Comparative Perspectives on Early School Leaving in the European Union

Lore Van Praag, Ward Nouwen, Rut Van Caudenberg, Noel Clycq, Christiane Timmerman, Lore Van Praag, Ward Nouwen, Rut Van Caudenberg, Noel Clycq, Christiane Timmerman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351691802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Early School Leaving in the European Union provides an analysis of early school leaving (ESL) in nine European Union countries, with a particular focus on young people who were previously enrolled in educational institutions inside and outside mainstream secondary education. The comparative approach employed by this volume adds to the existing body of knowledge on ESL and develops an understanding of how young people navigate through different educational systems.

Contributors acknowledge the importance of reconstructing educational trajectories from the perspective of the individuals involved and, as a result, the book includes data collected during in-depth interviews, surveys, and insights from educational professionals, policymakers and representatives from civil society organisations. Adopting a classic tripartite approach, which acknowledges the complex nature of ESL, the book addresses individual, institutional and systemic factors. It identifies and analyses the prevention, intervention and compensation measures that can succeed in supporting young people's attainment, and demonstrates how these can be used to reduce ESL.

This unique book will be highly relevant for academics, researchers and postgraduate students, as well as educational practitioners. Drawing on the insights provided by the authors, the book formulates policy recommendations that should also be of interest for policymakers in European countries and beyond.

Part I
State of the art and impact of early school leaving across European countries

1 Disengaged students

Insights from the RESL.eu international survey

Alessio D’ Angelo and Neil Kaye

Introduction

It is widely recognised that positive educational outcomes have benefits both for individuals and more broadly for societal development and economic growth. Conversely, negative outcomes, such as poor attainment and early school leaving (ESL), can impact upon career prospects and psychological well-being and can lead to negative effects that persist well beyond the end of compulsory education. Identifying which students are most at risk of ESL is therefore of prime importance to schools, practitioners and policy makers. School engagement – the extent to which young people are involved, committed and motivated to learn and work towards their academic careers – provides a useful concept through which to assess the likelihood that young people will leave school early (Ferguson et al., 2005; Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Rumberger, 2011). In fact, theories on dropout and ESL emphasise these outcomes are usually the end result of a gradual process of disengagement from school (Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2001; Rumberger, 1987).

In this chapter, we present insights based on an analysis of data collected as part of the RESL.eu international survey. Conducted in seven European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK), this represents an important and innovative source of empirical data, providing detailed sociodemographic and attitudinal information from almost 20,000 young people. In particular, our data analysis shows the important role of self-perceptions and key personal relations in the individual pathways determining levels of school engagement, irrespective of the national contexts and school settings and beyond the predictive power of specific demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

The next section discusses the concept of school engagement and how this can be operationalised and measured in empirical research. Next, we present the RESL.eu survey and outline the dimensions of school engagement and other key variables relating to the survey sample. Our findings section presents a statistical model of school engagement on the basis of the international dataset and highlights the main protective factors that can promote and increase school engagement for students. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for these findings in relation to cross-national policy and practice.

Understanding school engagement

School engagement refers to students’ level of involvement, commitment and effort in relation to their school careers. Chase, Warren, and Lerner (2015) describe the concept in terms of “the extent to which students participate in the academic and non-academic activities of school, feel connected to school and value the goals of education” (p. 58).

Much has been written on the antecedents, processes and outcomes associated with students’ engagement at school within both North American and European contexts. Quin’s (2017) review highlights that the study of student engagement has developed along two parallel paths: the first focusing on reducing disengagement and its associated ‘problem’ behaviours at school, targeting specific students; the second, centred on the promotion of a culture of engagement for all students, with a view to achieving more long-term developmental outcomes (p. 345).

Indeed, recent studies have emphasised the positive impact school engagement can have in an academic setting as a whole (Fredricks et al., 2004; Lawson & Lawson, 2013). High levels of engagement have been shown to be associated with positive youth development outcomes, most notably with academic success (Finn & Rock, 1997) and psychological well-being or adjustment (Li & Lerner, 2011).

Conversely, student disengagement can have negative effects on the individual level that persist across the whole life-course, including reduced employment opportunities and economic independence, poor health outcomes and even increased mortality. On the societal level, high levels of school disengagement can, in the long run, negatively impact economic and labour market efficiency, the sustainability of the welfare system and public health (Belfield & Levin, 2007; Klem & Connell, 2004; Woolf, Johnson, Phillips Jr, & Philipsen, 2007).

Measuring engagement

School engagement has typically been described as a multidimensional construct, encompassing several dimensions relating to students’ attitudes, behaviours and motivations (Appleton, Christenson, & Furlong, 2008; Finn, 1989; Fredricks et al., 2004; Jimerson, Campos, & Greif, 2003). More recently, studies have defined school engagement as a three-dimensional construct, incorporating dimensions of behavioural, affective and cognitive engagement (Archambault, Janosz, Fallu, & Pagani, 2009; Carter, Reschly, Lovelace, Appleton, & Thompson, 2012; Wang, Willett, & Eccles, 2011). ‘Behavioural engagement’ elaborates on Finn’s (1989) notion of ‘participation’ and includes student involvement in academic and extra-curricular activities. More broadly, it encompasses adherence to the school rules, high levels of school attendance and an absence of disruptive behaviours (Fredricks et al., 2004). ‘Affective engagement’, also referred to as emotional engagement, relates to feelings of institutional belonging and identification to one’s school (Finn, 1989; Fredricks et al., 2004). The ‘cognitive’ dimension of engagement involves students’ motivation and use of self-regulated learning strategies. Beyond assessing the level of effort students put into their work, cognitive engagement implies an “active, constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition” (Pintrich & Zusho, 2002, p. 250). It is important to stress that this conceptualisation of school engagement, as a “multidimensional, developing, and malleable construct including students’ behaviours, emotions and cognitions while studying” (Upadyaya & Salmela-Aro, 2013, p. 138), relates primarily to patterns rather than causes behind one’s actions.

The operationalisation of school engagement through the RESL.eu questionnaire was informed by the literature and previous empirical research; a substantial number of questionnaire items were selected from previously validated studies on student trajectories and school engagement (Liu & Wang, 2005; McCoach, 2002; Martin & Marsh, 2006; Wang et al., 2011). Whilst detailed analysis was undertaken in relation to the sub-dimensions of school engagement (see Kaye, D’Angelo, Ryan, & Lőrinc, 2017), our focus in this chapter is to explore and understand how ‘overall’ levels of this multidimensional construct are influenced by a range of factors. This is of particular relevance for policy and practice, allowing us to identify key areas in which intervention can promote overall student engagement.

The role of contextual factors and background characteristics

Students’ school engagement cannot be understood in a contextual vacuum. Research has shown that a number of structural – demographic, contextual or environmental – factors can also influence levels of school engagement. In particular, the intersection between class, gender and ethnicity is extremely complex and dynamic and has been the subject of numerous research studies (Archer, 2010; Vincent, Rollock, Ball, & Gillborn, 2012).

Socioeconomic background (or socioeconomic status – SES) has been widely identified as one of the strongest predictors of school engagement (Archambault et al., 2009; Janosz, Archambault, Morizot, & Pangani, 2008). Gender, too, has consistently been shown to be an important predictor of school engagement, with boys being more likely to report lower levels of engagement than girls (Li & Lerner, 2011; Wang & Eccles, 2012), relating to the greater levels of academic performance usually seen amongst girls at school (Pomerantz, Altermatt, & Saxon, 2002). The existing literature also supports the idea that, overall, minority/migrant children are more likely to experience educational inequalities as they attempt to navigate a process of acculturalisation in the host country (Carrasco, Pàmies, & Ponferrada, 2011; Clycq, Nouwen, & Vandenbrouke, 2014; Gibson, 1998). On the other hand, in more recent years an increasing amount of research has demonstrated a greater level of emotional school engagement (Elffers, Oort, & Karsten, 2012; Wang & Eccles, 2012) or higher aspirations (Behtoui & Neergaard, 2016) amongst young people with a migrant background.

Characteristics such as young persons’ developmental stage; relationships with parents, teachers and peers; and the institutional setting they find themselves in at school all contribute to differences in individuals’ school engagement. Studies of school engagement have attempted to incorporate these effects by using an ecological framework (Wang & Fredricks, 2014), highlighting the role of school context, families, peers and communities in influencing youth development and outcomes (Quin, 2017).

The importance of context in the study of school engagement is evident, and cross-national research highlights the high degree of variation seen between educational systems and broader cultural and socioeconomic contexts (Crul, Schneider, & Lilie, 2012). For example, because national education systems are the product of generations of cultural and political influence and context-specific policy development, there are differences between countries according to types of academic tracking, existence of grade retention, timing of educational transitions, pedagogical norms and classroom practices. Furthermore, there may be school- and classroom-level effects on individuals’ levels of school engagement that cannot easily be accounted for and which may vary significantly within a single school or jurisdiction.

If schools, in particular, do not provide educational environments which are developmentally appropriate for adolescents, then they are unable to motivate students’ interest and engagement and, consequently, this will result in negative developmental changes (Udpadyaya & Salmela-Aro, 2013, p. 142).

The RESL.eu survey: school engagement and other key dimensions

The RESL.eu project employed a mixed-methods approach to investigate the mechanisms and processes leading young people to leave education or training early. This chapter uses data from the quantitative survey conducted in seven countries across the EU to identify risk and protective factors of early school leaving. With particular regard to school engagement, the survey sought to build upon existing literature on the relationship between early school leaving and school engagement by identifying those characteristics and factors increasing the likelihood of students to have lower levels of engagement than their peers.

The survey involved at least 1,500 young people in each of the seven RESL.eu countries, within two different research areas per country. The data collection took place in two survey waves. The first wave (spring/summer 2014) surveyed students currently in secondary education,¹ asking a wide range of detailed questions on sociodemographic characteristics as well as behaviours, attitudes and perceptions at school. In most cases, the survey was administered within the schools and colleges using an online interface. The second wave took place two years later (spring/summer 2016) and was based on a much briefer questionnaire, designed to measure participants’ trajectories from school towards further training, higher education or labour market insertion. This was administered via email and telephone, using contact information collected in the first wave.

Overall, 19,586 young people took part in the first wave of the survey, with 7,072 also responding to the follow-up survey two years later. Whilst full academic-year cohorts in schools (two comparable cohorts per country²) were targeted to capture a cross-section of the student body in that area, the schools and colleges selected to participate in the first RESL.eu survey were chosen on the basis of being located in areas of relatively high youth unemployment and/or areas with specific demographic or socioeconomic challenges. The final country datasets, therefore, cannot be seen as nationally representative samples of young people. Similarly, the relatively high attrition rate between the first survey and the follow-up survey (retention rate for the overall sample was 36.1%) implies a degree of self-selection bias, whereby those young people who did complete the follow-up survey are more likely to be engaged, and so vulnerable, disengaged or hard-to-reach young people are expected to be under-represented in the sample.

Nonetheless, each sample has a high degree of diversity with regard to personal characteristics and profiles. Of the 19,586 participants in the first survey (Table 1.1), 10,196 (52.4%) were female, 8,828 (45.4%) were in the older cohort, 7,756 (41.2%) had a migrant background (at least one parent born outside of country of survey), and 7,113 (36.3%) had parents working in a manual or elementary occupation. Of the 7,072 young people completing the follow-up survey (see Table 1.1), 4,048 (57.4%) were female, 2,951 (41.7%) were in the older cohort, 2,329 (33.8%) had a migrant background and 2,675 (37.8%) had parents working in a manual or elementary occupation. Female participants, those in the younger cohort, those who do not have a migrant background and those with parents working in professional occupations, therefore, were over-represented in the follow-up survey. Statistical tests showed these differences to be statistically significant.

Table 1.1 Demographic characteristics of survey respondents

	Respondents to first survey (N = 19,586)		Respondents to follow-up survey (N = 7,072)
	N	valid %	N	valid %
Sex
Male	9,275	47.6%	3,010	42.6%
Female	10,196	52.4%	4,048	57.4%
Year group
Cohort 1	10,691	54.6%	4,120	58.3%
Coho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• Introduction: theoretical and conceptual framework of the RESL.eu project
• Part I State of the art and impact of early school leaving across European countries
• Part II Youngsters’ perspectives on early school leaving and schooling
• Part III Educational trajectories of youth (at risk of ) leaving school early
• Part IV Strategies to deal with early school leaving
• Index