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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren

Professional Actors’ Work on Retaining Students in Secondary Education

Alternative title: Profesjonelt samarbeid på tvers av nivåer, institusjoner og profesjoner for å beholde elever i videregående opplæring

Awarded: NOK 11.0 mill.

The research project ‘Professional Actors' Work to Retain Students in Secondary Education’ (ProAct), aims to identify and describe promising practices where school leaders and teachers work together with school authorities and other public agencies and actors to retain students in secondary education. Despite Norway's long-standing ambition to create a to create a school environment for all students which is referred to as a "school for all", a large number of students drop out of upper secondary education each year. Almost all 16-year-olds start in upper secondary school, but about a third of the pupils do not complete it within the five years they are entitled to. This is a major social problem and an indicator that the education system is failing its responsibility towards these students, especially since education is seen as a key to giving children and young people a basis for participating in working life and society in general. Previous research on drop-out has mainly focused on what characterises students who drop out and the reasons why they do not complete secondary education. Furthermore, research shows that young people who drop out have more difficulties entering the labour market and experience more life challenges. Over the last 25 years, a number of national measures have been implemented to prevent drop-out. Evaluations have found some positive effects of these measures, but they also point to challenges, such as how to develop and sustain practices that work over time. A recent national measure is, for example, the introduction of absence limits. Many of the challenges schools face, however, are linked to the local or regional context and require schools to work with actors inside and outside the school system. In ProAct, we examine this collaboration, which takes place across levels of the school system (school, municipality, county), across public agencies and professions (PPT, NAV, police, health professionals, business, associations, etc.). In the project, we collaborate with three counties in Norway and in each of the counties we have selected two upper-secondary schools that we follow over time, as well as lower-secondary schools that deliver students to these schools. While much of the research to date has been conducted in the form of analyses of quantitative data, in this project we are using mainly qualitative methods to collect and analyse the data. More concrete, this means that we conduct interviews with the county directors, department heads and their staff who work to monitor and support the schools. Moreover, we interview school leaders, teachers, social workers, health personnel, employees of the pedagogical-psychological service, NAV, and not least students. We also gather data from this type of collaboration ‘in action” as we observe meetings where the various actors meet to discuss problems and alternative ways to handle them. Through descriptions of promising practices to meet local and regional challenges, the project aims to generate and systematize new knowledge that can help to understand such a complex phenomenon as dropout, what kind of approaches and processes that can help to retain students in the school system, and not least to enable schools, school authorities and other actors involved to learn from each other and collaborate for the best for students. The long-term aim is to identify, adapt and sustain practices that enable good learning for all students.

ProAct aims to identify promising practices to retain students in secondary education. It is designed to demonstrate promising practices of multiple actors by identifying: 1) characteristics of institutional work within and across levels, institutions and professions; and 2) conditions which are the most likely to increase the retention of students in upper secondary education and with what consequences. Thus, the project will contribute to the existing knowledge base in this field including implications for research, policy and practice. The project applies theoretical perspectives and empirical methodologies that capture the complex interrelationships between formal educational policies, regulations, and knowledge sources. Sources will be selected that inform the work of various professional actors (leaders at county, municipal and school level, and involved actors from other public services) as well as their concrete institutional work. The project is positioned within neo-institutional theory, which makes it possible to understand and investigate multiple actors’ translation, institutional work and interrelationships across levels, institutions and professions. Moreover, it has a longitudinal design where counties, municipalities and schools are followed over time. It also applies a mixed-methods approach, beginning with qualitative data gathering and analysis of different involved actors’ professional practices, where the data generated forms a basis for mapping strategies on the country level. The mixed-methods approach considers earlier critiques of empirical research that applied such approaches by emphasizing the importance of ensuring conceptual awareness, coherence and demonstrating contextual sensitivity when analysing the data, as well as critical reflections on findings and their implications. The project is divided into six work packages which are closely linked to each other.

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FINNUT-Forskning og innovasjon i utdanningssektoren