The paper is an analysis of the educational trajectories of a large sample of young people in England through the final three years of compulsory education and into the first year of post compulsory education or employemt and unemployment.  In England, as in most European countries, the disengagement from education of a minority of young people is a cause of considerable concern (DCSF, 2008).  In particular, as disengagement frequently leads to early exits from the education system (Croll. 2009) it can have highly negative consequences for the young people concerned.  In England, young people who leave school at the earliest opportunity frequenty do not go into stable employment and not being in either education or employment has significant negative consequences as measured by indicators of poverty, ill health and long term unemployment (Social Exclusion Unit, 1999).

It is therefore very important to establish the trajectories which lead to young people becoming disengaged from education and to non participation in post-compulsory education.  The paper will analyse the educational trajectoroes of 15,000 young people in the Longitudinal Survey of Young people in Englad (see 'Methods' below.  The analysis will focus on young people expressing negative attitudes towards school and education and young people who plan to leave education as soon as possible.  The longitudinal design of the survey means that we can look at the consistency of these negative orientation through the last thre years of compulsory schooling and can relate these to actual outcomes for the young people after the end of compulsory education.  These outcomes may include continued participation, employment and unemployment.  The availability of data from parents means that we can relate attitudes and intentions to a variety of socio-economic and other aspects of their families and the detailed survey interview with the young people means that they can be related to particular experiences in and perceptions of school.  The very large sample size means that the expereinces of small sub groups and minorities can be robustly represented in the analysis.

The study will be loctaed in theoretical perspectives derived from the sociology of education.  In particular we shall be concerned with the extent of match between the aims and values of the school and those of young people from different social backgrounds (e.g Furlong 2004) and also ideas about the rationality of choices made by young people in different social locations (Goldthorp, 2007).

Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, C. V. and Pastorelli, C. (2001) Self-Efficacy Beliefs as Shapers of Children’s Aspirations and Career Trajectories. Child Development 72. 1 187-206 Croll, P., 2009, Educational Participation Post-16: a Longitudinal Analysis of Intentions and Outcomes. British Journal of Educational Studies 57. 4 400-416. de Graaf, N. D., de Graaf, P. M. and Kraaykamp, G. (2000) Parental Cultural Capital and Educational Attainment in the Netherlands. Sociology of Education 73 92-111. DCSF, 2008, SFR 13/2008: Participation in Education, Training and Employment by 16-18 Year Olds in England. London: Department for Children, Schools and Families. DCSF, 2009, LSYPE User Guide to the Dataset. UK Data Archive Study 5545. http://www.esds.ac.uk Goldthorpe, J. (2007) On Sociology Vol II 2nd edition. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Furlong, A., 2004, Cultural Dimensions of Decisions about Educational Participation among 14-19 Year-olds. Nuffield Review of Education and Training Working Paper 26. Social Exclusion Unit 1999, Bridging the Gap. London: Stationery Office. .