Early school-leaving in the Netherlands

The aim of this thesis was to gain better understanding of the factors that explain why some adolescents are more likely to leave school early than others. Cohort data were used on 20 thousand students that were in first grade of secondary school in September 1989/~90 or 1999/~00 and following their educational careers until full completion.

The main conclusion from this thesis is that early school leaving is largely predicted by factors that are measured within a child at the age of twelve, such as cognitive ability, motivation, school perception, having family resources, being surrounded by a positive peer group, and being in homogeneous schools. Cognitive ability at the start of secondary school is the most important predictor of early school-leaving followed by socioeconomic status of the parents. A lack of resources in terms of human, economic and cultural capital can increase ones risk of becoming an early school-leaver. However, parents are able to compensate for these possible lacks of resources and socioeconomic status by investing in parental support such as showing interest in their child’s schoolwork, homework, grades etc.

One very remarkable result that emerged throughout this study is the correlation between migrant status and early school-leaving. Many studies have described how students from Moroccan, Turkish and other non-western backgrounds are much more at risk of early school-leaving. In chapters 2, 4, and 5, we show that students from migrant backgrounds, if any, are less at risk of becoming an early school-leaver when controlling for social background. In other words, when comparing native Dutch youth to Moroccan or Turkish youth with identical backgrounds, native Dutch youth are at least just as much at risk. In turn, the elevated number of early school-leavers among certain ethnic groups is not due to their cultural heritage, but a result of the fact that they more often come from low social classes. This is in line with previous findings.

In terms of policy relevance, this finding does not imply that policies combating early school-leaving should not focus on these specific groups, since they do in fact represent a large group of at-risk students. However, policies should not approach the high early school-leaving rate among minority groups as a cultural issue but acknowledge the impact of the social constraints that are at play.

Traag, T. (2012). Early school leaving in the Netherlands: A multidisciplinary study of risk and protective factors explaining early school-leaving. Dissertation, Maastricht University, doi:10.26481/dis.20121213tt.