A European consideration of Early School Leaving as a process running through childhood: A model for inclusive action.

Early School Leaving (ESL) or dropout has often been portrayed as an outcome and therefore something that only secondary school teachers need to think about. However, much of the literature suggests that this view is unhelpful and that Early School Leaving is the result of processes that run throughout childhood. This means that everybody involved in education and childhood development needs to consider how these processes operate. This paper presents an overview of the literature and uses Bronfenbrenner’s ideas from the ecosystemic model and Lewin’s concept of Force Field Analysis to present a model that can be used as a way of thinking about how to remove barriers to learning or to enhance successful inclusive teaching. The model points to important steps that can be taken to prevent ESL, to intervene to reduce ESL, and steps that can be taken by countries to educationally compensate those for whom ESL has occurred. The model is not prescriptive but adaptive to local context and circumstances and as such provides a thinking tool to promote inclusive thinking. The adaptive nature of the model helps to overcome the challenge of Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND) being defined differently in different countries and often interpreted differently within the same country.