Teachers' Beliefs and Students' Intention to Drop Out of Secondary Education in Flanders

• In Event: 26.080 - Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: 26.080-8 - Teachers and Teaching

Abstract

For decades, western education confronts the important problem of student unqualified dropout. Predictors of dropout have been studied intensively, but relatively little research concentrated on school characteristics. In particular research into the teachers’ role in students’ decision to quit school is rather scarce. Therefore this study aims the investigation of how teachers’ shared beliefs about students—teacher culture—affect students’ intention to drop out of school. Students in vocational tracks are focused on, as dropout is most prevalent in vocational education. A nonlinear Bernoulli multilevel analysis (HLM6) based on data of 11,844 students in 84 schools, of which 2589 vocational students, demonstrated a significant negative association between teachers’ teachability culture and intention to quit, controlling for students’ perceived teacher support.

Authors

• Mieke Van Houtte, Ghent University

• Jannick Demanet, Ghent University