Stories of Young Dropouts: A Social Survey of Success and Failure

The present report covers the research, methodology, fieldwork activities, analysis of data and conclusions regarding Output 1 - Social Survey of the Below 10 Project. It focuses on the causes and characteristics of school failure and early school leaving (ESL hereafter). It was carried out by all partners of the Below 10 project on its first phase, and contains data collected locally in the following countries: Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania and United Kingdom. The research sought to answer the following questions: 1) what are the causes of early school leaving and dropping out at a local level; 2) how can ESL and dropping out be reduced? Educational outcomes currently assume an unprecedented weighting in the process of individual development and self-representation. The "school trajectory, generalised, merges with the actual biographic construction of the young person" (Vieira, 2010, pp. 278)1 and school inscribes "institutional self-confidence” in individuals (Martucelli, 2006, pp.45)2, rewriting experiences based upon academic evaluations through actions of confirmation, certification or refutation and doubt. Education processes may have emancipative or vulnerability effects, generating exclusion. Schools are for this reason both environments reproducing the prevailing social inequalities as well as producing new inequalities (Bourdieu, Passeron, 19703; DuruBellat, 20024).