The path from school vulnerability to early school dropout. The role of Second Chance Schools in the strategy against school leaving

Abstract

This paper analyzes the organizational context of schools as an element that could, by itself, trigger situations of school dropout or, at least, be unable to neutralize risk situations in pupils affected by school vulnerability. Formal education, as it tends to use working methods aimed mainly to organizational effectiveness, lacks the flexibility and adaptability to cope with the
demands that different social and educative contexts require. By contrast, the Second Chance School is an educational resource that has adopted flexible organizational structures and proactive procedures based on individualized attention, dialogue and involvement of agents
outside the school itself. The use of a qualitative methodology based on interviews with the teaching staff of the Second Chance School and young pupils of the center, has allowed us to make comparisons between different resources and analyze the reactions of students who have had
difficulties in secondary education and now are in a different educational environment, with very distinct rules and relationship dynamics.