Locality and the Prevention of Early School Leaving: Supporting Youth Transitions to Upper Secondary School in a Highly Decentralised Education System

The introduction programme (IP) intends to facilitate transition to upper secondary education among Swedish youth with incomplete compulsory education. This article aims to explore and understand how local preconditions interact with schools’ support for the IP students. It looks at the local structural and institutional preconditions, and the strategies and work of head teachers, programme officers, teachers, and career counsellors, working in the IP in 90 municipalities of three categories: commuter municipalities close to big cities, rural municipalities, and small cities. The analysis builds on the responses from 139 school actors to a questionnaire, and on public statistics. On average, the commuter municipalities enjoy the most favourable structural and educational conditions, while the rural municipalities are the least resourceful, e.g. in terms of formal professional competence. Surprisingly however, the rural contexts on average perform better than the other municipalities regarding the level of graduation four years after starting the IP. There are few systematic local differences in the work with IP students. However, the IP in the rural municipalities on average enjoy higher support from school leaders, have a clearer division of responsibilities, and separate the students spatially to a lower degree compared to the commuter municipalities. Systematic handover between compulsory schools and the IP is less common in the commuter municipalities than in the other two groups. Whether these factors are relevant for explaining the higher success level in the rural schools and the lower success level in the schools in the commuter municipalities requires further investigation. Abstrakt Introduktionsprogrammet (IM) avser att underlatta overgangen till gymnasieskolan bland ungdomar med laga eller ofullstandiga grundskolebetyg. Syftet med artikeln ar att undersoka och forsta hur lokala forutsattningar interagerar med skolornas stod for IM-eleverna. Den analyserar de lokala strukturella och institutionella forutsattningarna, och strategierna och arbetet hos rektorer, programansvariga, larare och karriarvagledare som arbetar med IM i 90 kommuner. Dessa tillhor kommunkategorierna pendlingskommuner nara storstader, landsbygdskommuner och mindre stader. Analysen bygger pa enkatsvar fran 139 skolaktorer, och pa offentlig statistik. Resultat: Pendlingskommunerna har i genomsnitt de mest fordelaktiga strukturella och utbildningsforhallandena, medan landsbygdskommunerna ar minst resursstarka i dessa avseenden, t. ex. i termer av tillganglig formell larar- och vagledarkompetens. Darfor ar det forvanande att landsbygdskommunerna i genomsnitt presterar battre an de andra kommunerna i termer av andelen elever som avlagger examen pa ett nationellt gymnasieprogram fyra ar efter starten pa IM. Det syns fa systematiska skillnader i arbetet med IM-eleverna. Emellertid har IM i landsbygdskommunerna i hogre grad stod fran skolledarna och en klar ansvarsfordelning, och separerar i mindre utstrackning IM-eleverna spatialt fran ovriga gymnasieelever an i pendlingskommunerna. Om dessa faktorer ar relevanta for att forklara de battre resultaten i landsbygdsskolorna och de samre i pendlingskommunerna kraver dock ytterligare undersokning. Nyckelord: ungdomsovergangar; gymnasieskolan; introduktionsprogrammet; lokal kontext