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Abstract

Despite a vast literature on the causes and consequences of leaving school prematurely, little scholarly and policy attention has been paid to those who re-enter education after a temporary withdrawal. Re-enrolment is often portrayed in the literature as an active act of agency requiring inner drive. Based on 18 interviews with young early school leavers and re-enrolees in Norway, we construct two empirically founded re-enrolment narratives: ‘opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness’ and ‘accepting the rules of the game—re-enrolment as a fragile opportunity’. Although embracing and reproducing the discourse about educational credentials as being the key to a happy life, the narratives do not support the idea of a re-enrolment drive as being vital to succeed within educational institutions. While they aspire for normality and believe normality is achieved through educational credentials, they are in need of a support system that either accommodates their individual needs, or nudges them back ‘on right track’.

Keywords

Early school leaving educational transitions marginality narrative analysis re-enrolment young people

Introduction

It is widely recognized that early school leavers face fewer opportunities in the labour market. For a substantial share of these young people, this is not a permanent outcome. Nevertheless, the return of early school leavers to upper secondary education, also known as re-enrolment, and the aspirations and support needs of the youth who give school a second chance are rarely the object of study or policy debates. Based on qualitative interviews with 18 early school leavers, we investigate the breadth of subjectivities among educationally marginalized youth struggling to re-enter the educational system after a temporary withdrawal.

As the relationship between qualifications and employment has tightened, the universalization of upper secondary education, followed by the mass expansion of tertiary education, can be considered one of the most important social transformations of modernity (Shavit et al., 2007). The strong emphasis placed on educational achievement as a precondition for successful labour market entry and a happy life attests to the fact that education plays a significant role in setting the standards for normality and conformity among the youth today (Aaltonen, 2012). Those leaving school without a qualification and so-called NEETs—young people not in education, employment or training—are a major policy concern (Lillejord et al., 2015). Consequently, all the Nordic countries have adopted goals to increase the number of young people completing upper secondary education (Helgøy et al., 2019). From an international policy perspective, they are thought to be on a trajectory towards becoming the core of the future long-term unemployed, with all the economic and social challenges symptomatic of this group.

Considering the great public concern with early school leavers, they are cast as a minority who hold few future labour market opportunities (Meld. St. 21, 2020–2021). Not only does this mask the fact that the effect of completion might vary among students, and that the majority of early school leavers still follow trajectories characterized by employment and/or further education (Vogt et al., 2020), it also diverts attention away from potential structural flaws with the education system (te Riele, 2007). By labelling them ‘risky others’, we individualize their troubles; not only are they different to ‘most of us’, but also a threat to themselves and social cohesion (Aaltonen, 2012; te Riele, 2007). This might be particularly salient in a Norwegian context, where the universal and comprehensive educational system has been criticized for not being sufficiently well-equipped to handle diversity, and thus to individualize educational struggles at a larger scale compared to other countries.

In this article, we explore how young people with non-linear schooling careers navigate the real challenges associated with ‘outsider-ness’ by emphasizing the subjective basis of knowledge and that action can only be properly understood with reference to the subjective meaning maintained by the actor concerned (Bloomer, 2001). The key research question addressed in this article is: How do educational outsiders perceive their re-connecting efforts?

By drawing on narratives that nuance the discourse about early school leavers as ‘outsiders’, the interviewees in this study all try to claim new subject positions. Although embracing and reproducing the discourse about educational credentials as the key to a happy life, they also claim, in line with Becker (1963), that they are not marginalized by their own decisions. While the first narrative constructs institutional change as important for re-enrolment opportunities, the second narrative constructs institutional support as vital. The article makes two important contributions. First, we contribute to a sparce literature by focussing on re-enrolment processes rather than drop-out processes. Second, contrary to literature claiming that individual attributes and aspirations are vital for staying in school (De Witte et al., 2013; Ramsdal & Wynn, 2021; Ross & Gray, 2005), our findings suggest that institutions have a potentially important role in creating re-enrolment opportunities for youth once they have left school.

Background

It is well-documented in the scholarly literature on early school departure that dropouts differ from completers on a number of variables, many of which also predict future disadvantage (economic hardship in childhood, low parental education level, mental disorders in youth, etc.). However, dropping out, or, conversely, completing high school, is a dynamic process that starts prior to entering elementary school – a process associated with the early home environment, the quality of early caregiving, socioeconomic status, behaviour problems, academic achievement, peer relations and parent involvement (Jimerson et al., 2000). Thus, we do not know whether differences between dropouts and completers are to be interpreted as consequences of high school dropout or if they are caused by background risk factors.

Regardless of this uncertainty, upper secondary completion is portrayed as a prerequisite for successful labour market outcomes and for a happy life (Allard, 2007; Ball et al., 2000). Reviewing the sparse literature on re-enrolment in upper secondary education, the following findings stand out. First, re-enrolees constitute a heterogeneous group in terms of demographic and academic characteristics (Barrat & Berliner, 2016). Second, the longer a person is out of the education system, the smaller the chances of their returning (negative duration dependence) (Polidano et al., 2015). Third, those who leave school for employment or organized study activities are much more likely to re-engage in education compared to those who leave for other reasons such as school disenchantment and demotivation. Fourth, studies investigating re-enrolment after dropout from higher education found that although most students return to the university system in the first year after dropout, many of these change to a different area of knowledge (Rodríguez-Gómez et al. 2016).

The interview study of Ramsdal and Wynn (2021), who followed the re- enrolment processes of young people in Northern Norway who had dropped out of school, found positive changes within the re-enrolees as the return process progresses; early in the re-enrolment process, they experienced lack of inner motivation, lack of endurance and were confused about what they wanted to do with their lives. Later, in the re-enrolment process, they described positive changes in their inner motivation and reduced confusion about future goals. Other qualitative studies have found that the narratives of re-enrolees range from positive stories about school completion and highly motivated young people to accounts of trajectories that seem likely to end in yet another dropout (Jørgensen, 2011). Taken together, the literature typically portrays re-enrolment as a personal act of agency, meaning that they actively take control of their lives (Ross & Gray, 2005). Finally, research has emphasized the relevance of institutional arrangements for post-dropout experiences and the propensity for re-enrolment. Of particular relevance are system-related conditions, including the positive effects of social assistance conditionality on upper secondary completion (Hernæs et al., 2017) and of ‘second chance’ re-entry programmes characterized by inclusive pedagogy aimed at vulnerable re-enrolees (e.g., Jóhannesson & Bjarnadóttir, 2016; McGregor et al., 2015).

In this article, our aim is not to detangle the effects of completing high school, nor is it to find the perfect recipe to pull youths on the margins of the ‘school society’ back into upper secondary education. Rather, we discuss the interviewees’ accounts of their educational experiences in light of the values represented in the ‘achievement ideology’. The perspective taken in this article is that re-enrolment encompasses more than re-entering the education system – it also includes re-connecting to oneself as a learner, to other students and to the local community (Evans & Niemeyer, 2004).

National Context

The comprehensive educational system in Norway is characterized by late tracking and a high level of national standardization of the curriculum. Further, most Norwegian universities are public and do not charge tuition fees, and the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund provides students with loans on an equal basis. Several studies suggest that these features benefit students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, which is an explicit political goal (Reisel et al. 2019). In Norway, a comparably high share of the adult population holds a tertiary education diploma (OECD, 2021), and the number of higher education enrolees has increased steadily over the last decades (Statistics Norway, 2021). Currently, 78.1% of students leave upper secondary education with the prescribed qualifications (Statistics Norway, 2020). After 10 years of compulsory schooling, without any kind of tracking, nearly all pupils transition directly from lower secondary to upper secondary education (ages 16–19). According to Norway’s definition of dropout, an early school leaver is any person who has not completed upper secondary education (ages 16–19) within 5 years. The upper secondary completion rates have been remarkably stable over the last 25 years, increasing slightly beginning with the 2007 cohort up until today (NOU 2018: 15, 2017, p. 177).

Still, the authorities have expressed concern over the number of early school leavers (regjeringen.no, 2021). Although Norway’s universal system, with its focus on equality, might benefit students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, it is also criticized for not being sufficiently well-equipped to handle student diversity. The overall focus on equality and social cohesion can spillover into a school system and culture where similarity is considered a precondition of inclusion (Hagelund, 2007) and where educational struggles are individualized on a larger scale compared to countries with less comprehensive educational systems.

The design of interventions for young people who have become disengaged from standard educational pathways differs greatly between countries. We can distinguish between different types of interventions: expanded standard routes aimed at remediating deficits in earlier schooling to enable young people to re-enter the mainstream system, programmes specifically designed for dropouts to bring them back in and alternative institutional pathways supporting re-entry by providing multiple options to gain skills and qualifications (Evans & Niemeyer, 2004). Norway, along with the Nordic countries, typically follows expanded standard routes, yet there are also examples of so-called ‘second chance education programmes’ aimed at re-enrolees and a range of various privately- and publicly-funded schemes intended to increase early school leavers’ self-esteem and enable them to re-enter the education system. Norway strongly emphasizes early intervention—however, there has been less policy focus on compensation measures directed at early school leavers.

A Narrative Approach

Being an early school leaver when the vast majority of one’s peers remain in education means facing stigma. We often want to present ourselves in an ideal way; therefore, stigmatized people might attempt to mitigate the negative impact of stigma by managing the information they give about themselves. Our experiences are made meaningful through the use of narratives (Polletta et al., 2011; Riessman, 2008). Thus, one way of analysing how people present themselves is by examining the narratives they draw on when talking about their choices and plans.

Bracketing the question of whether interview data is ‘true’, the chief aim of narrative analysis is to relate stories to storytellers’ self-representation, as well as to their relation to the society in which they live and their experiences and values (De Fina, 2008). In contexts where interviewees provide detailed accounts of their own decisive life choices, evaluations and plans, as is the case in this study, narrative analysis provides a toolbox and an approach that can be used to explore these stories in a broader narrative context. In our case, it allows us to analyse the interviews in the context of Norwegian norms and culture across the topics of educational choices, re-enrolment, occupational plans and dreams, dropout, marginalization and exclusion.

The narratives in this study focus on young early school leavers’ reasons for dropping out of school and motivations for re-enroling in/completing upper secondary education. By drawing on certain narratives, you can manage the impression others have of you and try to gain legitimacy and recognition (De Fina, 2008). As such, narratives might be best understood when analysed as a response to real or imagined accusations, or as a way of defending a choice (Sandberg, 2009). While narratives need not be the result of conscious strategies, what people say can be understood as a form of action.

However, the language we use when constructing a narrative is never selected on the spot but always structurally given (Sandberg, 2009). Given that narratives are a form of utterance, we understand them as being incorporated within larger discourses or structures. Thus, these narratives are shaped by the dual forces of agency and structure; the storyteller accomplishes something with their use of narratives while also being restricted by the discourses available.

The Study

The analysis in this article is based on data from interviews with 18 young people aged 17–24. The interviewees were recruited as part of a large national research project titled ‘The Comeback Kids’, a longitudinal study of early school leavers’ re-enrolment in upper secondary education (2018–2023) that aims to provide insights into young people’s re-enrolment processes and outcomes.

All the interviewees (aged 17–24) had left school at some point. Thirteen of them were re-enrolees and five interviewees were at the time of the interviews, neither in education, employment or training. The latter group was included in the study given their re-enrolment potential. Understanding their subjective perceptions of their possibilities, or barriers to re-enrolment, was considered of great value to the study. All of them had grown up in the greater Oslo area. We interviewed 8 males and 10 females. All of them had Norwegian-born parents, and most of them told us about growing up in families with complex living conditions (health issues, unemployment and/or drug challenges).

The interviewees were recruited using different recruitment strategies. Some were recruited through two re-enrolment programmes/second chance education offers at upper secondary schools in Oslo—a vocational food and restaurant programme and a media and communications programme; some were recruited through the county municipal follow-up service in two counties (Oslo and Viken). We also recruited some interviewees through a contact person at The Change Factory in Oslo—a non-profit organization that supports young people in the welfare system by speaking up and changing policies aimed at people like themselves. Four of the interviewees who were neither in education, employment or training were recruited through the county municipal follow-up service, the municipal social service and several youth service initiatives.

The interviews were conducted at the re-enrolees’ places of study, various public places (a café, the organization’s office or the researcher’s car) according to the interviewees’ preferences. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Two forms of analysis were conducted. First, a narrative analysis was used to explore how the young people told their individual stories. A second level of thematic coding, using both a priori and newly emerging themes, was then carried out across all transcripts using NVivo12 software. This combination of analytical frameworks enabled coding within and across transcripts to identify whole narratives as well as themes shared by all interviewees.

While our goal in this article is not to ‘reveal’ the truth in the interviewees’ statements, we acknowledge the fact that a qualitative research interview is an interactional context in which the identity of the interviewer affects what is said in the interview setting (De Fina, 2008). Both of the interviewers are social science researchers with PhDs. Who we are, what we know and how the interviewees perceived us affected the chemistry in the interviews, what questions we asked and what the interviewees told us (Mishler, 1991). A good interview requires trust, confidence and chemistry between the researchers and the interviewee, and we therefore tried to establish common ground with the interviewees that was unrelated to education.

Analysis

In this section, we describe the narratives of early school leaving and re-enrolment. Over the course of the analysis, we constructed two narratives: ‘opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness’, and ‘re-enrolment as a fragile opportunity’. The findings show that young people struggle to reclaim successful personal and educational identities in the face of severe constraints in their lives.

Narrative I: Opposing Otherness Through Dreams of Ordinariness

As noted above, the universalization of upper secondary education, followed by the mass expansion of tertiary education, has left young high schoolers in a situation where there is no refuge from the expectation of academic success. In a context where ‘good qualifications’ are equated with a good future, low-skilled individuals are often framed as losers (Vogt et al., 2020). Interviewees responded to this discourse through a narrative we have labelled ‘opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness’.

To encourage the interviewees to tell stories about their educational choices and how they understood their dropout, we always asked them, ‘Can you tell me your own story about why you left school/struggle with school?’ The following are some typical answers to this question: ‘I liked school, but the absence limit ruined it for me’ (male, 20); ‘I am really smart and a hard-working person, but I just can’t get a hold on theory. I never got the chance to really learn it’ (male, 19); ‘Noone ever helped me; the teachers just said—do it yourself’ (male, 19); ‘I was really looking forward to starting high school and then getting a job. I dreamt about being a car mechanic. But when I started, it was impossible. The teachers had no respect. There was no point’ (male, 22).

In general, the interviewees saw themselves as ordinary, motivated students. They did not want to leave school; they wanted to graduate and use their diploma to get a job. However, they felt that the school made it difficult for them. Their attributes were not something the school recognized or appreciated. The narrative ‘opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness’ can be paraphrased along these lines: To succeed in life, secondary education is vital. However, the school and the teachers make it difficult for youth at risk to succeed. These young people’s reasons for dropping out or struggling with school are external to their own agency, and thus they see re-enrolment as external to their own motivations and aspirations. One young man, Henrik, described his experience with the educational system this way:

School really stressed me out. It started when I was young. I had problems learning, and when I was in fifth grade, the teachers just gave me books and assignments from fourth grade. So I was always behind. I never learned what I was supposed to learn. When I got to high school, I didn’t know stuff the others had learned in middle school. It was just so hard starting high school.

Henrik had never experienced any kind of mastery from early school age until the day he decided to stop going to school. His experience was that the teachers never sat down with him and explained to him how to learn, they just gave him assignments that they thought were easy. However, for Henrik, the assignments were not easy. He said,

If you give me a math assignment, any kind—I know I have never learned it. And I know I need help in order to learn it. Someone needs to sit with me and teach me how to do it. But when I told my teacher at high school ‘I haven’t learned this’, I wanted him to sit with me and help me. Instead he just said, ‘you should have learned this’. I think this is a problem with school.

The interviewees shared this feeling that no one actually helped them to understand. They wanted to learn, but they did not know how. Some of these responses are echoed in the vast literature on early school leaving (e.g., Tilleczek et al., 2015).

Lars told us,

They just told me, Do it! They pressured me without telling me how to do it. I never got any help; it was as if they expected me to understand everything myself. So when I started high school, I was just so tired. They had pressured me since pre-school. They pressured me, but never motivated me.

For these interviewees, graduating from high school seemed like an impossible accomplishment. They had years of experience with failing in school, but no experience with success. They felt that if the teachers and the school had been more attuned to their needs, they could have learned something. Framing their educational struggles as something external to their wishes and agency, they argued that they are not the ones to be blamed. Because it is not their ‘fault’ that they failed, when drawing on this narrative, they actively oppose the ‘discourse on low-skilled [individuals] as losers’ (e.g., Vogt et al., 2020).

While being critical of educational institutions—blaming them for their early school leaving or struggles—they were not critical of the universalization of upper secondary education itself. As noted already, all of them saw educational credentials as a vital resource for success later in life. They talked about how life would be a lot easier with upper secondary credentials and no one questioned the fact that getting a job would be a whole lot easier with a high school diploma. Per’s response is typical:

Oh, if I could have graduated from high school, it would be so cool. For me it would mean a better life. I could get a real job, without a lot of struggle. If you have the diploma, they automatically consider you for the job. If you do not have it, you are helpless. If I could show employees a diploma, many would have hired me. I am sure of it.

The interviewees shared this feeling that early school leavers would be unemployable in the labour market. Thus, they embraced the idea that upper secondary education is the key to a ‘better life’; they had internalized the discourse about the necessity of educational credentials. However, their dreams of a ‘better life’ are not grandiose in any sense. The interviewee’s dreams reflect what the literature describes as ‘an ordinary life’ (Savage et al., 2010). When asked about their future dreams, they all answered that they dreamt about getting a job and having a steady income and maybe their own housing. As Lars put it,

I am not picky. I just want a steady income, enough to survive. If I can get my own place to live, and make ends meet, you know. That’s it. That’s everything. Any job, just any job.

Like Lars, the interviewees want a stable, normal life. Also, when talking about their life now, they often use phrases and words such as ‘normal’, ‘nothing special’, ‘it is not bad’, ‘ordinary’ or ‘like all kids’. As narratives are forms of self-presentations, we understand this claim to ‘ordinariness’ as a rhetorical attempt to establish normalness (e.g., Savage et al., 2010). By presenting oneself as ‘ordinary’, one also opposes socially fixed categories such as ‘deviant’, ‘outsider’ or, as already mentioned, ‘loser’. This narrative can be read as a kind of oppositional narrative. By using it to present themselves, the interviewees rejected the idea that their educational struggles are their ‘fault’ while simultaneously framing themselves as ‘normal’ and ‘ordinary’. As individuals, they are competent, but unlucky.

However, although it rejects the negative individual labelling inherent in the discourse about educational credentials as the key to a happy life, this narrative does not entail a broader social critique (Nolan, 2011). In this narrative, the interviewees’ dream of making ends meet is framed as almost impossible to accomplish for early school leavers. The narrative therefore embraces the idea that upper secondary education is the ‘only’ pathway to success; it is the interviewee’s ticket to ordinariness. Still, as the narrative also entails a rejection of responsibility for their school struggles, they frame themselves as ‘helpless’.

‘When I left school, I felt like an idiot, like I didn’t know anything’ (Ole, 22), or ‘I felt kind of stupid (…). I didn’t want to tell my friends at other schools that I wasn’t still in school’ (Tina, 20).

Ole further elaborated:

Now I know that I have some skills. It’s just that the system, the school… There is no room for me there. I would never make it if I re-enrolled.

Ole wants a diploma—he wants to establish a normal life and he sees himself as skilled. However, for him, re-enroling and eventually graduating remains impossible, at least as long as the system remains the same. Later, in the interview, he said:

The teachers should have helped me, but they never did. So maybe a good idea is to have our own classes. Where people who haven’t learned what they are supposed to learn can be given a chance to learn it again. You know, we are all different. One can do something another one can’t. So the school cannot force a person to do something that is just impossible for that person to do.

Here, he reflects on how the school as an institution could have helped him, and others like him to reconnect to their learning identities. Like the other interviewees, when they blamed the school for their educational struggles, they also framed school as ‘not for them’. If the school had adapted to the different needs of youth, as they ‘are all different’, maybe they could have been given a second chance. Thus, in this narrative, re-enrolment is framed as contingent on institutional willingness to adapt to the different needs of individuals. If individuals are held responsible for their own learning trajectories, someone will be left out, as ‘something is just impossible for that person’. In this narrative, otherness is opposed through dreams of ordinariness, simultaneously, as the school is constructed as the gatekeeper of this dream.

Narrative II: Accepting the Rules of the Game—Re-enrolment as a Fragile Opportunity

The narratives of these fragile re-enrolment efforts were positioned in the context of a welfare state that strongly urged them to return to and complete education. Even though upper secondary education is not mandatory in Norway, early school leavers do not escape the persistent efforts and compensation measures of the welfare state. More specifically, there is a welfare state service responsible for offering NEETs guidance, counselling and/or a place in an initiative leading to a formal qualification: the county council-run follow-up services (FUS). The FUS has an active responsibility to follow up young people up to the age of 21 who have a right to upper secondary education but who are unemployed and not enroled in a training course. FUS advisors are required to keep an updated register of young people in this category and make active attempts to contact them. Those among the interviewees who had re-entered upper secondary education had gone into different kinds of programmes: some went back into mainstream education, picking up where they left off, while others joined targeted ‘second chance’ education programmes aimed at re-engaging and re-integrating former early school leavers.

The young re-enrolees told of institutional support systems, such as FUS counsellors urging or nudging them back into school. Karl (aged 21), who had recently returned to a second chance programme, noted ‘I was just told to start here by a guidance counsellor’. Tina (aged 20) explained that her mother had called the school’s guidance teacher and managed to get her into the targeted second chance programme.

This narrative presents problems outside the school as reasons why these young people were off the ‘main track’. Even though their re-enrolment pathways were far from a direct route to completion, school disengagement itself was not necessarily the reason why they left prematurely. Some, like Cecilie, aged 18, who had grown up in foster care, told stories of the very difficult conditions of their upbringing. In the darkest periods, she attempted to take her own life.

I have stayed in foster care for many years. Now, I live with ‘Hanne’ (foster mother). She is great. I don’t have a lot of contact with my parents and they won’t let me see my brother. It was difficult. But I am not mad at them anymore. (Cecilie, 18)

After periods away from school, for example, due to poor mental health and/or several instances with the child protection services, they now found themselves in more secure and stable settings and were thus able to re-enter education, ‘It was never my motivation that was the problem’. ‘Take maths, for example. That is something that I have always enjoyed’ (Sandra, 22). Sandra continued, ‘Now that my life is more stable, I can focus more on school’. The data shows that the initial drop out, and re-entry, was not necessarily caused by a lack of school motivation and endurance. However, as the obstacles posed in other spheres of life than school were minimized, institutions and welfare state services were crucial in aiding these young people back into school. They re-entered school despite facing major obstacles in their lives.

When asked why they returned to school, their responses suggested that there had not been much reflection—it was as if the initial withdrawal was just a minor ‘detour’ and they had (always) intended to stay on the ‘main track’: ‘I always wanted to finish school’ (Sandra, 22).

The extent to which they had internalized societal expectations regarding school was evident: ‘One must finish school if one wants to become someone in life’ (Stine, aged 19). However, few of the interviewees had a clear conception of a career path, they were unsure of their future schooling careers. For the time being, most of them were okay with giving school another try, but not more than that. Few followed a full-time schedule; rather, they took classes in a few subjects, perhaps over the course of 2 years.

The young people each talked about their schooling careers differently.

I decided to take a break from school. It was at the end of tenth grade, I started to skip classes more and more. And then I decided I could just as well quit. But I must try this [second chance programme]. It’s alright. It’s actually quite fun; no one believed I could make any friends or anything, but actually I like it here. (Andreas, 22)

Andreas was three months into his first year of the vocational food and restaurant programme—a special second chance education offer. Even though he had no particular interest in cooking, he was thriving. He credited the teacher and the learning environment: ‘Here, everybody can just be themselves. No one is judging you’. Interviewees who had re-enroled in mainstream education were some years older than their current classmates, which could impede integration into the social environment. Sarah (aged 20) described her classmates as less mature and difficult to connect with: ‘I just focus on myself. We don’t hang that much’.

Yet, when re-enroled, schooling was not necessarily straight forward, for example, Tom (19) explained, ‘It’s hard to get [to school] in time every morning. Some days I just stay in bed’. Tom described the way he felt about the second chance programme: ‘I take one day at a time’. Things that were difficult for him the first time around were not necessarily easier when he re-enroled. Feelings of insecurity among classmates and aversion towards school, tests and exams remained. Despite these persistent difficulties, these young people had few hesitations about re-entering the classroom and thus subjecting themselves to institutional behavioural norms.

Time away from school did not seem to have made them more motivated to complete their education. The time they spent out of school was characterized by boredom: ‘I was just at home waiting for my friends to finish school. I would sleep a lot and watch YouTube’ (Martin, aged 21). In our sample, these periods ranged from three months to up to 5 years.

Few of the interviewees told of a specific positive ‘turning point’ or critical incident in their lives that made them suddenly realize they needed to return to school more motivated than ever before. Such a turning point could, for example, be loss of employment. Literature on turning points largely originates from life-course perspectives, and focus on how transitions or incidents create catalysts of change that can alter future outcomes (Laub & Sampson 2003; Mowen & Brent, 2016). Turning points can be perceived as ‘radical “turnarounds” or changes in life history that separate the past from the present’ (Sampson & Laub, 1993, p. 304). The interviewees of our study, were constantly aware of the pressure and needed to re-enter. However, Tom, aged 23, who had re-entered education through a second chance programme, had previously worked at a construction company; ‘they (the co-workers) told that it is smart to have an education’. If not a specific turning point for Tom, he clearly expressed the way that the encouragement of his previous co-workers had made an impact, and was an important reason for him to return to school.

Goffman (1963) suggested that dominant norms (e.g., completing education) are incongruent with individuals’ opportunities; individuals are stripped of their ‘identity equipment’, making it difficult for them to maintain a sense of autonomy and control over their self-presentation. Within this context, individuals make what he calls secondary adjustments, referring to behaviours that go against institutional norms, as a means of constructing and preserving a sense of self. However, contrary to Goffman, we found that the students did not take on identities that go against institutional norms, for instance, turning to oppositional behaviour or rejecting school as a whole. Rather, the findings point to the very lack of identities and subject positions available to those who are educationally, and therefore socially, marginalized in a society that privileges education—making them feel like failures. In this narrative, re-enrolment was connected to a desire to change the circumstances of their lives by returning to school after episodes of educational failure. However, most importantly, their stories speak of the importance of social institutions and welfare state services, which are able to support them back into education.

Contrary to the narrative of opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness, in this narrative, they described that institutions or people other than themselves had helped, urged or nudged them back into school. They were very well-aware of the need to complete upper secondary education to get a job/their dream job, yet circumstances, including troublesome family relations, mental health issues and negative previous school experiences, made re-entering education all by themselves difficult.

Discussion

While it is well-documented that dropouts differ from completers on a number of variables, many of which also predict future disadvantages, we do not know whether these differences can be interpreted as consequences of high school dropouts or if they are caused by background risk factors. Yet, across national contexts, politicians and researchers share a concern that high school dropout leads to adverse conditions later in life. The strong emphasis on educational achievement as a precondition for a successful adult life in Western societies attests to the fact that school plays a significant role in setting the standards for normality and conformity among youth (Aaltonen, 2012). The Norwegian education authorities convey a strong message, namely stay in school. Moreover, a range of welfare state measures have been implemented to firmly encourage young people on the margins of school, some of them, so-called NEETs, back ‘on the right track’. Various prevention, intervention and compensation measures nationally and locally are all aimed at helping these young people complete their upper secondary education. The discourse is dominated by ‘fear mongering’ about what will happen to those who remain ‘undisciplined’, that is, without an upper secondary education certificate.

In this article, we have discussed the interviewees’accounts of their educational experiences and understanding of their re-enrolment opportunities in light of the values represented in the ‘achievement ideology’ (e.g., MacLeod, 2018). We found that the youths on the margins of the ‘school society’ understand and talk about their experiences, choices and identity in close relation to this ideology. In both of the narratives, we identified that the ‘education as a prerequisite for a happy life’ discourse is reproduced, leaving the interviewees unable to construct a meaningful future life for themselves without completing high school. Thus, they feel that they are not ‘on the right track’. However, as these narratives can be interpreted as forms of action (Sandberg, 2016) whereby young people are struggling to re-claim successful personal identities, we showed how they negotiate within this context. We argue that to understand re-enrolment processes among youth on the margins of the educational system, we must acknowledge that re-enrolment encompasses more than individual motivation and a re-enrolment drive. In both narratives, the interviewees try to free themselves from the individual responsibility inherent in the ‘achievement ideology’, although with varying degrees of impact. This helps them re-connect to themselves as individuals where their experiences are made meaningful as something else than just ‘laziness’ or ‘lack of motivation’. However, as long as the authorities do not recognize the individuals’ own accounts of ‘what went wrong’, the narratives they draw on might not free them from their position as marginalized. The interviewees see re-enrolment in upper secondary education as either contingent on institutional change, or as contingent on institutional support.

While they might regain a feeling of self-respect by opposing the individualized responsibility burdening early school leavers, the interviewees still portray their educational hardships as leaving them feeling ‘helpless’ or like ‘idiots’. They want to graduate, but as long as they think that the school is not ‘for them’, they see it as unlikely. The question, then, is how to make second-chance programmes that represent a viable option for these youth?

Policies can be distinguished between prevention, intervention and compensation measures. The latter typically entails second-chance programmes, while early intervention is the main institutional feature of the Nordic education systems (Evans & Niemeyer, 2004). Several studies have questioned whether more of the same, namely traditional schooling, really constitutes a second chance for this group (te Riele, 2007). However, the institutional determinants of re-enrolment are poorly understood, and our findings suggest that institutions have an important role in youth’s re-enrolment opportunities. We argue that future research would benefit from a greater focus on institutions and their role as a potential support system.

Conclusion

How do early school leavers perceive their efforts to reconnect? In a context where educational credentials are represented as a prerequisite for a happy life, the interviewees in this study were left feeling that their lives are meaningless unless they are able to re-connect to school. Still, they felt disempowered to do so. In the first narrative, ‘opposing otherness through dreams of ordinariness’, distressing school experiences are linked to failures within the educational system. Yet, their antagonistic attitude towards school is not directed towards education at large, but rather at particular experiences with ‘teachers who didn’t understand them’ and ‘a bullying atmosphere’ (e.g., Aaltonen, 2012). Disengagement from school does not suggest a lack of positive disposition towards education per se (McGrath, 2009). Thus, while these narratives oppose the discourse about youth on the margins of education being lazy, they do not entail a social critique. Indeed, when drawing on the first narrative, the interviewees argued that even though school would benefit their lives, re-enrolment is constructed as contingent on institutional change. As long as school stays the same, school is experienced as ‘not for them’.

In the second narrative, ‘Accepting the rules of the game—re-enrolment as a fragile opportunity’, the youth also talk about school as problematic; however, they cite problems outside of school as more important reasons for their educational struggle. Still, they also embrace the achievement ideology, and talk about educational credentials as the key to a happy life. Yet, in contrast to the existing literature, where efforts to stay on the ‘right track’ or re-enrolment are often portrayed as the result of personal agency, the interviewees construct re-enrolment opportunities as a result of institutional nudging. While the narrative does not construct institutional change as vital for their re-connecting efforts, the narrative constructs institutional support as important. However, as the support given seems somewhat coincidental, so does re-enrolment opportunities.

The findings of the study shed light on the complexities of early school leaving and re-enrolment in a society that places great emphasis on formal qualifications. The scope of choices is smaller for youth on the margins of the educational system, as compared to their peers who stay and perform adequately well in school. Instead of focussing on the individual aspirations and motivations for remaining in school—future research should focus on how the different services and institutions these youth encounter can be better equipped to support their needs. This includes more efficient guidance systems, and support needs more tailored to individual needs, given the variety of re-enrolment motivations. One potential path forward is to facilitate accessible second-chance options for this group, which might help lower the threshold for school return and increase opportunities for re-engagement, but most importantly, allow youth to reclaim successful (learner) identities.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway.The publication is part of the project ‘The comeback kids: A longitudinal study of dropouts re-enrolment in upper secondary education’.

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