ACADEMIC CAUSES

Statistics indicate that vocational education has by far the greatest number of students who have to repeat a grade (see for instance: Fehérvári 2008), which might lead one to believe that students drop out of vocational school for academic reasons. In many schools, half of the dropouts are considered to be caused by academic issues and fail-ing classes. However, interviews also showed that very few students actually drop out of school for purely study-related reasons; often, absences are a much more important factor. On the one hand, there are institutions where it is clearly felt that students with poorer abilities miss more classes, and dropping out is a result of the absences, not the lower ability or knowledge. On the other hand, in some schools, it was stressed that poorer abilities are never a reason for dropping out.

It appears that when it comes to dropping out of school for academic reasons, a lot depends on the school’s attitude. Again, there are some schools where this is seen as an unchangeable feature:

“unfortunately, where there are few applicants to choose from, the dropout rate will be high” (school principal, small town)

At the same time, other institutions show that a lot depends on the school’s phi-losophy when it comes to poor academic results and failing classes:

“There aren’t many failures, because I think our job is to teach children, not to fail them. Our job is not to fail them, and if a child can’t learn something, we have to put them on a different track, because this is a vocational education institution, and our job is to give them a profession so that they can make a living and integrate into society, and not to teach them things they cannot or do not want to learn.”

(county seat, school principal?)

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE SAME PROBLEMS

The above shows that schools see different things as problems, experience them in different ways and respond to them in different ways.

The most salient differences were found with regard to behavioural issues and the handling of absences. Even in the case of lateness, which is regulated rather precisely, institutions have quite a lot of freedom in how they handle the issue administratively, which means that the consequences of lateness also vary. There is even more variation between institutions in the handling of other phenomena related to dropping out that are usually seen as problems. Some principals say that whatever they do, there are some students who will be absent from a lot of classes and entire school days without justification, in which case the school does what it is required to do by law: notify the district clerk and pedagogical assistance services – and that is all it can do. In the schools contacted for this research, this is the dominant attitude.

However, some principals have a different view on the matter:

“This person, who was absent from an awful lot of classes, because of the divorce of his parents, we could have... And I think that most institutions would, understandably, just expel him, but I think we can integrate him back by, although of course we won’t be able to grade him at the end of the year, but we want to keep him in the institution, we want to save him.” (denominational school, small town, principal)

There is an even greater contrast when it comes to the management of behavioural problems, presumably because these are subject to much fewer legal regulations, al-lowing institutions much more freedom to decide how to respond to behavioural is-sues and how much weight to attribute to them.

In some schools, it is felt that students have difficulties controlling their temper, and this poses a serious challenge for the school.

In another school, we received the following response to a question on the man-agement of behavioural problems:

“Actually, we do not see this as a problem.” (school principal, small town)

Thus, such problems are perceived differently in different schools, and the dif-ferences in their management are even greater. Schools’ opinions tend to diverge the most on how much latitude they actually have. As previously mentioned, school prin-cipals often feel powerless due to the generally poor conditions the school has to op-erate in.

“when we try to teach or educate, we often bump into walls, because they just don’t yet understand”

(school principal, small town)

This sense of powerlessness seems to go hand in hand with students’ lack of mo-tivation – at least, the two occur together in many cases. In many schools, teachers do not feel competent to handle the problems. Generally, they meet their statutory obliga-tions and respond to problems according to an established routine learned over the years, but they themselves feel that these methods are insufficient and ineffective. In many cases, though, this does not lead to a determination to change the established practice: it only strengthens the sense of resignation.

The sense of powerlessness, of being poorly equipped is accompanied by a sense that there is little chance of getting help from internal or external pedagogical assis-tance services, even though it is clear from the results that the presence of such special-ised staff can often help resolve tensions.

At the same time, there are innovative institutions that use different methods. They are often not state-run institutions, and that may be the reason why they have better access to assistance providers; in any case, they use assistance providers in a more con-scious and planned manner. Instead of contacting them only in case of trouble, they consult them and discuss specific cases with them as an organic part of the school’s work. In at least one institution, there is ongoing mentoring as part of the Dobbantó Programme; in another, the staff regularly discusses difficulties together as a team.

In this latter institution, the school’s management reported various good prac-tices: for instance, the operation of the school’s conflict management method (learned from a well-reputed vocational training institution that specialises in students with a disadvantaged background). This also shows that the methods the school uses to manage conflicts between the school and a student or among students, and the gen-eral approach to conflict management can have great importance. The importance of the role of mentors also emerges in these discussions:

“We call this method restorative conflict management [...] The child does not feel threatened, because we create a very safe environment in these situations, so the child is not alone with the ‚enemy’, but rather we have the child, and the child can name somebody they trust, and say they want that person

to sit with them to support them, this is usually a mentor or a friend. Parents... perhaps there was one case where the child wanted a parent, so parents are not really the people who really look after the child.” (principal, city with county status)

This puts a frequently voiced complaint in a new context: in many vocational schools, it is felt that parents are passive and the school is unable to take over their role – this quote, however, indicates that this, a replacement of their family, is actually what children really need, and it appears that the effective management of problems require schools to take steps in this direction.

In most institutions, teachers struggle to control students who disturb classes. Still, there are examples of efforts to handle situations like this without requiring extra re-sources: for instance, in one school, students who prove hopeless to manage in class are regularly sent to the principal’s office – but not as punishment, but as a step to-wards managing the problem:

“The teacher can’t handle the child on the spot, because he is disturbing the class so much [...] and then he is sent out of the room, but that means he comes here to see me or the vice principal, and we talk. And then a lot of things come out about the child in that conversation, which starts a new process, about what we, about what steps need to be taken to sort out the life situation that he is in.” (principal, city with county status)

At the opposite end of the scale from conflict management aimed at solving prob-lems involving teamwork and pedagogical assistance specialists is the use of discipli-nary action.

There are quite large differences between schools when it comes to the frequency of the use of disciplinary action, although there are hardly any schools where they are frequent.

Disciplinary action is often an implicit admission of failure on the part of the in-stitution:

“We only remove children through disciplinary action who have gotten to the point where they under-mine and damage the whole community. Then we do not have any other options, at that point peda-gogy has failed, and then... that’s when we resort to this solution.” (principal, small town)

Even in institutions that use disciplinary action, the number of students expelled in this way is under 10 per year; in some schools, it is 5 or 6, but in most, it is 2 to 3. The causes are the same as for most school problems: in most cases, aggression that is judged to be unmanageable, but there was at least one case where a student was dis-ciplined for absences. It appears that in some cases, disciplinary action is not just an indicator of the school’s lack of other solutions; it is a communication path:

“And the student is of compulsory schooling age, so we can’t expel him even if he misses classes wit-hout justification, so above a certain percentage we take disciplinary action, and then the parent is informed of what’s going on.” (principal, small town)

The above quote shows the communicational and symbolic importance of disci-plinary action, and it raises another important point as well, by mentioning the school-ing obligation. Perhaps the relatively low number of disciplinary actions may be relat-ed to the lowerrelat-ed compulsory schooling age, as it allows institutions to expel problem students without ‚bothering’ with disciplinary procedures. This indicates that schools often apply this measure when they have exhausted all other options, and when disci-plinary action is taken, the goal might not be solving the problem.

The distribution of disciplinary cases between institutions is uneven. This is clear-ly not related to one school having „easier” students while another has more „difficult”

students; the causes are, again, to be sought in the different attitudes of schools.

LOGICS OF ACTION

The above discussion shows that problem management in schools (which naturally has an impact on dropouts) is not only determined by outside circumstances (the pri-mary school career and family background of students), systemic issues (the position of vocational training within the education system) and the infrastructure. It seems clear that schools may respond differently to similar situations, and may view and treat the same problems differently. Schools may be seen as actors with their own logic of action.

The logic of action of an individual or a group is a set of dominant attitudes that can be identified based on an observation of the actor’s practices in a specific area – e.g.

regarding absences or academic or behavioural problems. The term of logic does not refer here to an explicit reasoning structuring speech, but rather to an implicit coher-ence in a series of practices contributing to carrying out a certain orientation. (Maroy 2004). Naturally, this is not entirely independent of the various „objective” conditions listed above: it includes a reflection and an opinion on them; an assessment of what re-alistic objectives the institution can set for itself, about what it can and cannot achieve.

However, the same „objective conditions” may lead to different reflections and differ-ent logics of action in differdiffer-ent institutions.

Although this research project did not involve making observations in the schools, only an examination of the narratives of principals in order to learn about the phe-nomenon of dropping out of school, these narratives still give some insight into vari-ous logics of action. A field research project carried out in six areas in five countries (in-cluding one area in Hungary) covering a total of 89 primary schools showed schools as having a dominant logic of action ranging from instrumental to expressive. These terms are borrowed from Bernstein’s (1996: 97–99) work (Maroy, 2004: 89).

In schools with an instrumental logic of action, the relationship of students and teachers is determined by the academic performance of students and the teacher’s

authority; parents are seen as strategic capital, the principal is seen as a manager and acts accordingly. The focus is on academic achievements, discipline and calmness;

considerations of fairness are secondary. In schools with an expressive logic of action, the relationship of students and teachers is based on a family atmosphere, caring and attention; fairness is fundamental in school practices; the school has programmes for children with special educational needs and children with behavioural issues, and the principal is seen as the head teacher.

It might not come as a surprise to the reader that the above cited international re-search project showed that schools with an instrumental logic of action generally had a lot of students from the higher strata of society, and were primarily interested in re-cruiting such students and made efforts to exclude students with a worse background and poorer academic results, while in schools with a more mixed social composition, the expressive logic of action was more often used, and there were more programmes with various types of remedial courses.

Assuming that a description of school practices supplied by the principal gives us some insight into the school’s real practices, elements of both instrumental and expressive logics of action can be found in the vocational schools under study. The below table lists some characteristic details from principals’ descriptions as an illustra-tion of the point.

Table 1: logics of action as reflected in the descriptions supplied by principals in interviews

INSTRUMENTAL (THE QUOTES ARE FROM 4 SCHOOLS) EXPRESSIVE (THE QUOTES ARE FROM 3 SCHOOLS) they are so misbehaved, I don’t know what parents

expect of them at home, they don’t even understand why it is a problem that they stand in front of a teacher with their hands in their pockets and the way they talk to teachers.

we are kind of an incubator school, so we have a very close relationship with students, and they are happy to stay here, because they know the teachers here, they know the students, so this is a safe environment for them.

It is difficult to get them to show respect. So it takes firmness to command respect here. For instance, it is difficult to maintain order in the classroom.

It takes ongoing work, and firmness. So you have to be consistent, you have to be firm.

There aren’t many failures, because I think our job is to teach children, not to fail them. Our job is not to fail them, and if a child can’t learn something, we have to put them on a different track, because this is a vocational education institution, and our job is to give them a profession so they can make a living and integrate into society, and not to teach them things they cannot or do not want to learn.

And I would like to stress that this school, our school, is not like the average school, how you imagine vocational schools. So if you come in here, you can see children are disciplined here, we haven’t had a stabbing here, or a big fight where the police had to get involved, or a beating of a teacher, so nothing of the sort that you hear about in the press or the inter-net. We pay a lot of attention to that.

So if there is a rigid teacher, someone who thinks

‚I’m the teacher, I will teach here, and the kids’ job is to do what I say’ – well, that teacher will leave right away, after the first class. Out of the 45 minutes of each class, 15 minutes are spent teaching values and norms, and 30 minutes are spent teaching the subject matter.

In this heterogeneous environment, we have set up a school that is fundamentally very orderly.

So today we have interim examinations, where a panel from the chamber is testing children, and they come in here – they just told me – they like to come here, because there is peace and quiet here.

And then the teachers took out their children’s pri-mary school mathematics textbooks at home, and brought in those problems, to teach children from that and make some progress, because there is no point in giving them a failing mark.

Table 1: Logics of action as reflected in the descriptions supplied by principals in interviews

INSTRUMENTAL (THE QUOTES ARE FROM 4 SCHOOLS) EXPRESSIVE (THE QUOTES ARE FROM 3 SCHOOLS)

  Our children come back here, they bring their

children in to show them to us. A lot of marriages were made here. This is a mixed school.

 

We have afternoon play sessions, which are open, so they are not just for our kids. And of course, the news spreads, already through the school year, if a kid’s friend is in trouble, because they missed a lot of classes, or failed, or had some behavioural problem, that they can come here, it’s a good place for them.

These quotes contain characteristic descriptions: on the one side, we have “order”,

“respect” and “misbehaved” children, while on the other, we have “incubator school”,

“safe” and “mixed school”. Instrumental and expressive logics of action make for en-tirely different schools, which have very different expectations towards their students as well – and they can offer different things to students.

The different problem perceptions and problem management methods discussed in the paper can often be described in terms of one of the two logics of action. In insti-tutions with a more instrumental logic of action, a lot more problems are detected; one could also say that they perceive as problems certain things that are simply treated as a given in schools with an expressive logic: students’ poor family background, their troubled previous school career or their low level of skills; as one respondent said, they “do not see this as a problem” – a clear example of expressive logic.

When it comes to problem management patterns, the two logics of action seem to show the opposite trends: in schools with an expressive logic, active solutions are sought, often aimed at keeping the child in the school, while institutions with an ex-pressive logic report using innovative solutions more rarely and they report ‚unavoid-able’ disciplinary procedures and inescapable dropouts more often. Of course, this should not come as a surprise, as instrumental logic requires children to be assessed based on the school’s expectations, unlike expressive logic, in which the goal is

When it comes to problem management patterns, the two logics of action seem to show the opposite trends: in schools with an expressive logic, active solutions are sought, often aimed at keeping the child in the school, while institutions with an ex-pressive logic report using innovative solutions more rarely and they report ‚unavoid-able’ disciplinary procedures and inescapable dropouts more often. Of course, this should not come as a surprise, as instrumental logic requires children to be assessed based on the school’s expectations, unlike expressive logic, in which the goal is

In document SNAPSHOT OF HUNGARIAN EDUCATION 2014 (Pldal 193-200)