Why do students drop out of school Different perspectives

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Why do students drop out of school?Different
perspectives
European Seminar on Early School
Leaving Policies and Future Scenarios Cultural
Centre Sa Nostra, Palma of Majorca October
6th-6th 2008

• Kristjana Stella Blöndal, PhD. Student and Jon
  Torfi Jonasson, Professor of Education
• University of Iceland

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The presentation

• School dropout
• different definitions
• Model of school dropout
• different dimensions
• Is there a dropout group?
• The heterogeneity of the group/s

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Clarification of terms

• Dropping out or deciding to leave?
• Some of the terms used
• Graduation and survival rate, completion,
  retention
• School leaving, a) the system, b) a school
• Drop-out leave school without graduation
• Stop-out those who leave and come back later
• Those who do not ever begin?

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Definitions of school dropout

• In very general terms it refers
• those individuals who dont complete the
  education that the norms define as being good for
  them and for society
• to those individuals that dont complete the
  education they have started
• In 18 of 29 OECD countries 80-97 of
  25-to-34-years-olds have completed at least upper
  secondary education
• The EU 2010 benchmark ESL rate less than 10
• Upper secondary education for all is a challenge!

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Three important dimensions of the drop-out
discussion
Not beginning Discontinuing Stop-out Leaving
early later vocational academic
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Predictors of school dropout Risk and
protective factors

• The student
• Gender, language background, previous school
  experience, attitudes to school and education,
  psychological and behavioral adjustment,
  participation early in adult role
• The family
• Parents education, quality of parenting, parents
  aspiration and participation in their child's
  schooling and education, having siblings who
  dropped out
• The school
• Atmosphere at school, teacher/students ratio,
  composition of the student group
• The neighbourhood
• Socioeconomic status, labour market

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Conclusions

• School dropout is a complicated phenomena we
  need many definitions also depending on school
  level and societal norms
• School drop-outs, stop-outs are not a small,
  homogeneous group but many groups who leave for
  different reasons

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Conclusions

• When considering intervention, dont think of it
  as one group there are many fundamentally
  different groups
• If you are going to prevent and support you need
  different approaches

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The issues

• Dont fall into the trap of talking about a
  dropout groups
• There are many groups
• If you are going to prevent and support you need
  differents approaches
• Some in the school, like school counselling,
  carreer education, others, teach them more,
  support teaching, still others school and
  training together
• May gengeralize influence of finding their
  strenght to even academic subject they did not
  manage before
• Myndin 50/50
• Question is if you have the same picture in your
  countries? Same student groups?

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Thank you
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School dropout and disengagement

• Both frameworks
• dropout is seen as a result of a long term
  process of disengagement, possibly beginning as
  early as when the student started his or her
  school attendance
• Different kinds of disengagement
• Behavioral
• Academic
• Emotinal

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Frustration-self-esteem model
Low achievement
Behavioral disengagement
Frustration
Lowered self-esteem
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Participation-Identification model
Active participation in school and classroom
Identification with school
Good performance
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Different at risk groups and students engagement

• 4 groups
• Low-achiever dropouts (1) and graduates (2)
• High-achiever dropouts (3) and graduates (4)
• Students who dropped out regardless of risk
  (group 1 and 3) were more disengaged from school
  at age 14
• The disengagement of the dropout groups,
  regardless if they were at risk academically or
  not, increased from age 14 to 15

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Student engagement

• Ef ég hefði ekki skoðað eftir einkunn þá hefði ég
  ekki séð hvað greindi á milli þeirra sem voru með
  góðar einkunnir og kláruðu og góðar og hættu
• Eða á milli þeirra sem voru með lélegar
  einkunnir og hættu vs lélegar og kláruðu
• We were trying to deepen our understaning on the
  relationship between previous academic
  achievement and school dropout
• Miðlunaráhrif
• Support the idea that school dropout is a
  process.....
• Which also means that we can intervene in the
  process

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The society

• EducataGlance, 2008 The populations level of
  educational attainment, as captured through
  formal educational qualifications, is a commonly
  used proxy for the stock of human capital, that
  is, the knowledge and skills available in the
  population and the labour force . (However,
  comparing different countries educational
  attainment levels presupposes that the skills and
  knowledge imparted at each level of education is
  similar between countries)
• Proxy for competitivenes

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parenting

• Myndin á veggspjöldunum í SRCD

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policy

• No child left behind act high stake test may
  race some students achievement but pushes some
  out gagnrýnt í ameríku
• Icleand, high dropout rate new policy reform
  skoða hvað þar er gert
• Monitoring, difference in Iceland og US