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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

International Study of City Youth (ISCY): Preparing urban youth for further study and careers. A comparative project in 12 cities

Awarded: NOK 7.3 mill.

ISCY - International Study of City Youth. Preparing urban youth for further study and careers. ISCY - International Study of City Youth is a comprehensive, comparative project in 11 cities around the world. The project has a longitudinal design, following the students from their last year in compulsory education and out of upper secondary school. Data in Bergen are collected through surveys in year 10 and 13. On their way through upper secondary education, the students are followed via public register data. The approach is to study the impact of different educational systems on success in school. We are examining to what extent success in upper secondary education is dependent on who you are, your origin, where you live and which school and educational program you attend. The study aims at establishing a knowledge base for measures making more students succeed in upper secondary education. Thea Bertnes Strømme, Oslo Metropolitan University has done her PhD within the project, with the thesis: Educational decision-making. The significance of Classed Contexts. At the time of the formal closing of the project one article have been accepted for an anthology on Springer Verlag. The subject of the article is school-misbehaviour. Six other articles have been submitted to international journals. The topics of these articles are a) educational expectations and social class, b) parental involvement in education, c) student expectations to enter higher education in relation to social class and school engagement, d) pathways in upper secondary education and social background, e) student evaluation and social class, and f) a validation study of skills related to academic behaviour and performance. Two papers are in progress and are expected to be submitted to an international journal by the end of June 2019. The subjects of these papers are a) political engagement and school-engagement, and b) gender segregation in upper secondary education. One paper on the topic labour market ambitions among minority students, will be submitted by the end of 2019. Because the systems differ, all data collection in all cities have not progressed equally far. Thus, NIFU has at this stage analyzed data from four of the eleven project-cities: Bergen, Barcelona, Ghent and Reykjavik. All the articles mentioned above are comparative, as they all, in addition to analyzing data from Bergen, analyze data from at least one of the other cities. Some of the articles are authored by Norwegians only, and some are co-authored with one or more colleagues in the four cities. A NIFU-report (in Norwegian), analyzing completion and dropout four years after leaving compulsory education among the Bergen students in the study is in progress, aiming to be published by the end of 2019. In October 2019 a dissemination-seminar will be organized in cooperation with the county of Hordaland. NIFU-researchers shall present their main findings from the project and discuss policy implications. Participating will be the administrative leaders of the educational authorities in Hordaland. After finalizing the project as a Research Council Project, the project will be continued at NIFU, still as a cooperation within the international network.

Prosjektet har hatt stor betydning for NIFU. Det er etablert et internasjonalt nettverk for fremtidig samarbeid, og enkeltforskere ved NIFU publiserer internasjonalt. Prosjektet kan få betydning for sektoren. Det er produsert et omfattende kunnskapsgrunnlag som kan få samfunnsmessige effekter, avhengig av at sektoren selv tar resultatene i bruk. Norskspråklige policy-briefs, en norskspråklig rapport og samarbeid om et formidlingsseminar med Hordaland Fylkeskommune er bidrag fra NIFUs for å øke sjansen for bruk av resultatene. NIFUs arbeid brukes aktivt som grunnlag for politikkutforming, eksemplifisert ved Lied-utvalgets arbeid med videregående opplæring. NIFU fikk høy skåre på impact-vurderingen i evalueringen av norsk utdanningsforskning. Impact-casene der ett var hentet fra forskning på gjennomføring og frafallsreduserende tiltak ble omtalt som «very convincing». Det er derfor høy sannsynlighet for at forskingsresultatene tas i bruk, både lokalt/regionalt og nasjonalt.

ISCY - International Study of City Youth. Preparing urban youth for further study and careers. A comparative project in 12 cities around the world. ISCY - International Study of City Youth is a large comparative project including 12 cities in 11 countries. The Cities are Barcelona, Bergen, Bordeaux, Ghent, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Montreal, Reykjavik, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Turku and Wroclaw. The study is designed and carried through by an international research network counting internationally renowned scholars. The approach is to study how the education systems in these cities are organized and the range of opportunities they provide. The design facilitates follow ups, establishing the foundation for unique longitudinal data. The project will answer the following questions: a) To what extent is completion dependent on who you are, where you live, which school you attend and the education program you selected? b) To what extent are attitudes towards society and economy dependent on your origin, place of residence, school and education program? And c) what are the schools and teachers doing to prevent drop-out, increase completion and affect the students attitudes. The project is based on quantitative survey- and register data, and uses multi-level analysis to identify the impact of institutional and organizational factors on student attitudes and outcomes. The study is of high relevance to educational policy, authorities and schools.

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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren