Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2013, Page 63

Brotthvarf og endurkoma fullorðinna í nám á framhaldsskólastigi
Abstract
Drop-out and return of young adults
to upper secondary education
The drop-out rate in Icelandic upper sec-
ondary education has been high for a long
time, and for a quarter of a century around
40% of people have not finished such edu-
cation when they turn 25. Only in recent
years has it become apparent that almost
half of these people seem to finish their ed-
ucation between the ages of 25 and 40. The
aim of this study is to investigate such re-
furners, to find out why they dropped out
m the first place, why they chose to return
and why they succeeded the second time.
Focus group interviews and individual
mterviews were conducted with 13 re-
turners, aged 27-37 at the time of the in-
terviews. 9 were attending a general edu-
cation track leading to university, while
4 were attending vocational tracks. They
reported that there were multiple reasons
for their drop-out from upper secondary
education, the central reason for most of
them being that they were not committed
to studying at that time. During the first
terrns they were drifting along and put-
hng more energy into social life than stud-
les until they were expelled or left school.
Some of them reported that early on they
found more purpose in work, often start-
lng a part-time job that later became full-
hme. Almost all respondents reported
s°me learning difficulties but these were
uever presented as central, and more em-
phasis was laid on the feeling of a lack of
Purpose. A couple of respondents also re-
Ported mobbing or general social difficul-
hes as an important factor.
From their late teens all participants
were working; most of the men held jobs
with long hours and hence good salaries,
while the women would as a rule start
with badly paid, unqualified work alter-
nating with maternity leaves. However,
gradually most of them found some better
work, sometimes helped along by voca-
tional courses. When the Icelandic finan-
cial and economic crisis started in 2008
some of the respondents lost their jobs,
while others felt that they were on a dead-
end street. They had never quite aban-
doned the idea of returning to education
and now seemed the right time. This time
they had more counselling in school and
often the support of a partner, and they re-
evaluated their original reasons for drop-
ping out. Mainly, they could use their ex-
perience in working life to see a purpose
in education and to work in a disciplined
way, viewing learning difficulties as chal-
lenges to be overcome. At the time of the
interviews most of the respondents were
almost through and only one of them con-
sidered dropping out once again, as school
still did not make much sense to him.
The article examines these stories in the
light of recent sociology of education and
youth, not least the biographical approach
of Peter Alheit, who combines the sociol-
ogy of Bourdieu and Ulrich Beck to illu-
minate the disadvantages of youth from
the working class and the changes that
can be brought about within a „choice bi-
ography" that reinterprets experiences of