Social Inequalities and Europeans Who Leave School Early

One of the primary goals of educational policy throughout Europe is the reduction in numbers of students who quit the educational system before obtaining a high school qualification. In their article in the most recent edition of European Education: Issues and Studies, Jeroen Lavrijsen and Ides Nicaise from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven note previous research showing that younth from disadvantaged families face relatively high risks of school dropout. Using date from the 2009 ad hoc module of the Labour Force Survey they explore the way that macro-level determinants influence school dropout risks among different social groups. Their findings indicate that both the design of the educational system (in areas such as tracking age and extent of vocational education) and characteristics of the socioeconomic context (such as poverty rate and unemployment patterns) have an impact on the social distribution of school dropout risk. If you would like to read this entire paper or any other content from our journal, you can find out more about subscriptions at this page.