This presentation will elaborate on the quality of drivers and the role of barriers among low-educated adults participating in second-chance education (SCE). While research points at a Matthew effect in participation behavior, there is a subset of adults who, somewhat against the odds, decide to pursue further education through SCE, aiming to attain an ISCED level 3 degree (European Commission 2016). This degree is often required to have access to a range of jobs and to higher education or adults are being suspended from social assistance benefits if they cannot demonstrate enrollment in education. The quality of motivation for participating in SCE is therefore under pressure (Schuchart & Schimke, 2021; Windisch, 2016). In addition, we lack understanding on the relationship between the quality of participation motivation and the quality of motivation to engage in concrete learning behaviors, ultimately leading to learning outcomes. When reasons underlying participation do not entirely originate from the learner themselves it is overly optimistic to assume that mere participation in SCE inevitably also results in optimal learning motivation. While in most cases, future aspirations that can be achieved by participating in education are a good predictor of successful achievement (Ryan & Deci, 2017), this does not always seem to hold true for disadvantaged minority groups. One possible explanation for this aspirations-achievement paradox is that minorities often have "abstract" mobility beliefs about the value of education for later success in life, but at the same time, they seem to have fewer positive beliefs about the more “concrete” learning processes (Mickelson, 1990; Phalet, 2004). These hindering beliefs seem to be the natural consequence of earlier erratic school experiences and have the potential to undermine the quality of drivers for learning. The current study aims to gain a comprehensive insight into the interplay of drivers and barriers among participating disadvantaged adults, in order to better understand the often vulnerable motivational psychology of these learners. Based on the assumption that the quality of participation motivation is associated with the quality of motivation to engage in learning behaviors, this paper adopts a multidimensional theoretical view on the concept of motivation. Nineteen in-depth interviews probed the aspirations adult learners pursue by participating in SCE, on the one hand, and the drivers and barriers to engage in learning behavior on the other. Analyses are in a final stage and will therefore provide new insights that will be presented and discussed in this symposium.

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