Dropout from adult education Social environment, school culture and perceptions

This article concerns drop-out from daytime education for adults. Special attention is paid to gender differences. According to the theoretical framework developed by Tinto, the level of integration in the academic system and the social system of the institute is an important determining factor in drop-out. Research carried out by, for example, Woodley and Parlett and Bean and Metzner emphasizes the importance of two social systems in drop-out: the institute and the student’s own social environment. School drop-out was first approached from this point of view in the research reported in this article. The results showed that the place of the school qua centrality in the social environment was virtually the same for both school drop-outs and students. Second, it is argued that in research on school drop-out insufficient attention is paid to ‘perceptions’. The research therefore also places school drop-out in the context of the way teachers and students perceive the social and cognitive functioning of the latter. The results showed that there is clearly a correlation between drop-out on the one hand, and the extent of divergence between the subject-images which students have of themselves and the subject positions which are offered by teachers on the other.