RISK FACTORS FOR EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING IN BULGARIA

Abstract

In this paper attention is drawn to the phenomenon of early school leaving, which is regarded through the prism of the stratification mechanisms in the field of secondary school education in Bulgaria. A special emphasis is placed on educational segregation, related to a widening of the gap between different types of Bulgarian schools. The authors present the data of an empirical study on the opinions of secondary school students in Bulgaria about the early school leaving phenomenon, attempting to highlight a number of risk determinants that trigger school failure as a consequence of certain life and educational trajectories. It is emphasized that both a profound understanding of the risk factors, associated with early school leaving, and potential remedies should be considered in the context of a much broader socio-structural framework and a horizon of sociocultural meanings, including those, related to ethnicity. The paper concludes with a description of some main tools for prevention within the socio-existential perspective.

Full text

946
Pedagogy  Volume91,Number7,2019  Педагогика



Trakia University – Stara Zagora (Bulgaria)
In the paper attention is drawn to the phenomenon of early school
leaving, which is regarded through the prism of the stratification mechanisms in
the field of secondary school education in Bulgaria. A special emphasis is placed
on educational segregation, related to a widening of the gap between dierent types
of Bulgarian schools. The authors present the data of an empirical study on the
opinions of secondary school students in Bulgaria about the early school leaving
phenomenon, attempting to highlight a number of risk determinants that trigger
school failure as a consequence of certain life and educational trajectories. It is
emphasized that both a profound understanding of the risk factors, associated with
early school leaving, and potential remedies should be considered in the context of a
much broader socio-structural framework and a horizon of sociocultural meanings,
including those, related to ethnicity. The paper concludes with a description of some
main tools for prevention within the socio-existential perspective.
Keywords: education; early school leaving; inclusion

In the context of today’s post-industrial, globalizing society, the problem of
the access of children to school education and early school leaving (ESL) is of
particular importance and relevance to the EU countries. This is the result of the
impact not only of the macro-social processes, which reect the specific trends
at the societal level, related to the construction of the knowledge-based economy
and society in Europe, but also a consequence of the demand for eective ways
of raising such socio-economic markers as competitiveness, sustainability and
growth potential. The increased interest in the problem is also inuenced by the
indispensable intention for a general humanization of the social relations and the
emphasis on the existential well-being of each individual.
Assessing the potential benefits of individual learning and the potential loss
of school dropouts, a number of researchers adhere to traditional, economically
determined perceptions. Within this so-called investment model a common vision
has been accepted, which reveals higher benefits from schooling among individuals
Research insights
Изследователски проникновения

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
from vulnerable, disadvantaged groups and general increase of returns for all
social groups and strata since 1980s. Besides interpreting human capital and its
growth only in terms of “one-dimensional skill” and “productivity” the alternative
conceptions view schooling as such a mechanism, which generates dierent types
of experience and aects many dimensions of skills.
Schooling not only aects income but also provides individuals with the
opportunity and capacity of making better decisions about health, marriage, and
parenting style. It improves multi-tasking or time management skills, oers broader
opportunities for the development of critical thinking and social competencies.
Schooling promotes trust and civic participation. There are very strong arguments
that compulsory schooling aects overall life satisfaction (Oreopoulos, 2007). That
is why it is essentially important to extend our knowledge about the early school
leaving phenomenon and its predictors.

At EU level the term “early school leaving” describes all forms of leaving
education and training before completing the upper secondary level. It includes
those who have never enrolled and those who have dropped out of education and
training1). According to the EU Commission Sta Working Paper (2011) ESL is
typically caused by a cumulative process of disengagement as a result of personal,
social, economic, geographical, education or family-related reasons (p. 11).
It reveals a very complex and nonhomogeneous nature, which diers from one
country or region to another. The EU Council Recommendation (2011) stresses
upon that ESL are a process rather than a one-o event; it can be prevented best if
the first signs of this process are recognised (p. 10).
In the context of the great social significance of the ESL the Europe 2020 strategy
has outlined the priority objective of reducing early school leaving from 14.4% in
2009 to less than 10% by 2020. Despite the active aspirations of Bulgaria to adhere
to this goal by committing to 11%, the overall situation in the country seems to be
rather alarming. The survey results show that the number of dropouts has increased
significantly in 2015 (21.146 students out of a total of 749.094) and represents
2.82% as opposed to 2.36% of the previous 2014. No improvements were reported
in the following year. In 2016 a total of 21.171 pupils out of 741.235 left school,
which represents 2.86%2). Obviously, taking into account the number of dropouts,
there is a slow but steady negative tendency, although there is a numerical increase
of a separate category of children who leave the school institution due to their
departure abroad. In addition, there is an increase compared to the previous year of
the number of students at primary school age, who leave school because of family
reasons, and a similar increase in the number of students from secondary school,
who leave because of their reluctance to study. As a result, between one fifth and
one quarter of the Bulgarian children aged 11 – 14 do not attend secondary school.

948
Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
It is necessary first to take into account the fact that in the case of ESL students
the situation in Bulgaria is contradictory. There are attractive schools with a large
inux of enrolling students where dropouts are non-existent. There are also school
institutions where, despite the existence of a number of diculties, the problem
of early school leaving is solved successfully enough. At the same time, there are
schools that report very high levels of ESL students. Recognition of the significant
dierences and imbalances, related to the dropout phenomenon should be reected
in precisely defining the dierent groups of schools with a particular focus on
the most vulnerable educational institutions in order to construct the design of
interventions according to their specifics and the profile of each of them.
A number of studies in Bulgaria show that the over-concentration of ESL
students is characteristic of two types of schools as a whole.
1. Schools which are the only schools in a settlement. The percentage of non-
enrolled secondary school pupils who have completed primary schools has almost
doubled there. Such a situation is often explained by the fact that in some of the
more conservative and patriarchal communities in Bulgarian society the physical
closeness of the school is one of the key prerequisites for attendance and the absence
of a school in the settlement leads to dropping/ not enrolling in the school.
2. Segregated Roma or Gypsy schools (New (2011 – 12) qualifies them as so-
called “ghetto schools”) in which the number of dropouts is extremely high: in Roma
neighbourhoods in big cities, and sometimes in smaller ones, there are schools in which
nearly all pupils are from the Roma minority3). School segregation can reveal itself both
as inter-school segregation and intra-school segregation with separate Roma classes, but
in all its dimensions it is a special form of discrimination which, in Roma case, overlaps
with lower quality education (Curcic et al., 2014; Rostas & Kostka, 2014; Downes,
2015). Even in this group of schools the dynamics varies considerably – a positive trend
can be found in some of the “Roma schools”, where students continue to be enrolled
in secondary education. Regional disproportions are also very serious. Moreover, these
disproportions are not directly determined by an economic point of view.
The complexity of the problem calls for a careful consideration of a wide range of
causes and risks regarded through the prism of stratification processes, which lead to the
expulsion not only of individuals, but in a sense of certain subgroups out of the system
of school education. In this respect the following main factors need to be understood:
– Dierences with regards to ESL according to gender, academic performance
or achieved education levels;
– The socio-economic background or a proxy, such as neighbourhood information;
– The migration or minority background and/or mother tongue of the learner.
For implementation of a profound vision on ESL it is advisable to take as a
starting point an analysis of the national, regional and local specificities on the
basis of a multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary approach, which should take
particular account of the student voice4).

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...

In order to define the key risk factors for secondary school dropout in Bulgaria a
special survey was carried out focused on the students’ opinions. The methodology
included a questionnaire survey. When processing the obtained data, a percentage
analysis and a ranking-scaling method were used on the basis of SPSS Statistics.
The main objective of the survey was to explore the views of Bulgarian students
on the phenomenon of ESL in order to highlight the profile of the individual,
correlating with the motivation for dropout.
Aims: 1. To reveal the risks that increase the propensity of Bulgarian students
to ESL, with a particular focus on those SES inuences and ethnic background
which have the most important eect. 2. To identify the interventions and tools for
prevention that appear to contribute to the inclusion of at-risk young people in the
school community.
Research methods: survey, statistical processing of empirical data with Statistica
SPSS.V. 16.0, pertinent analysis, correlation analysis.

The contingent includes 152 students who are studying in secondary schools.
Participants were in 5th, 6th and 7th grade (11 – 17 years old), recruited from 3
regular schools in the Stara Zagora region (two of which were Roma schools).
This choice was predetermined by the fact that the level of ESL in Bulgaria is
usually the highest among students in these grades and among students from
segregated schools. Besides Stara Zagora region is one of the fourth areas with
over-concentration of ESL. All students completed the questionnaire voluntarily
within school hours. The ethical rules for undertaking research with children
were applied. All parents had given their informed consent for their child to
participate in the study.

The questionnaire is composed of a series of close-ended questions (29 items),
the items grouped into the following subscales, aim to identify the dierent
risks for ESL: I. Family profile and living conditions; II. Students’ health,
work experience and access to equipment; III. School attendance and school
diculties; IV. Participation in extracurricular and out-of-school activities; V.
Conicts at school; VI. Help with personal/school issues and teaching methods;
VII. Relationship with parents; VIII. Factors contributing to success and well-
being at school; IX. Life goal orientation and reasons for dropout. Each item
of the questionnaire contains unequivocal statements and does not allow for
dierences. The sample is exhaustive and does not claim to be representative.
Piloting procedures have not been done.
The data are not normally distributed, necessitating the use of nonparametric
techniques in the analysis. The statistical significance of dierences in the responses
is verified by a Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric k-test (Man-Whitney Post-Hock Test)

950
Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
– a nonparametric alternative to a single-factor dispersion analysis for comparison
of three or more groups. The corrected value of (p) of Bonferoni is used.

The presented analysis selectively covers part of the data obtained. The
“ethnicity” factor is defined as the presumed leader in the analysis of the answers
to questions 1 to 6 (inclusive). The distribution of respondents by ethnic group is
shown in Tabl 1.
 Distribution according to ethnic background
Frequency Percent Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid Roma 72 47,4 48,0 48,0
Bulgarian 62 40,8 41,3 89,3
Other 16 10,5 10,7 100,0
Total 150 98,7 100,0
Missing System 2 1,3
Total 152 100,0
It should be noted that those respondents who choose the “other” option in terms
of their ethnicity are representatives of a specific sub-group “Turkish Roma” (Roma
who identify themselves as Turks), so it is no coincidence that their answers are so
close to those of Roma children.
The distribution of respondents by place of residence is as follows: 119 students
(78%) are from cities and 33 (22%) are from villages. The distribution by gender
includes 81 male (53.3%) and 71 (46.7%) female learners.
One of the risk factors that causes ESL could be related to a certain type of
family. In order to identify it, respondents were asked question 1“What family
do you live in?”. Data indicate that students of biological families with two
parents (78.8%) predominate, followed by those living with their grandparents
– 9.9%. Third, there are the respondents who live in a single-parent family
(7.9%) and fourth - those in a family with a step parent – 2%. The share of those
living in a foster family is insignificant – 0.7%. One respondent indicates that he
has no family (0.7%). In terms of ethnicity, the distribution of responses shows
that the majority of respondents (75% persons of Roma origin and 87% persons
of the dominant ethnos) live in families with two parents and a relatively equal
number of individuals from both ethnic groups live in single-parent families.
At the same time a sucient number of respondents from the Roma minority
– nearly 16% say they live only with grandparents against 3% of students with
Bulgarian origin (Table 2).

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
Distribution according to type of family
Frequency Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid with both parents 119 78,3 78,8 78,8
with one parent 12 7,9 7,9 86,8
with grandparents 15 9,9 9,9 96,7
with a step parent 32,0 2,0 98,7
in a foster family 10,7 0,7 99,3
I don’t have a family 10,7 0,7 100,0
Total 151 99,3 100,0
Missing System 1 0,7
Total 152 100,0
The next question (“What education does your mother have?” – Question 2)
is focused on the mother’s educational status, which is regarded to be one of the
factors, inuencing school dropout. Ordinarily, parents’ low educational status
seriously increases the level of risk for ESL. The data shows that mothers with
secondary education predominate – about 35%. Of these, the mothers of Roma
minority children comprise nearly 33% and mothers of the dominant ethnicity –
42%. These are followed by mothers with higher education – 23.5%. Here, the
dierences become particularly significant. Mothers with higher education of
Bulgarian ethnicity are almost 49% and Roma mothers – less than 6%. There are
31.6% of mothers with primary and lower secondary education (13.4% and 18.8%
respectively), the majority of them being Roma. It’s clear that a great share of
Roma mothers fall in the category of low educated people – of whom 18.8 with
primary and almost 29% with lower secondary education. 9.4% of the mothers are
without education and they are still mainly of non-Bulgarian origin (Table 3)
 Distribution according to mother’s education
Frequency Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid primary 20 13,2 13,4 13,4
low secondary 28 18,4 18,8 32,2
secondary 52 34,2 34,9 67,1
higher education 35 23,0 23,5 90,6
without education 14 9,2 9,4 100,0
Total 149 98,0 100,0
Missing System 32,0
Total 152 100,0

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Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
The distribution of the responses to a question related to the father’s education
(“What education does your father have?” – Question 3) demonstrates that fathers
with secondary education predominate, too - about 39,2%. Of these, the fathers of
Roma origin are 15% and those of the dominant ethnicity – nearly 52%. They are
followed by fathers with low secondary education – 23,6 % (Roma people – 33,8 %
and people with Bulgarian origin – 10,3%). There are 20,9 % of fathers with higher
education among which fathers of Bulgarian ethnicity are nearly three times more.
The total number of fathers with primary education is 8,6% and they are only from
minorities. Without education respectively are 7.4% of fathers and the absolute
majority of them are Roma people.
The fourth question is “Do Your Parents Work?” with three variants of
answers a) yes, both of them; b) yes, one of them; c) no, both are unemployed.
The question checks out parents’ employment status and indirectly the family’s
purchasing power and quality of life. The distribution of data clearly shows
that employed parents (72.4%) predominate, followed by families with one
working parent (23.4%) – (Table 4).
Distribution according to parents’ employment
Frequency Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid both are employed 110 72,4 72,4 72,4
only one 36 23,7 23,7 96,1
both are unemployed 63,9 3,9 100,0
Total 152 100,0 100,0
As it can be seen from the data, almost a quarter of the respondents’
families have only one working parent, and the total share of such families of
Roma origin is almost twice as big as that of Bulgarian ones, and makes about
42%. In addition, there are families (minorities only), where both parents are
unemployed (3.9%). The risk of ESL in this case is growing steadily and is
confirmed by research, which has found that lower employment rates associated
with an increased propensity to drop out of school, especially among ethnic
minorities (Rumberger, 1983).
Although the results of the survey, as revealed in question 5, show that
the majority of respondents (88.2%) do not have to work to support their
families, the number of Roma children is twice as big as that of the children
with Bulgarian ethnicity, which often or occasionally need to work – 4 and 6
persons respectively, which makes almost 14% of their total contingent.
An interesting result indicates that most of the students surveyed declare
that they need to work but at the same time they come from families with

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
two working parents. This also reflects the specificity of the socio-economic
situation in Bulgaria, where the number of the “working poor” is high.
As far as Question 6 is concerned (“Having a computer or tablet at home”)
the distribution of data shows that the majority of respondents (87%) have
this type of device at their disposal. At the same time, 22% of the Roma
children surveyed did not have a computer compared to 3% of the students
with Bulgarian origin (Table 5).
Man-Whitney U test, question 6
Групи U Z p r
Roma-Bulgarian 1653,0 -3,169 ,002 0,281
Bulgarian-Roma 443,0 -1,470 ,142 0,167
Roma-other 483,0 -,875 ,381 0,107
Here is another challenge faced by children from marginalized minority
communities. It reects the increased use of such learning aids as a result of the
development of new cultural transmission media, which seriously reduces the total
inuence of school culture. So the decadence of the school-culture monopoly may
thus work to maintain and even increase the disadvantage of lower-class children,
as their parents frequently lack the cultural and financial resources to use these
media as educational resources.
It can be concluded that the three questions, in the answers of which there are
statistically significant dierences concerning ethnicity (Nos. 2, 3, 6), the dierence
is between the Bulgarians and the two other ethnic groups, with the predominant
force eect of factor from typical to greater than typical.
The impact of a number of the risks, related to school, ethno-cultural specifics,
etc. is also reected in other results obtained during the study. For example,
question 11 (“What is dicult for you at school?”) is indicative enough. The data
shows: almost half of the respondents (49%) associate the emerging diculties
with the lack of good discipline, and such opinions almost doubled the number of
the students with Bulgarian ethnicity compared to those of Roma origin.
Secondly, there is a response regarding the complexity of the curriculum – and the
situation is radically dierent: out of the 33% who share this opinion, the majority are
Roma students (58%). Often, this category of children, having a number of educational
deficits – due to low speech culture, insucient cognitive and learning skills, etc. find
themselves in a more dicult position, which negatively reects on their academic
success and increases their chances of dropout. Poor Bulgarian language skills (a factor
mentioned only by the minority of students – a total of 9 respondents) also increase the
level of risk. Of those who associate their learning diculties with irregular attendance
of lessons and gaps in their knowledge (about 4%), only minority students are involved.

954
Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
Regarding participation in extracurricular forms of work(question 16), the
distribution of responses based on the ethnic background of respondents appears
to be more balanced. The data show that in most extracurricular activities children
from minorities are actively involved, and in the dance groups and music-vocal
groups, for example, the number of children from the Roma ethnicity is twice as
big. To a great extent this is inuenced by the specificity of the sample, which
includes the children of the segregated Roma School in Chirpan, where the
organization of extra-curricular forms of work is carried out at high level. But here
too, some worrying trends can be highlighted. Firstly, the extremely low number of
respondents who participated in the social-psychological trainings or counselling
(3 persons in total, 2 of which are of Roma origin) and secondly, a significant
number of people – almost 42% who declare that they do not participate in such
activities. This is the group which involves children at a very high risk of dropout
because they fail to develop enough trust and interest in the school community.
Even more dramatic is the situation with the participation in additional forms
of education (question 17), where the number of systemically non-participating
students reaches 44%, which is twice the share of minority representatives. This
greatly reduces the educational chances of these children and limits the opportunities
for their development.
The answers to question 18regardingthe reasons for students’ learning diculties
and low success rate are interesting enough. Of all the respondents who explain
their diculties with non-attendance (12.5%), almost 90% are representatives of
the minorities. The irregular completion of one’s homework made it dicult for
16% of the respondents to study, among which is the overwhelming majority of the
minority groups. The same applies to the students’ short attention span. Chronic
and other illnesses, as a factor that makes learning dicult for them, have only been
indicated by minority children (4% in total).
On the question of the reasons for ESL(question 24), the opinions of the
interviewed students largely coincide. In their view, school dropout and ESL is the
result of a low interest in learning (almost 37% of respondents have chosen this
option). Another common reason stems from the diculties in learning (23% of all
students). A more significant dierence is evident when students relate the reason
for ESL to early marriage – such an opinion is shared mainly by the respondents
of the minority origin (12 persons against 4 of the Bulgarian ethnicity), which is in
line with the cultural-specific prerequisites for dropout.
For Question 28(“What do you like most about school?”) the respondents from
all ethnic groups most often answer that their friends are the main reason for them to
attend school – almost 50%. A large proportion of Roma children give their teachers a
preference (of the 17% having opted for this answer, 68% are Roma). This is probably
due to a number of circumstances – such as respect for the teachers’ professional
qualities, their personal charm and authority, high appreciation of their support in

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
training, etc. The same can be seen in the analysis of the answers to question 29
(“What helps you be successful in school?”). Most of the respondents receive the
biggest support first from their families - 41%, secondly – from teachers (almost
28% of the total number of respondents) and thirdly – from their friends – 15%, with
almost the same percentage of respondents relying mostly on their own strength.
The distribution of the responses based on ethnicity again highlights some specific
points. The Roma children rely heavily on the support of their teachers while the
students with Bulgarian ethnicity rely on themselves. And this circumstance puts
into focus a number of reasons, objective and subjective, which can refer to both
the ethno-cultural and social-status characteristics, as well as to individual-personal
ones (control locus, etc.). What is important here, however, are the enormous
expectations addressed by the Roma children towards their teachers, and the huge
potential that lies here.

In the light of the family reasons for ESL in Bulgaria, it is important to comment
on some issues, related to the type of family. Data from respondents’ answers
indicate that a small but significant number of students live in single parent families
or live only with grandparents. This generally reveals two negative trends.
The first one is the increasing number of single parent families. Children, who
are raised by a single parent, turn out to be much more vulnerable to a number of
risks, due to the fact that such type of family is often characterized by a higher level
of financial insecurity, poor sustainability, increased disorganization, and serious
threats to poverty and social exclusion. Children of single parent households may
develop social and academic problems; they are more likely to become teen parents.
So it’s not surprising that in terms of family structure, the dropping-out children
often come from broken homes or single-parent families (Pong & Ju, 2000).
The second tendency is closely related to external, international migration,
mainly inuenced by economic reasons. Parental migration, usually followed
by leaving children in the care of elderly grandparents, leads to a sharp decline
in parental control and attention. A great number of studies show that custodial
grandchildren may encounter greater risk of behavioral and emotional diculties
than children in general. They may suer from insucient interaction with parents,
family conict, uncertainty about the future, and societal stigma. Besides, custodial
grandchildren may experience greater mental health diculties than children in
general (Ghuman et al., 1999). Children under the age of 18 living with relatives
fared worse than children living with biological parents on most measures of
behavioral, emotional, and physical well-being. They were more likely to have
caregivers with symptoms of poor mental health themselves (Billing et al., 2002).
In addition, Roma children often find themselves in a much more dicult situation
faced with challenges due to the low level of their grandparents’ education and their
poor work and professional habits.

956
Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
Undoubtedly, the strongest factors that place children at risk and contribute to
their ESL, unconditionally remain those directly related to the family (Kumpfer
& Alvorado, 2003). These factors usually include dysfunctional home life, the
lack of parental engagement, low interest and low parenting expectations, use of
non-national language in the home environment, mobility, ineective or abusive
parenting. The level of risk for the Roma children is substantially higher here as
well. A similar situation is observed in terms of peer pressure.
The analysis of data, concerning students’ family profile, living conditions and
other characteristics, shows that a significant share of the students can be qualified
as children of families with low SES. As for respondents of Roma origin, this is true
for the majority of them. Roma students often live in poverty, their parents have a
lower level of formal education and are less economically active, they come more
often from large families or from single-parent families and their families owe less
often their household dwelling (Garaz, 2014). Thus, poverty itself becomes one of
the most risky socio-economic factors for dropout (Surdu et al, 2011). A number of
financial and other diculties faced by poor households usually exert a negative
inuence on both the conditions in which children are raised and the way in which
their socialization proceeds.
Compared to other EU countries the situation with poverty in Bulgaria still
remains hard: the accumulated statistical data on incomes and living conditions5)
reveal a very disturbing picture. NSI said that there were 1 665.3 thousand people
below the poverty line in 2017, or 23.4% of the country’s population. Compared
to the previous 2016, the relative share of the poor population increased by 0.5
percentage points (Table 6).
 Key Poverty Indicators in Bulgaria
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Average monthly poverty line – lv. 285.9 323.8 325.8 308.2 351.1
Persons below the average monthly poverty line
– thuds.
1528 1578 1586 1639 1665
Relative share of poor - % of the population 21.0 21.8 22.0 22.9 23.4
Relation between the incomes of the poorest and
the richest 20% of the population (S80/20)
6.6 6.8 7.1 7.7 8.2
Gini index 35.4 35.4 37.0 37.7 40.2
The highest share of the poor was among the Roma ethnic group – 77.2%.
Among Roma people, the highest percentage was among the unemployed – 39.9 %.
According to statistics 73.2% of Roma people with primary or no education were
poor, whereas there were no poverty stricken people with higher education. In
2017, 29.2% of children aged 0 – 17 years were at risk of poverty. In 2017, eight
out of ten children (80.1%), whose parents were either primary or non-educated,

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
live in poverty. With respect of the above, the research literature emphasizes the
fact that ESL rates are substantially higher for students from lower socioeconomic
backgrounds. The process of “withdrawing from school” for them can be explained
both in terms of the frustration-esteem model and by applying the participation-
identification model, which focuses on student’s involvement in school, unifying
behavioral and emotional elements” (Finn & Rock, 1997).
While there is considerable evidence indicating that children from low SES
backgrounds are more likely to leave school without graduating, there is little
to suggest what exactly it is about being poor that renders children prone to
dropping out. Several possibilities exist: inadequate parenting; poor schools or
teachers; schools with high levels of truancy; pressures to augment family income,
accompanied with a view that schooling has limited economic returns; peers with
low aspirations; poor nutrition and health; and too few role models in the community
(Audas & Willms, 2001).
One of the specifics of dropout, which stands out permanently in Bulgaria,
proves to be linked to the transitive nature of the Bulgarian society and triggered
by a number of systemic crises of the transition, leading to extremely dicult
life conditions of the vulnerable groups. Besides, the transition from a socialist
to a market economy has increased many of the factors contributing to the Roma
social exclusion, which leads to formation of a Romani underclass (Sobotka &
Vermeersch, 2012; Brown et al, 2013; Rostas & Kostka, 2014). As a result of the
complex socio-economic situation, in-deep social dierentiation and inequality,
concentrated enclaves of lasting poverty are formed, encompassing significant
social subgroups and communities, with markedly marginalized and ethnized
profiles, as well as persistent tendencies towards encapsulation and self-closing.
Growing up in the context of this unfavourable social context, children from
such minority communities often turn out to be the product of the so-called
‘peripheral’ socialization, characterized by externally imposed social closure,
limited economic and cultural resources and therefore scarce social capital in
terms of both aspirations and values, and social networks (Broccolichi & Van
Zanten, 2000). This is the perspective of the predominant part of the Roma
minority children in Bulgaria: every 6th Roma child is left out of the education
system even before the end of the elementary stage… 12 – 19 year old Roma who
never attend school or drop out of school without completing primary education
are 21.9% (Zahariev et al., 2013: 37 – 39).
Undoubtedly, the overall increased risk of dropout for the children from this
community is due to many other socio-economic factors, largely related to their low
social status, high level of internal and external migration, geographical distancing
from the educational institutions, lack of good transport-logistical opportunities for
going to school, family multiplicity and deterioration of the housing environment.
The same applies to yet another risk predictor, such as the use of child labor.

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Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
Besides these factors, the sociocultural and community-environmental factors
should be highlighted with a particular emphasis on the peculiarities of the Roma
culture - more archaic and traditional in its values-normative foundations, with
a dominant role of the family-clan or micro-community group. In this separated
and closed cultural world, seeking to preserve its autonomy in response to the
expansion of modernization, the identity continues to be formed mainly through
the ethno-cultural traditions and customs, religious beliefs and values, as well as
through the absorption of the professional crafts, firmly rooted in the structure of
the everyday life.
All these specifics determine a rather conservative, reserved and distant attitude
of Roma people towards institutional education, as well as their fears that the school
not only “plucks” the Roma child from his habitual way of life and the family-
clan circle but also leads him out the framework of parental control. In this sense,
certain factors exert a markedly negative impact. Among these are: the low status of
education among a significant part of the Roma population, the more archaic forms
of consciousness, specific gender-role behavior leading to the gender predisposition
and limitation of girls’ access to education, the inconsistency and ambivalence
of the Roma pupils’ subjective perceptions about the value of education and its
significance for their personal life, the vector of their emotional attitude towards
school and the school environment, which is often regarded through the prism of
the alienated and stigmatized attitude by others.
Last but not least, there are school factors inuencing the dropout: the learning
environment and the overall climate in the school, the structure of the school and
its organizational and functional features, the relationships with teachers and
pupils, the teaching programs and teaching methods, the available resources and
the material and technical support of the learning process, the accepted system
for evaluation, etc. Factors such as poor relationship with teachers, unjust and
oppressive practices, unrelated learning experiences, lack of autonomy, education/
exams issues and social and academic exclusion, are among the ones mentioned
most often (Cefai, Downes & Cavioni, 2016).

One limitation that occurs in the study is investigating solely the students’
opinions, related to ESL without comparing them to the information provided by
teachers.
The sample was taken from three schools in two municipalities only and
bearing in mind the rather small size of the sample, any generalization of the
results must be made with caution. The insucient sample did not allow for a
more dierentiated approach to the research and the analysis of the data according
to the types of schools existing in Bulgaria (urban v/s rural, metropolitan v/s
provincial, elite v/s “ordinary”, schools with a predominance of Bulgarian
students v/s Roma schools, etc.)

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Risk Factors for Early School Leaving...
There is an additional limitation concerning the experience of the participants
in the survey aged 12 – 13 years. Since the phenomenon of dropping out of school
is very complex and dicult to analyse students cannot be expected to reect upon
the various aspects of its essence. The use of mixed method designs would help
overcome this limitation.
Finally, longer-term investigations with repeated data collection are needed to
examine how these risk factors and their inuence on student’s personality change
over time, or with students’ age.

In the future, the mixed method designs – research interviews, observations,
focus groups with students, parents, teachers and experts, as well as any other
developmentally appropriate tools need to be recommended. Further studies
should be conducted under more controlled implementation conditions, and with
a particular focus on how dierent facets of SES can aect dierent risks of ESL.
Repeated investigations in dierent types of school and among dierent age
categories of students may in itself constitute a more focused and specialized forms
of intervention.

Researchers’ reviews of “eective” schools found that organizational factors,
including “clear school goals,” “rigorous academic standards,” “order and
discipline”, student-teacher ratio, high expectations of teachers for all students,
high levels of collaboration were positively related to school performance (McDill
et al., 1985).
There are many similarities among the interventions, including their emphasis
on changing the student, beginning with a personal-aective focus and then shifting
to an academic focus, and their eorts to address alterable variables (Lehr et al.,
2003).
In accordance with the Bulgarian specifics of the ESL phenomenon the most
important elements of a sustainable and comprehensive strategy for prevention
should include:
– creation of unifying coordinating bodies –inter-sectoral dropout prevention
councils;
– local and regional adaptation;
– sustainable funding to support long-term interventions, especially for schools
in segregated areas;
– development of specific outreach pre-school/school programmes and family
social services;
– youth coaching and cross-age tutoring as a nationwide measure to support
students at risk;
– explicit attention to social and emotional learning;
– further development of the centres for inclusive education;

960
Elena Lavrentsova, Petar Valkov
– emphasis on vocational learning and practically-oriented forms of education;
– educational desegregation.

Educational segregation is the last of the proposed strategic steps that are
directly related to the education policy towards the Roma education in Bulgaria.
The ambivalent nature of this policy can be traced back to the socialistic period,
with the emphasis on equality of opportunity and at the same time the building
of the segregated schools in the Roma neighbourhoods. During the post-
communist period, the educational integration course was ocially announced,
but there is still a high level of segregation: according to MES data (old data,
as this type of data was last collected 10 years ago) there are 106 Roma schools
in Bulgaria. In this type of school, both material conditions and a number of
other indicators are often worse than those of other schools. Moreover, such
Roma schools are not only ethnical, they are dominated by students with low
socio-economic background. It is a systemic cause for consistent high ratios of
educational failure and ESL.
To sum up, the desegregation of the Roma education should become the mainstay
of national education strategies in order to ensure equal educational opportunities
for all children along with comprehensive socialization. The key components in
terms of preventing ESL within the framework of the socio-existential perspective
should be participation and experiencing a sense of belonging and engagement in
the school community that will eventually increase the social and psycho-emotional
well-being of the individual and the social capital.

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2. Data from the National Statistical Institute’s surveys - Dropouts by degrees and
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(2011) 19 final SEC (2011) 98 final SEC (2011) 97 final SEC (2011) 96.
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course perspective. Working Paper for the Applied Research Branch, Strategic

961
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Policy, Human Resources Development, Université du Québec – Chicoutimi.
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
DAssist. Prof.
Faculty of Education
Trakia University
Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
E-mail: elenavit@abv.bg
petervilkov@gmail.com