Preventing disengagement leading to early school leaving: pro-active practices for schools, teachers and families

ABSTRACT

This article identifies the latest researched practices for preventing school disengagement resulting in Early School Leaving (ESL) within the European Union, and which are significant as we transition to a post-COVID-19 school environment. Drawing from an extensive review of European and U.S.-based research literature on the prevention of ESL and student disengagement and a secondary study examining teachers’ practices, this article identifies the practices that are implementable at the classroom level to promote students’ engagement, foster school-family relationships, and which can be readily adapted by teachers and parents as schools reopen. The findings show that while some practices which ameliorate ESL are already known, others such as 1) early-on identification of students’ disengagement; 2) strong peer and teacher relationships 3) high teacher expectations; 4) classroom level behavioural practices targeted to student engagement; 5) nurturing, safe school environments; 6) challenging curriculum; and 7) partnerships between schools and parents whereby both are trained to view schools as a joint learning enterprise are critical. We conclude by stressing the pro-activity of schools, teachers, and parents in using these practices, so that teacher-student relationships fostered by trained and dedicated teachers can keep students engaged and in school.

KEYWORDS:

• Early School Leaving (ESL)
• ESL prevention practices
• student disengagement
• parent and school partnerships
• classroom environment
• student-teacher relationships

1. Introduction

The World Economic Forum (Li and Lalani 2020) estimated that following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, there were 1.2 billion children out of school in 186 countries. It is predicted that by not being in school half of them will not achieve basic literacy and numeracy. While there were already 250 million children who were out of school before the pandemic, we are now confronted with a high index of students who most likely will not return to school. To reverse this trend, utilising what we know to further prevent early school leaving is more imperative than ever.

Early School Leaving (ESL) is defined by Eurostat as leaving the formal school system before obtaining an upper secondary education degree, applying to youth between the ages of 18–24 (Donlevy et al. 2019). The terminology associated with ESL includes strong characterisations such as abandonment, dropout, withdrawal, and attrition (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019). Youth who do not acquire the compulsory educational diploma are systematically viewed as having failed their education (Fernández-Macías et al. 2013). A significant finding by some scholars asserts that ESL should not be considered as just an outcome, but rather a process of gradual disengagement from school caused by a variety of in-school and external factors (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019) which need to be examined in depth within different school contexts as they may have varied repercussions which may not stem from a child’s willingness to leave school, but may have to do with the existence of a ‘school effect’, involving different levels and degrees of school engagement (Tarabini et al. 2019)

ESL has been a major concern within the European Union (Rambla 2018; Rambla and Fontdevila 2015) and despite the implementation of national interventions to decrease ESL rates below 10% throughout Europe during the past decade, there have only been slight increases in the numbers of students staying in school (Donlevy et al. 2019). Furthermore, the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 has resulted in the closure of schools and learning spaces, the confinement of families, and the maintenance of social distance – all with dire consequences for education. Students have been prevented from attending school and have had to learn to adjust to alternative teaching methodologies requiring technological equipment and training. Such changes for students, teachers, and parents have already put a strain on depleted technological school resources economies (Cabrera 2020).

The COVID-19 pandemic has made evident how access to the internet, computers, and ‘media literacy’ (Jenkins et al. 2006) are essential to keep students engaged in schools but has also highlighted the enormous digital inequalities that are taking place not only between Northern and Southern Europe, but within different countries and regions of Europe (Cabrera 2020). Hence, schools are harder pressed than ever to stretch their resources, streamline online teaching, adapt hybrid teaching models, and support parents to guide their children’s learning as bona fide educators.

The purpose of this article is to pinpoint and map out key issues derived from the findings of two reviews of research literature, one on ESL prevention and student disengagement, (Turcatti and Montero-Sieburth 2020) and the other on preventive teacher practices (Montero-Sieburth and Turcatti 2020). These include identifying: (1) the implementable practices deployed and mediated by schools and teachers to effectively engage students and parents; (2) the specific classroom level cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural practices to encourage student engagement; (3) the relationships between teachers, students and peers, considered the most critical in retaining students and (4) the re-training of teachers and parents to adapt to the post-COVID-19 school context.¹ Not included are the school level ESL policy practices which require long-term intervention from all social actors – administrators, teachers, staff, parents and community members, and whole school culture changes.

The findings from the literature reviews indicate that although much is already known about how to retain students in schools, it is the early detection of students’ disengagement that provides clues to a child’s predisposition to leave school. Key determinants in a child’s desire to not leave school include: the understanding of strong peer and teacher relationships and how they work, the teachers’ expectations, the degree of cognitive, behavioural, and socio-emotional engagement students have in schools, the engendering of safe, nurturing school environments centred on students’ social composition and heterogeneity, and the exposure to challenging learning opportunities.

Student engagement is furthered by facilitating partnerships between parents and schools by training parents and teachers to view the school as a joint learning enterprise. Getting to know the beliefs and values of their students’ families enable schools to focus on issues teachers may be unaware of, but for which they can be trained to understand. Among the consequences of remote learning which has become mandatory during COVID-19 has been the discontinuity between the home and school which needs to be overcome, once students are physically back in school. Bridges between parents and schools can be created as a collaborative process which are mutually rewarding, and which incentivise students, teachers, and families to use these practices to revitalise student engagement and foster retention.

With this in mind, the first section maps out and presents ESL as a continuing educational process. The second section describes the most effective school-based practices such as challenging curriculum, high teacher expectations, and accountability through assessment and evaluation. The third section focuses on the types of relationships that can be established with students, parents and peers and the types of spaces schools can create with parents that enhance student learning. The fourth section highlights the adaptations that can take place post COVID-19, since the pandemic will have different reiterations over time and may become endemic, Summarised are the ways in which students, parents, teachers, and administrators can use these practices to continue to engage students in schools and, at the same time, encourage them to stay in and finish school.

The conclusion calls into action the need for maintaining pro-active practices to prevent ESL by using these practices to encourage students to stay in and finish school.

2. Understanding early school leaving

2.1. ESL as a process

While the official definition of ESL in Europe refers to the percentage of youth between 18 and 24 including students in vocational education that have not attained lower or secondary school diplomas (Donlevy et al. 2019), the European Commission views ESL as taking place when students attend less than two years of pre-primary, primary, lower secondary or upper secondary schools. ESL is applied to youth who 1) drop out at the end of compulsory education; 2) complete pre-vocational and vocational education, but do not gain upper- secondary qualifications, and 3) are not qualified for secondary school level (Donlevy et al. 2019). It is most evident among the most socially, economically, and culturally disadvantaged groups and is a cause for concern in providing social justice and educational equality (Tarabini et al. 2019).

However, such official definitions are problematic, because they do not recognise ESL as a process that starts when students are still in school. Thus, to better understand the progression, a multidimensional overview is needed that includes analysis of prevention, intervention, and compensation measures (NESSE 2009).

2.2. Understanding the ESL process

A comprehensive model of the non-academic (exogenous) and academic (endogenous) factors leading to ESL has been provided by Gubbles et al. (2019) and González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal (2019). Exogenous factors are those that schools cannot control (students’ backgrounds, national educational policies). Endogenous factors are in-school dynamics (students’ relationship with classmates, peers, teachers, school), all determining student engagement (Araújo et al. 2019).

2.3. Exogenous or non-academic factors

1. Individual: the students’ socio-economic, health, and psychological conditions in specific life situations including negative attitudes students may towards schools. (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019).

2. Family-related: socio-economic, cultural background, health, and psychological situations of students’ parents and families (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019). Students can be prevented from continuing their education when they do not have adequate economic resources and are poor. Moreover, if their families and parents who do not value education or perceive education as being in opposition to their culture or a threat to their family’s cultural reproduction can also prevent students from being in school (Flores et al. 2019)

3. Friendships-related: friends and peers (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019). Students with friends who have high levels of absenteeism and drop out may experience the negative influences which are exerted on them (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019), while students with cross-group friendships, where ethnic identity is viewed as significant in improving the academic attitudes of ethnic minority youth who may be at risk of ESL, may deflect negative influences (Cardinali et al. 2016).

Omitted by this model is the digital divide experienced by students who have limited access to the internet or computers which exacerbates these non-school factors during and post the pandemic (Tsolou, Babalis, and Tsoli 2021; Coleman 2021).

2.4. Endogenous or academic factors

In-school factors that may lead to ESL can be clustered according to González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal (2019) into:

1. Student-related: students’ academic performance, absenteeism, and native language use.

2. Classmate-related: not having friends within the school, being rejected by their peers, and experiencing bullying among other rejecting behaviours.

3. Teacher-related: teachers’ levels of qualifications, training, pedagogical approaches, teacher expectations, and resources.

4. School-related: the area and location of the school, the school environment, school policies, and the economic, human, cultural and social resources of the school.

Omitted by this model is the importance of students’ school engagement because low levels of school engagement have been being strongly correlated to ESL.

2.5. Cognitive, behavioural and socio-emotional engagement factors

Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004) seminal research on engagement, attested by scholars such as Suarez-Orozco and Qin-Hilliard (2004), Suarez Orozco, Onaga, and Lardemell (2010) and Tarabini et al. (2019) provide a three-dimensional model of school engagement:

1. Behavioural: the degree students participate in classroom and school activities.

2. Emotional: the kinds of affective bonds students create with their schools, teachers, and peers, which influence students’ sense of belonging in school.

3. Cognitive: the ways students perceive themselves and identify as learners and are motivated to learn, while being cognitively challenged by their teachers.

It is in the school context where such engagement is mediated and can be enhanced by digitally- skilled teachers and students who can use technology, the internet, and other devices for learning (Coleman 2021). The lack of such resources may lead to student disengagement since students may not be able to complete the tasks assigned to them or not be able to engage with peers and teachers in meaningful ways (Coleman 2021). Moreover, as Tarabini et al. (2019, 238) attests ‘students’ emotional engagement with their schools and their sense of belonging do not correlate exactly with the social composition of the schools, but rather with their perception of support, help, and encouragement by teachers’.

3. Classroom level engagement practices

3.1. Classroom management

The goal of classroom management is to create a safe environment for learning by engaging students and mitigating disruptive behaviours and disruptions. Fundamental in making sure all students perform well academically is the effective management of the classroom environment (Black 2016). Classroom management entails, aside from maintaining the decorum of the classroom, setting up expectations early on during the year; openly discussing behavioural rules and regulations for students; setting up learning sequences; explaining schedules; and pacing teaching and learning based on small or large group encounters. Effective classroom management requires developing the leadership and management skills of teachers while they focus on student learning and maintain disruptive behaviour at bay (Montero-Sieburth 1989). Of the practices that work, Mallett (2015) reports, that in the U.S. ‘one of the stronger empirically-supported interventions used in over 18,000 schools is Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS) which focused on teaching skills and behaviour management early in the academic year with the goal of changing problem behaviours for all students’ (p. 341).

In addition, Laursen and Nielsen (2016) point out that reflexivity, in which teachers construct and analyse their teaching process relative to interactions with their students, is another highly effective practice. They show that student teachers who learn to use non-authoritarian practices such as: a) concentration techniques, which restore calm at the beginning of the class; b) movement exercises which provide energy where the moods may be low; and c) stepping out of their teachers’ role and levelling down to a student role to understand motivation, are successful teaching strategies (Laursen and Nielsen 2016).

Ineffective practices that can lead to compound students’ behavioural and emotional disengagement and become reasons for ESL, are measures such as shouting at or sending students to the principal’s office in order to restore order in the classroom (Mallett 2015; Black 2016; Laursen and Nielsen 2016). Expelling a disruptive student from the class affects not only the expelled students’ emotional and behavioural school engagement, but also the levels of engagement of those students who remain in the classroom (Black 2016).

3.2. Behaviour management

Teachers can support student learning by using strategies that help them master their social and emotional skills when dealing with difficult circumstances so that these situations do not detract from their learning (Walberg and Paik 2000; Main and Whatman 2016). Teaching and coaching a student to regulate their emotions and behaviour, particularly when dealing with psychologically stressful moments such as bullying, name-calling, or emotional outbursts, is critical in fostering engagement and mitigating ESL.

Bradshaw, O’Brennan, and McNeely (2008) posit that schools should support students in developing core socio-emotional competencies in order to regulate their emotions and behaviour. These include acquiring a positive sense of self, self-control, decision-making skills and developing a moral system of belief.,

For teachers to re-enforce these competencies, teachers need to recognise the following strategies for themselves and their students according to Walberg and Paik (2000), 1) modelling – in which teachers exhibit the desired behaviour and outcomes; 2) guiding practice – where students, with the support of their teacher, achieve the desired outcomes and 3) application – where students, act independently from their teachers, and achieve the desired outcomes while being checked for progress.

3.3. Teacher expectations

The research literature emphasises highly the value of setting of high expectations as a goal for student achievement. Teachers’ low expectations are shown to lead to students’ emotional, behavioural, and cognitive disengagement in schools (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris 2004; Tarabini et al. 2019). This is more evident, as Callingham (2016) shows, for students with disadvantaged backgrounds since they are often not recognised as having talents and skills and are then at greater risk of ESL.

By having low expectations of students, “teachers can steer them towards relatively low-skilled vocational pathways that further disadvantage them both in education and the workforce” (Callingham 2016, 13). Low teacher expectations may lead students to behaviourally disengage because they believe that they are not able to learn, are “bad students” and do not have a future in the educational system. Low expectations lead students to believe in disengagement as a goal, shown by absenteeism or not actively participating in classroom and schools’ activities (Tarabini et al. 2019). They may also contribute to students’ emotional disengagement since students perceive that their teachers discriminate against them and do not understand their specific needs (Tarabini et al. 2019).

Unfortunately, teachers with low expectations also tend to ‘dumb the curriculum down’ which means students are provided with content that is not at their required level but is below, setting into motion a downward spiral of learning (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris 2004). The lack of a challenging curriculum engaging students’ high-order level of thinking leads to students’ cognitive disengagement. Students may assume that if their teacher is dumb and teaches dumb things, why then bother to go to school? Thus, delivering a challenging and provocative curriculum is key. Indeed, the European Commission (2018a) relates that there is a ‘strong positive association of academic expectations and resilience status across analyses’.

3.4. Engaging curriculum

To keep students engaged in learning, Main and Whatman’s (2016) research argues that teachers need to be able to listen to students and negotiate the curriculum they teach in ways that match students’ interests and identities. Moreover, Callingham (2016) highlights that when students have input into their own learning, a sense of connectedness with the school can be developed, which enhances the school’s belonging, a powerful protective factor against ESL.

While teachers are often expected to deliver set curriculum, Schultz, Jones-Walker, and Chikkatur (2008) points out that teachers, in their day practice, do make decisions over what aspects of the curriculum are emphasised and how content is delivered. Hence teachers can create the space to negotiate the curriculum in ways which incorporate the interests, identities and knowledge of students while also advancing their learning. To do so, listening to students becomes crucial. Schultz, Jones-Walker, and Chikkatur (2008) identified two main listening strategies to deploy in the classroom:

1. Planning for ‘small moments’ in classroom schedules where teachers can connect directly with students’ lives, their knowledge and understanding.

2. Incorporating assignments based on students’ interests or uniform or generic material. By making certain curricular choices, assignments and pedagogical decisions, teachers can draw on their students’ knowledge and community contexts. They can choose how to design their assignments based on students’ interests or may decide to introduce more uniform or generic instructional material.

3.5. Flexible evaluation measures

Nouwen et al.’s (2016) research indicates that students who consistently do not get good grades tend to disengage from school, do not feel confident, and think school is not for them, increasing the likelihood of early school leaving. By introducing flexible and diverse evaluation measures, students may feel they are understood by the school, be prevented from falling behind, and be motivated to stay in school.

Cardoso et al. (2019) have also shown that the use of exams and tests to assess students’ total learning may not be totally accurate or reflective of what students are able to do. Some students may feel anxious and stressed about taking exams which negatively affect their performance. Others might not be able to study and comprehend concepts and content as they might in less stressful situations. Yet others, may need different approaches to understand the subject matter to respond effectively. Lessons which include kinesics, or movement, mathematical challenges, artistic performances, or visual displays may be useful in these cases. Employing the multiple intelligences of students and adapting teaching and evaluation to meet student responses by providing a greater repertoire of evaluation measures, as Howard Gardner (1993) suggests, may reduce tensions, and allow students to show their strengths in learning.

4. Effective practices to engage families

4.1. Family and student-centred teacher practices

In designing interventions aimed at preventing ESL, it is key that teachers, and schools more broadly, are aware of who their students are (Calvagna 2015; Ainscow, Booth, and Dyson 2004). Students’ socio-economic background, their race/ethnicity, gender, learning abilities as well as their previous migration histories are important predictors of whether some students may be more at ‘risk’ than others in leaving school early (González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019). Yet, knowing the composition of one’s school or classroom is not about labelling students as more at ‘risk’ than others, but rather devising strategies that allow all students to feel included and attended in order to obliterate exclusion and reduce early school leaving (Calvagna 2015).

Getting to know students and their families requires not only understanding the composition and heterogeneity of their classrooms but also identifying the needs and values of students and their families and what they consider important (Callingham 2016). Conversing with parents helps identify changes in the students’ circumstances that may cause distress and result in students’ disengagement with the school as well as the values that students and families share and are important to them (Calvagna 2015; Doyle and Keane 2019). This requires maintaining constant communication with parents, setting up parent-teacher meetings, and encouraging parent-teacher assemblies (Flores et al. 2019). If parents speak another language, it is important to have interpreters and when possible, teacher home visits (Manzoni and Rolfe 2019).

4.2. Train parents to understand the education system

Engagement of the family in students’ schooling is central in reducing ESL and enhancing students’ educational outcomes (Manzoni and Rolfe 2019; Davis 2017; González-Rodríguez, Vieira, and Vidal 2019). When parents understand the educational system and embrace it, they can influence their children at home to do well at school (Walberg and Paik 2000). Alternatively, when parents do not consider that the educational system benefits their children or perceive it to be contrary to their own cultural values, parents can discourage children to embrace education (Ogbu 1982). In other words, a strong relationship between families and schools is essential in maintaining the continuity of school to home values and their reinforcement (Ogbu 1982).

However, there may be discontinuity between the values of the home and those of schools, such as in the case of some Latino students and parents in the U.S. whose family values place a premium on education and social respect but receiving neither in the local schools. Or, as in the case of some Roma families in Europe who may be focused on the family and its function as the centre of education and perceive school education differently. In such discontinuities, it is important that schools understand the families’ values and ways of being, rather than viewing such differences as deficits (Anuzres Tapia et al. 2017). Instead, schools and teachers need to understand what the assets of such families are and how they can be reached. (Flores et al. 2019).

How the home functions is of utmost importance to teachers since parents and families involved in the school and child’s learning are more likely to create a home learning environment (Walberg and Paik 2000). Being aware of the curriculum, homework or exams required of their children enables parents to monitor them, check their completion of homework, regulate the non-educational activities (e.g. how much time is spent in playing videogames, watching TV, or being with friends), and to think about family educational activities (e.g. going to museums, going to language barriers to the library).

At the most basic level, schools need to meet with parents at the beginning of the school year and work out schedules for meetings that fit their availability. In some cases, this approach may be more difficult with migrant parents due. As Manzoni and Rolfe’s (2019) study of British schools shows, schools that develop constructive partnerships with parents from an early stage by inviting them to regular gatherings and offering translation and interpreting services had better parent integration into the school fabric.

The training of parents is key to ensure that parents understand their children’s schooling (Manzoni and Rolfe 2019). Such training should include sessions that deal with the structure of the educational system, the curriculum, the assessment/evaluation they children undergo, language classes, and providing supportive skills (Manzoni and Rolfe 2019). When providing such training, the objective of education and the ways in which the school respects, acknowledge, and includes the diversity of students needs to be made explicit, so that parents can understand the value of education (Manzoni and Rolfe 2019).

4.3. Teacher-created spaces for parent engagement

To ensure that parents and families participate in their children’s education, Davis (2017) argues that it is not enough for the school to provide opportunities for family engagement, rather ‘it must also embody a welcoming climate where individuals feel that their opinions matter’ (p. 165). In this respect, scholars emphasise the importance of trust and respectful relationships between parents, teachers, and staff (Flores et al. 2019; Davis 2017). Teachers and school staff not only need to listen to parents and continuously communicate with them, but also make sure they have a say in the kind of policies and learning materials the school and teachers introduces. To have effective communication with parents and students with migrant backgrounds, schools will need to have interpreters and cultural experts (Belghazi 2019).

From day one, schools need to open to parents by inviting them to regular school gatherings and parent-teacher conferences. Equally important is the establishment of a communication system that allows teachers and parents to effectively communicate with each other, by parents having access to the Internet, if schools communicate with parents through a digital portal. If parents or families do not have access to the Internet, schools and educators need to think about alternative ways to communicate with parents, using WhatsApp, or smartphones.

Providing opportunities for parents and families to contribute to the school’s extra-curricular activities and school events can also nurture parental/familial school engagement. As Flores et al. (2019) research demonstrates, in the case of a U.S. school with a high proportion of Latino students, parental/family involvement improved with monthly school gatherings during which a range of personal, social, academic, and professional topics were explored (e.g. family leadership, navigating the public-school system, college access test preparation). In addition, parent–teacher meetings and conferences, Parent Teacher Associations, Parent Advisory Councils, social tours to universities and colleges and even leadership/research training of parents, also establishes strong parent-teacher relationships (Montero-Sieburth 2011).

5. Adaptations needed for the future

While COVID-19 is still ongoing and can readily become endemic (Feldscher 2021), schools, teachers and parents cannot let their guard down and assume that all will go back to normal. Instead, they must continue to re-invent effective and productive ways to encourage, promote and develop student, teacher, school engagement. In this article we highlight practices which can be implemented and that schools can use to assume a pro-active stance towards preventing ESL. As schools reopen for face-to-face teaching, these practices can be reshaped and restructured to create even more effective teaching environments to generate more positive educational outcomes.

5.1. Classroom practices

In the future classroom, there will be adaptations in space, distance, and personal security but also modification of the curriculum, assignments and pedagogical practices based on better understanding of where students are, what are the issues they are facing, identifying their fears, and psychological issues.

There will be new opportunities to explore the multiple ways that students can be assessed in class, and such explorations may show that using different repertoires, some influenced more by technology and others requiring more basic approaches such as paper and pencil, are ways in which learning can become more flexible.

Since students have not been in schools, have been psychologically isolated from peers, and have not had social face-to-face interactions, the need to re-invent social roles and become re-socialised into a different schooling pattern will be more demanding, but teachers trained to listen and to adapt the learning to students will be effective in preventing further ESL.

Most important will be what teachers can do to make their transition back to school seamless and how schools can support parents as co-teachers in the process. The curriculum needs to be flexible and, in some cases, taught as a hybrid model.

As schools reopen and students begin to interact and participate, reigniting classroom management rules becomes even more significant as students will require much guidance and supportive messages to re-engage in classroom learning. Classroom management, assuring the orderly transition back to face-to-face learning, will need to be adapted to specifically meet the needs of students who have been out of a physical school for such a long period.

Guiding students to doing, making, and sensing their own abilities to complete tasks will be even more challenging and demanding as they return to school, but at the same time, the opportunity for teachers to reassess and redefine their expectations to engender student engagement has never been better.

5.2. School-parent relationships

With the relaxation of lockdowns and re-entry to schools, and the introduction of hybrid teaching models, how parents are trained in becoming multi-faceted in these areas will not only enhance the school’s teaching but also support teachers. This is crucial considering the important role that parents played in home schooling and helping their children navigate hybrid educational models. Parents will play a key role in ameliorating the impact that the pandemic has had on the mental health of young people, which is key to ensure students continue learning (Rosen et al. 2021).

6. Conclusion

The global COVID-19 pandemic has shown up many of our limitations in committing to the prevention of ESL. Even with the knowledge we have, the diminishment of school leaving has not effectively taken place. The pandemic aftermath offers us opportunities to delve deeply into these factors and to turn the odds around. We know that the training of teachers in hybrid methodologies provides students with incentives and helps teachers retain students in schools. We also know that having parents gain skills on home-schooling (Coleman 2021) is critical.

The early lockdowns in many countries thrust many unprepared prepared parents into the role of teacher, coach, motivator, and disciplinarian, not to mention meeting the challenge of coordinating Zoom class sessions and accessing digital educational programmes. All this, while parents were holding down jobs, often in home offices. As schools reopen again, one significant fallout of home classroom is that parents are now more than ever aware of the enormous impact that trained and skilled teachers, committed school authorities, challenging and interesting curriculum and nourishing school classrooms and environments can have on their children’s’ engagement and desire to stay in school until graduation.

The potential of post-COVID-19 education awareness where pro-active teaching, appealing curriculum, teacher-parent-school involvement in welcoming school spaces will ensure that ESL does not become an option.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful for the feedback received on this article from Esteban García Hernández, Independent Researcher and Member of the Rural Education Research Network (RIER) in Mexico.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Martha Montero-Sieburth

Martha Montero-Sieburth is a Lecturer in Social Sciences and Humanities at Amsterdam University College where she teaches ethnographic research. She is Professor Emerita of the Leadership in Urban Schools Doctoral/Educational Administration Masters Programs at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. As a multi-, cross-, and intercultural comparative educator and community-based researcher, she has researched American urban schooling, bilingualism and curriculum development in Latin America; interculturalism in Spain; intercultural education and language and Mexican cultural maintenance in the Netherlands. Her latest publication is a co-edited a book with Rosa Mas Giralt, Noemi-Garcia Arjona and Joaquin Eguren entitled Family Practices in Migration: Everyday Lives and Relationships published by Routledge Press.

Domiziana Turcatti

Domiziana Turcatti is a DPhil Candidate in Migration Studies based at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) and the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography of the University of Oxford. She holds an MPhil degree in Sociology from the University of Cambridge and a Liberal Arts and Science Bachelor degree from Amsterdam University College.

Notes

1. Although European sources are cited, U.S. sources on ESL which have been influential in this research are included.