School staff's views on causes of early school leaving in regular secondary and adult education: Identifying the role of individual, job‐related and school climate characteristics

Understanding early school leaving (ESL) remains a key issue on political and academic agendas. Most research focuses on the experiences of young people who intend to leave or have left school early without a qualification from secondary education. In addition, most studies focus on regular secondary schools. We aim to add to this literature by studying how school staff in regular secondary and adult education schools explain ESL, and to understand how both groups' views differ. We also study whether school climate has an effect on the explanations of ESL given by staff. We analysed survey data collected in Flanders (northern part of Belgium) among 780 staff members using exploratory factor analysis and multilevel modelling. Findings indicate that staff in adult education have moderate views on the causes of ESL compared to staff in regular education. Staff in adult education have a strong focus on student-focused explanations for ESL, rather than on contextual or systemic explanations. Future research could delve deeper into the impact of school characteristics, conduct more cross-comparative research and/or include more views on diversity. Policymakers could prioritise the follow-up of ESL, including feedback mechanisms to inform school staff on reasons why individual students decided to leave school early

School staff's views on causes of early school leaving in regular secondary and adult education: Identifying the role of individual, job-related and school climate characteristics

Understanding early school leaving (ESL) remains a key issue on political and academic agendas. Most research focuses on the experiences of young people who intend to leave or have left school early without a qualification from secondary education. In addition, most studies focus on regular secondary schools. We aim to add to this literature by studying how school staff in regular secondary and adult education schools explain ESL, and to understand how both groups' views differ. We also study whether school climate has an effect on the explanations of ESL given by staff. We analysed survey data collected in Flanders (northern part of Belgium) among 780 staff members using exploratory factor analysis and multilevel modelling. Findings indicate that staff in adult education have moderate views on the causes of ESL compared to staff in regular education. Staff in adult education have a strong focus on student-focused explanations for ESL, rather than on contextual or systemic explanations. Future research could delve deeper into the impact of school characteristics, conduct more cross-comparative research and/or include more views on diversity. Policymakers could prioritise the follow-up of ESL, including feedback mechanisms to inform school staff on reasons why individual students decided to leave school early

Researching race/ethnicity and educational inequality in the Netherlands: a critical review of the research literature between 1980 and 2008

This article describes and critically analyzes how educational sociologists in the Netherlands have studied the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality between 1980 and 2008. Five major research traditions are identified: (1) political arithmetic; (2) racism and ethnic discrimination; (3) school characteristics; (4) school choice; and (5) family background. The development of particular research traditions is explained by pointing to more general developments in terms of social policy and intellectual climate in the Netherlands. This study builds on a similar, recently published literature review that focuses on the UK context by critically comparing the development and findings from these different bodies of research literature. The conclusions suggest that the Netherlands, like England, developed strong research traditions in this area of research since the 1980s and that both countries can learn from each other and advance future research in this area by developing more comprehensive research agendas. More generally, this review illustrates the usefulness of conducting nationally comparative literature reviews in assessing the development of particular bodies of research and in bringing together knowledge produced in different national settings

Breaking the in-group out-group: shifting boundaries in transnational partner choice processes of individuals of Moroccan, Tunesian, Algerian, Turkish, Punjabi Sikh, Pakistani and Albanian descent in Belgium

The ongoing popularity in some second and third generation migrants in Western Europe of marrying a partner from the countries of origin of their (grand) parents is considered to be problematic for micro and macro level societal integration of some migrant populations. Partner choice and marriage practices in migrant communities are problematized in public, media and political discourses by discriminating them from marriage practices in the 'native' population on the basis of three related dichotomies: (1) agency versus structure, (2) us versus them and (3) romantic versus instrumental marriage intentions dichotomies. By means of in-depth qualitative research methodologies on the partner choice processes of women and men of Turkish, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Punjabi Sikh, Pakistani and Albanian descent in Belgium and an intersectional theoretical approach, this article aims to deconstruct popular and simplifying dichotomous representations of partner choice processes in these migrant populations. Our study reveals how religious, gender and social class boundaries are stretched to meet personal/individual desires and preferences. Individuals do experience social restrictions when it concerns social group boundaries and the potential partners that they can look for. At the same time individuals are never fully determined by their social environment, they creatively develop strategies to by-pass certain restrictions and to some extent are able to meet their personal needs while being sensitive to the desires of their social environment

School-based Prevention and Intervention Measures and Alternative Learning Approaches to Reduce Early School Leaving

RESL.eu (Reducing Early School Leaving in Europe