Early school leaving (ESL) is one of the main contemporary challenges in the educational system of European countries, and especially of Spain and Catalonia. With early school leavers (ESLers) reaching 30% of the school population, Spain and Catalonia are really far from the European benchmark (10%) in this area and they have to face up to this phenomenon urgently in order to avoid threatening social cohesion and economic progress.

Much research has been done about the causes of ESL but little has been done to analyse the expectations and perceptions of young people about school and how education can benefit them in the future, both in the professional sense and in their transition to adulthood. In this sense, the objective of the paper is to analyse the motivations, expectations and educational strategies of recent ELSers (now aged 16-20), by describing the reasoning processes used to decide to leave school. In order to do so, we develop a qualitative analyses based on in-depth interviews with young ELSers from Catalan urban peripheries.

The results of the analysis will provide evidence-based information of crucial importance in order to define strategies to prevent ESL at European level. These evidence-based proposals will be adaptable to local and national scenarios but also applicable to European and international scales.

- Dwyer, P. & the Youth Research Centre (YRC). 1996. Opting Out: Early school leavers and the degeneration of a youth policy. Tasmania: National Clearing House for Youth Studies. - Ferguson, B. et al (2005), Early School Leavers: Understanding the Lived Reality of Student Disengagement from Secondary School, Final Report, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. - Network of Experts in Social Sciences of Education and Training (NESSE) (2010), Early School Leaving. Lessons from reserach for policy makers. - OECD (2005). From Education to Work. A difficult transition for young adults with low levels of education. Paris: OECD / The Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN). - Rumberger, R. W. (1987). High school dropouts: A review of issues and evidence.Review of Educational Research, 57, 101–121. - Rumberger, R. (2004). What can be done to reduce the dropout rate? In Gary Orfield (Ed.), Dropouts in America: Confronting the Graduation Rate Crisis, pp.243-254.Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. - Rumberger, Russell W. and Sun Ah Lim (2008) Why Students Drop Out of School: A Review of 25 Years of Research California Dropout Research Project Report #15 Santa Barbara: California Dropout Research Project