Research themes

1. The development and implementation of education policies, and the transferability of country-specific good practices for policy development and implementation among partner countries (structural/systemic level);
2. The formulation of a definition of ESL that allows comparison of the data collected in the course of the project in the seven partner countries;
3. The identification of more detailed demographic and socio-economic patterns of early school leavers and NEETs than those currently available within the published data sources;
4. The mechanisms behind, the processes leading to and the trajectories after leaving school early, focusing on the actions, perceptions and discourses of individual school stayers, early school leavers or NEETs as well as those of significant others – in the family, the peer group and the school or alternative learning arena; (meso & micro level);
5. The success and efficacy of specific measures to tackle ESL and creative and innovative approaches for knowledge and skill transfer in a school context or in alternative learning arena’s;
6. The potential integration of these measures in and between regular and alternative learning arena’s in the partner countries;
7. The development of generic conceptual models based on good practices to predict and tackle ESL that can be extrapolated on a EU level;
8. The conversion of scientific results into forward-looking recommendations aimed at policy makers and stakeholders from civil society.

Research objectives

1. To continuously refine the theoretical framework on the processes explaining and influencing ESL, incorporating all the relevant collected data during the research project.
2. To identify the definitions of ‘Early School Leaving’ developed within the education and social policies of the nine partner countries and distillate a common definition for the following work packages.
3. To analyse the development and implementation, during the construction of the EU, of education policies and instruments aiming at dealing with early school leavers; taking into account the experienced resistance-to-change.
4. To identify and analyse good practices concerning the development and implementation of policies, initiatives and instruments in the partner countries and to assess their relevance for other countries and contexts.
5. To gain insight in the mechanisms behind, the processes leading to and the trajectories after ESL, both on an individual and institutional level
6. To isolate the factors that lead to early school leaving and relate these to opportunities for reducing ESL rates (based on evaluative data from WP3 and WP4).
7. To develop conceptual models for good practices in intra-muros measures aimed at the tackling of ESL.
8. To develop conceptual models for good practices in extra-muros measures aimed at the tackling of ESL.
9. To deliver a transfer of knowledge from the academic results in the project relevant for policy makers, politicians, NGO’s and professionals in social work and education.

To design common EU definitions and concepts on early school leaving and conduct comparative policy analyses;

To collect data on youngsters, families, schools and particular research areas across partner countries in Europe;

To identify characteristics of youth at risk of ESL as well as protective factors (such as social support mechanisms, resiliency and agency of pupils, etc.) which may encourage potential ESL pupils to gain qualifications via alternative learning arenas;

To examine ESL prevention in schools and ESL remediation through alternative learning arenas in seven EU member states in order to let good practices inform a EU policy on early school leaving.