Cedefop (2014). Tackling Early Leaving from Education and Training in Europe: Strategies, Policies and Measures. Eurydice and Cedefop Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Eurostat (2020). Early school leavers from education and training. (Dataset). Accessed 10 December 2021. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Early_leavers_from_education_and_training (accessed on 03 September 2019). Eurostat (2021). Early Leavers from Education and Training by Sex and NUTS 2 Regions. (Dataset). Accessed 10 December 2021. https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=edat_lfse_16&lang=en Espinoza, O., González, L., McGinn, N., Castillo, D. (2019). Alternative Education Programs for High School age students in Chile. Education and Urban Society, 52, 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124519879428 Macedo, E., Santos, S. A., Araújo, H.,C. (2018). How can a second chance school support young adults’ transition back to education? European Journal of Education, 53, 452-455. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12312 Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis: An. Expanded Sourcebook (2nd ed.). Sage. Salva-Mut, F., Nadal-Cavaller, J., Melià-Barceló, M. A. (2016). Itinerarios de éxito y rupturas en la educación de segunda oportunidad. Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud, 14, 1405-1419. Tarabini, A. (2015). Naming and blaming early school leavers: an analysis of education policies, discourses and practices in Spain. In A. Kupfer (Ed.). Power and education: contexts of oppression and opportunity (pp.146-166). Palgrave Macmillan. Thomas, G., Myers, K. (2015). The anatomy of the case study. Sage. Yin, R. K. (2018). Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods (6th ed). Sage. Vadeboncoeur, J. A., Padilla-Petry, P. (2017). Learning from teaching in alternative and flexible education settings. Teaching Education, 28, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210.2016.1265928 Villardón-Gallego, L., Flores-Moncada, L., Yáñez-Marquina, L., García-Montero, R. (2020). Best Practices in the Development of Transversal Competences among Youths in Vulnerable Situations. Educ. Sci., 10(9), 230. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10090230 Gilton, T. (2006). Alternative high schools: What types of programs lead to the greatest level of effectiveness? Journal of Educational Research & Policy Studies, 6, 48-66. Sullivan, T., Downey, J. (2015). Shifting educational paradigms: From traditional to competency-based education for diverse learners. American Secondary Education, 43(3), 4-19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43694215
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