Abstract

Short description

RESL.eu aims to provide insights into the mechanisms and processes influencing a pupil’s decision to leave school/training early; as well as into the decision of ESLers to enroll in alternative learning arenas unrelated to a regular school - but wherein specific creative or innovative methods of knowledge and skill transfer are used.

Additionally, RESL.eu focuses on the vulnerable group of youngsters that left education or training early and are identified as NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training). RESL.eu also aims to identify and analyse the intervention and compensation measures that succeeded in transferring knowledge and in keeping pupils in education/training, although they showed high (theoretical) risk of ESL.
In order to be able to compare the data gathered in 9 partner countries, RESL.eu will develop and refine the theoretical framework on ESL, formulating a workable yet nuanced definition of ESL. Through a mixed-method design, a total of 28140 surveys and 1176 interviews/FGD will be conducted, generating in-depth data while allowing systematic comparisons and quantitative generalizations. Results are targeted at different audiences/stakeholders: EU- & national policy makers, school staff, academics and civil society.

The Portuguese partner (CIIE/UPORTO) coordinates and integrates Work Package 2 "Policy analysis ESL & field description", who will be supported by the other partners in national data collection and analysis.

Research themes

• 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).


• 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.


• 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.


• 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).


• 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.


• The potential integration of these measures in and between regular and alternative learning arena’s in the partner countries.


• The development of generic conceptual models based on good practices to predict and tackle ESL that can be extrapolated on a EU level.


• The conversion of scientific results into forward-looking recommendations aimed at policy makers and stakeholders from civil society.

Research objectives

• To continuously refine the theoretical framework on the processes explaining and influencing ESL, incorporating all the relevant collected data during the research project.


• To identify the definitions of ESL developed within the education and social policies of the nine partner countries and distillate a common definition for the following work packages.


• 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.


• 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.


• To gain insight in the mechanisms behind, the processes leading to and the trajectories after ESL, both on an individual and institutional level.


• 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).


• To develop conceptual models for good practices in intra-muros measures aimed at the tackling of ESL.


• To develop conceptual models for good practices in extra-muros measures aimed at the tackling of ESL.


• To deliver a transfer of knowledge from the academic results in the project relevant for policy makers, politicians, NGOs and professionals in social work and education.

Who RESL.eu addresses

• Local, national and EU policy makers and practitioners


• Schools and alternative learning arenas


• Civil society and NGOs in the field of Early School Leaving


• Universities and research centres throughout Europe and beyond

How and where the project operates

• Nine countries across Europe are involved in the RESL.eu project: Belgium, UK, Sweden, Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Hungary and Austria.


• New survey data will be collected among 2,000 young people in each country across two different research areas and four different schools (except Hungary and Austria).


• Two years later, the same participants will be approached for a follow-up survey enquiring about their trajectory during the intervening period.


• In the meantime, qualitative interviewing will take place through contacts with selected young people consisting of both school stayers (at risk of ESL) and school leavers (ESL).


• In each country, a group of 100 school staff and school administrators will be surveyed.


• In addition, focus group discussions and interviews with policymakers and stakeholders will take place in each country.

Website

https://www.uantwerp.be/en/projects/resl-eu/

Funding

European Commission, 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7 - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities)

Principal Investigator

Helena C Araujo

Team

Alexandra Oliveira Doroftei

António M. Magalhães

Cristina Rocha

Eunice Macedo

Sofia Almeida Santos

Sofia Marques da Silva

Partners

CONSORTIUM
Project Coordinator
Christiane Timmerman, Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies, Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium)

Partners
Belgium, University of Antwerp, Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (coordinator) (UA)
United Kingdom, Middlesex University, Social Policy Research Centre (MU)
Sweden, Stockholm University (SU)
Portugal, University of Porto, Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE/UPORTO)
Netherlands, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR)
Poland, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Education (UW)
Spain, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)
Hungary, Central European University, Center for Policy Studies (CPS)
Austria, Wien University of Economics and Business, Education Science Group (WU)