Dropping out from vocational education in the context of the dimensions of communication

Abstract

The focus of this article is students dropping out of the educational system. According to official statistics about 20% of all students dropped out of vocational schools in the small Eastern European country of Estonia in 2012/13. The same issue is apparent in Estonian universities: in 2012/13, 17% of students left before graduating. The result is an increased number of less educated people in a society, which is, among other problems, considered to be a security risk in the country. A possible reason for this problematic process might be the cultural conflicts in the context of communication. Anthropologist E.T. Hall divided cultures according to their ways of communicating in high-context (much of the information is implicit) and low-context cultures (nearly everything is explicit). If the norms of youngsters’ ways of communication do not fit into the norms of educational institutions, meaning low- and high-context communication, one possible result is dropping out. The research method adopted for this article was a content analysis of the report on reasons for dropping out. According to this, the style of communication in society is important – especially in the context of education.

Keywords:

• dropping out
• post-compulsory education
• dimensions of communication
• values

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.