Dropouts am Gymnasium

Despite an increasing importance given to research into dropping out from school, the research done in German speaking countries focuses almost exclusively on risk pupils with low academic performances. There is little research done on drop-outs in Gymnasia. In an explorative study in German-speaking Switzerland, 102 early school-leavers from Gymnasia (drop-outs) and 105 pupils who remained in the Gymnasia (stable) were asked to respond to a survey in order to find out about their reasons for dropping out, their personal and social characteristics and differences between males and females. The main results give evidence for clear differences between the stable and drop-out pupils. The latter came from low-education families, report serious motivational and relational issues with their teachers, the feeling of estrangement from their school and a significant perceived distance to their school. Their academic performance is, however, not much different to that of the stable pupils. Therefore, these results highlight the necessity for discussing dropping out from Gymnasia not singularly as an individual issue, but as an institutional problem.