Page 157 - Štremfel, Urška, and Maša Vidmar (eds.). 2018. Early School Leaving: Contemporary European Perspectives. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 157
the interplay of factors contributing to esl at the school level
Macrosystem
Exosystem
Mesosystem
Microsystem
School
Individual
Chronosystem
Figure 9. Bronfenbrenner’s model of human development. The black rectangle constitutes
the focus of the article.
Early studies on ESL mostly considered risk or predictive ESL factors
within the individual and their family (see e.g. Ensminger & Slusarcick,
1992; Barclay & Doll, 2001 for studies in the period 1950–1970). Later stud-
ies revealed ESL to be a process without any one individual cause and may
already start in primary school (e.g. Alexander, Entwisle, & Horsey, 1997;
McGarr, 2010) or even as early as the toddlers years (e.g. Jimerson, Egeland,
Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000). A considerable amount was known about how
the individual’s characteristics and their specific background affected the
ESL process, yet much less was known about the influences of the school.
But as understanding grew that ESL is a complex phenomenon entailing
predictors from multiple levels of the individual’s ecology, in the last few
decades empirical and review studies have expanded to also include oth-
er levels and other settings from the microsystem level, for instance the
school (i.e. school or institutional factors; for example, see Audas & Willms,
2001; Janosz, LeBlanc, Boulerice, & Tremblay, 1997; Knesting, 2008; Lee &
Burkham, 2003).
Several factors within schools were recognised as playing a role in ESL,
with some 20% of the variability in student outcomes explained by the char-
acteristics of the schools students attend (Rumberger & Lim, 2008). Many
studies are based on multi-level datasets (i.e. samples of students within
157
Macrosystem
Exosystem
Mesosystem
Microsystem
School
Individual
Chronosystem
Figure 9. Bronfenbrenner’s model of human development. The black rectangle constitutes
the focus of the article.
Early studies on ESL mostly considered risk or predictive ESL factors
within the individual and their family (see e.g. Ensminger & Slusarcick,
1992; Barclay & Doll, 2001 for studies in the period 1950–1970). Later stud-
ies revealed ESL to be a process without any one individual cause and may
already start in primary school (e.g. Alexander, Entwisle, & Horsey, 1997;
McGarr, 2010) or even as early as the toddlers years (e.g. Jimerson, Egeland,
Sroufe, & Carlson, 2000). A considerable amount was known about how
the individual’s characteristics and their specific background affected the
ESL process, yet much less was known about the influences of the school.
But as understanding grew that ESL is a complex phenomenon entailing
predictors from multiple levels of the individual’s ecology, in the last few
decades empirical and review studies have expanded to also include oth-
er levels and other settings from the microsystem level, for instance the
school (i.e. school or institutional factors; for example, see Audas & Willms,
2001; Janosz, LeBlanc, Boulerice, & Tremblay, 1997; Knesting, 2008; Lee &
Burkham, 2003).
Several factors within schools were recognised as playing a role in ESL,
with some 20% of the variability in student outcomes explained by the char-
acteristics of the schools students attend (Rumberger & Lim, 2008). Many
studies are based on multi-level datasets (i.e. samples of students within
157
