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This book addresses the current focus on student retention and dropout within secondary education. The research foundation for this book is a field study that investigates how retention processes are developed in the everyday interaction between students, teachers and leaders in a Danish vocational school. The background for the study is the political demands that more young people should complete a secondary education since dropping out of school have serious negative personal, social and economic consequences. The Danish vocational schools on the one hand have to deal with the political demands of increased student retention and on the other hand of the labor market demands of supporting the development of high quality vocational skills. It is examined how such structural conditions are related to the social constitution of student retention processes in a vocational school. The book should help shed some light on present student retention and dropout problems and should be especially useful to researchers and professionals in educational fields, or anyone who may be interested in educational policy and practices.

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Charlotte Jonasson, PhD: Studied anthropology and is currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research interests include: Student dropout, student engagement and absence, trust in schools, and learning from errors. She moreover teaches qualitative methods.

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