The construction of early school leaving as a political concept: an analysis in the sociology of education

Abstract

Beyond the statistical construction, early school leaving (ESL) is a political concept that requires reflection and questioning. This article is based on a research project on early school leaving in 9 countries of the European Union to center the Portuguese problem, where the issue of early school leaving and its social economic and political context assumes particularly serious dimensions. The article defines and explains the features of three sub-periods, between 2000 and 2015, linked to different modes of education governance. Focusing in particular on the current period, running from 2011, this work captures different perspectives on the problem and analyzes the policies and conditions that surround it. The goal is to contribute with the lenses of sociology of education to understand the construction of early school leaving as a political concept and to
the analysis of political practices to confront it, while taking into account the impacts of educational changes in educational equity and the democratic pedagogic rights. We argue that the current trend to segregate some groups within the education system and the prevalence of the logics of competitiveness to the detriment of the search for social inclusion, which threaten the
achievement of pedagogic rights particularly for those groups with greater social vulnerability, gives evidence to the need for powerful educational measures that take into account and assign value to the views and interests of diverse actors at different levels of the fabrication of the European education space.