In an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, education systems are constantly confronted with new situations to which they have to respond. Besides political, economic, environmental and other changes, global education developments such as the transformation of many education systems towards inclusive education, the problem of teacher shortage, the difficulties to provide education in difficult to reach rural areas etc. further require schools to respond flexibly to changing circumstances. They must therefore be flexible. But what is a flexible school system? How can it become flexible? And is flexibility really a solution to global educational challenges?

Students who are at risk to drop-out of or to be excluded from school often belong to vulnerable and marginalized groups (e.g. affected by poverty, disability, refugee experience, etc.) (Graham et al., 2019). Studies from higher education research indicate that vulnerable individuals in challenging life situations are more likely to enroll in open or distance education programs because of the inherent flexibility in terms of place, time and pace and other dimensions of flexibility (Collis & Moonen, 2001). I argue that flexibility could also have a positive impact on school enrolment and participation of primary and secondary school students at risk of not being in school. This idea of flexibility would – according to (Veletsianos & Houlden, 2020) – aim at “increas[ing] the student-centered and empowering aspects of education, thereby improving not just access, but also equity, diversity, inclusion, retention, completion, and satisfaction” (p. 851).

Despite this very positive view on the potentials of flexibility in education, it should be considered that flexibility is a concept of much controversy (cf. Bauman, 2009; Bouzarovski, 2009; Buzar, 2008; Furåker et al., 2007). Whereas Naidu (2017, p. 2) sees flexibility in higher education as a value principle "much like we see diversity, equity or equality in education and society more broadly", different scholars in the social sciences link flexibility to uncertainty, insecurity and unrest (Bauman, 2009; Reckwitz, 2018; Rosa, 2005). Flexibility can concurrently mean positive potential for one side and instability or uncertainty for the other side (Jonsson, 2007).

The discourses on flexible learning in higher education, mainly from the Netherlands and Australia, later from Canada and the UK, offer interesting ideas for flexibility in the primary and secondary school context. Veletsianos and Houlden (2020) suggest the approach of “radical flexibility” to address questions of inequality, injustice and exclusion in (higher) education, that could be relevant for other educational contexts, too. In order to use this open and holistic approach focusing on the positive potentials of flexibility in education, it still seems necessary to consider and examine the negative traits and find a way to outrule them.

Collis & Moonen (2001) present a systematic overview on flexibility dimensions in higher education: flexibility related to 1) time, 2) content, 3) entry requirements, 4) instructional approach and resources, and 5) delivery and logistics. To what extent these dimensions taken from higher education can be relevant for primary and secondary schooling is going to be discussed in the presentation. A conceptualization of flexibility dimensions for the school context is the ground work for empirical work on school attendance issues.

The second part of the presentation focuses on the question of how the theoretical considerations on flexibility can be transferred to a research methodology to answer questions such as: Which flexible approaches are already existing in specific schools/school systems and beyond? How can flexibility enable school education for students who are not in school/at risk of not being in school?

As an “ambigious concept” (Furåker et al., 2007, p. 5) flexibility is difficult to capture in research, but the theoretical work presented above provides points of reference for field work. A field work in different educational settings would aim to understand if and how education systems/settings provide flexibility to prevent or deal with school exclusions. The literature review shows that students not attending school often belong to marginalized groups in unstable living situations. Education systems that are disproportionately frequented by students from different marginalized groups could be picked as contrasting cases. Education systems that are confronted by a higher level of uncertainty through e.g. climate conditions (natural catastrophies), economic instability (poverty, hunger), migration etc., which also have impact on school attendance, are more challenged to provide flexibility – or already have established strategies. A case study aims at an in-depth understanding of a case in its real-world context “especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (Yin, 2009, p. 4 In: Yin, 2012). For each case a multi-level analysis seems necessary in order to consider both the societal context (global, national, if applicable), the community and organizational level as well as the individual level (Bray & Thomas, 1995; Nohl, 2019). Different data types are imaginable and advisable. Especially for in-depth case studies a triangulation of different types of data (such as existing statistical data, school visit protocols, official texts, interview data etc.) can be very promising. To address the macro-level a policy analysis seems a useful starting point as other research projects on school exclusion (e.g. Excluded Lives) have shown. At the meso-level and micro-level qualitative content analyses of text documents such as school programs or interview data could condense and organize the rich information. If applicable, statistical data may be used to complement the qualitative datasets. This work in progress is offered for discussion at the conference.

The presentation is divided in two parts. The first part puts its focus on the conceptualization of flexibility and the second on its use to develop international and comparative studies methodologically. Since the theoretical framework is taken from higher education research and applied to primary and secondary education research, it is necessary to carefully analyze if it captures the challenges faced by students at risk of not being at school. In order to do so, flexibility discourses from other scientific disciplines such as economics, social sciences and geography are additionally consulted. On the one hand they provide ideas how to use flexibility constructively to deal with uncertainty, on the other hand they critically underline the risk of flexibility to actually lead to uncertainty. The theoretical considerations aim to resolve this tension, flexibility being solution and problem at the same time, without ignoring its complexity. This is the basis in order to prepare suitable empirical field work on school attendance issues in challenging situations. The second part of the presentation concerns the methodology, which is still worked on. The abstracts presents first rough ideas, that still require more intensive discussion.

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