The missing middle - a comparative study of transitions among low to mid performing students from academic upper secondary school

MISSING MIDDLE: a comparative study of transitions among low achievers from academic upper secondary school Supporting smooth transitions between levels in the educational system, and ultimately to the labour market is crucial in a societal and individual perspective. A group of students who have received little scholarly attention are those who achieve an academic qualification in upper secondary education, with comparably low grades (CLAA – Completers with Low Academic Achievement). There is little knowledge of where students head to after completion of upper secondary, whether they use their academic qualification to access higher education and/or to what extent they have successful careers. The project is a collaboration between NIFU and SPS, OsloMet, where NIFU is the project leader and owner. CLAA have acquired generic skills and a certificate of upper secondary education which in principle grant access to higher education. However, if competition for higher education access increases, this group is likely to be left out, as they have poor grades and qualify for a more limited number of higher education programmes. What opportunities do these young people envisage in the labour market or in higher education? What are their future plans? The project MISSING MIDDLE will investigate these questions using qualitative and quantitative data. The project is organised in four work packages: a qualitative part (WP1), two WPs using registry data (WP2 on students completing the general academic upper secondary programme, and WP4 on vocational students completing the one-year supplementary programme to get the academic qualification granting access to higher education, and one WP using survey data from an international survey which covers students in Norway, Spain, Belgium, Finland and Iceland (WP3). In 2024, the research group has presented results at international conferences, in addition to publishing articles in Norwegian and internationally. During the period December 2023 to September 2024, research findings have been presented at the conference of the Nordic Sociological Association in Sweden and project members presented a total of five papers at the conference of the European Sociological Association in Portugal. In addition to publishing and disseminating research findings, the project manager and a project member have also participated in an international workshop in Iceland with researchers associated with the project from Finland, Iceland, Belgium and Spain. In the period December 2023 to September 2024, three peer-reviewed articles have been published in the project. Two of these articles are based on the international survey data and have been published in Acta Sociologica and Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. Both articles are focused on students in academic programmes, and the latter is studying the educational ambitions of immigrant youth. The third article is published in Norwegian, in Tidsskrift for Samfunnsforskning. The focus of this article is on students who were in upper secondary school during the pandemic. The study finds that student completion of upper secondary education was higher during the pandemic, and that this particularly applies to students with weaker grades in academic programmes. In addition, the study shows that these young people also use the higher education entrance qualification they have received, through the fact that they apply for and start higher education. The extent to which these students are well prepared for their studies is, however, a question that is currently too early to answer, as information on whether they complete the higher education degree they have started is not yet available.

Little is known of the career patterns of those who have completed an academic qualification in upper secondary education with low academic achievements (CLAA – Completers with Low Academic Achievements). Numerous studies have focused on either early school leavers or high achievers. This project targets the ‘missing middle’ in education research - neither prepared for, or necessarily admitted to higher education, nor holding an occupation-specific credential in labour market-demand. Thus, this is a group with rising risk of unemployment when competition for jobs increases and access to higher education hardens. We propose an empirically and theoretically bold study to produce knowledge on the aspirations, transitions and outcomes of students in the lower half of the achievement distribution in Norway. The study includes as a multi-method longitudinal comparative design linking comparative longitudinal survey data, qualitative data from four countries, and detailed Norwegian administrative registry data for several cohorts over time. This provides unique opportunities as to problematizing, renewing and develop dominant theories as well as the critique. The project is organized in four interrelated work packages, conducted by a collaborative and inter-disciplinary team of researchers at NIFU and Centre for the Study of Professions (SPS) at OsloMet. The international network of esteemed scholars from Belgium, Finland, Iceland and Spain provides insights contributing to produce high-impact knowledge to the academic community, users and policymakers.