From Vulnerability to Resilience: Educational Trajectories of Success Through Successful School Interventions

• In Event: Analyzing educational inequalities in the past for a better future: successful interventions to reverse them

Abstract

1. Objectives or purposes
This study aims to identify the educational components and turning points that enabled students from vulnerable backgrounds to succeed academically and socially. It investigates how specific successful interventions implemented by schools influenced students’ resilience and trajectories of success.
2. Perspective(s) or theoretical framework
This study is grounded in a dialogic learning framework (Soler, 2015), which understands learning as a process co-constructed through egalitarian dialogue among students, teachers, families, and communities. The research aligns with the social impact and co-creation principles of Horizon Europe, prioritizing interventions that have demonstrable effects on people’s lives.
3. Methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry
The inquiry is based on qualitative case studies of students who overcame structural inequalities to achieve postsecondary educational success. In each of the six participating European countries, two in-depth communicative life stories are collected and analyzed. The process includes initial narrative interviews, followed by semi-structured interviews with key social agents (family, teachers, peers), triangulating the data through intersubjective dialogue.
4. Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
Data collection is ongoing, collected in the six countries participating in WP6 of the REVERS-ED project: Lithuania, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Romania. Sources include initial life stories narrated by students who completed postsecondary education despite vulnerable backgrounds (e.g., low SES, low parental education, migrant status) and interviews with family members, educators, and peers
5. Results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view
Findings reveal a set of common educational components across successful trajectories. These include students’nparticipation in successful interventions, such as dialogic gatherings or interactive groups, in which they developed supportive relationships with teachers and peers. Findings also reveal turning points where students re-engaged with school due to such successful interventions (e.g., interactive groups, family participation) and the internalization of high expectations and self-efficacy fostered by school culture.
Beyond academic success, many students transferred the dialogic and inclusive values acquired in school to their broader social environments. In several cases, participants became active agents of change in their communities—supporting peers, mentoring younger students, or leading initiatives aimed at reducing educational and social exclusion.
The findings suggest that SEAs not only promote individual success but also generate ripple effects that extend educational equity within communities.
6. Scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work
This paper provides in-depth insight into how schools can reverse educational inequalities through effective interventions based on scientific evidence. It contributes to bridging the gap between large-scale data and lived experience, enriching the field’s understanding of how students succeed in the face of adversity.

Author

• Garazi Lopez de Aguileta, University of Barcelona