ASSESSING RISK FACTORS AND THE EFFICACY OF A PREVENTIVE PROGRAM FOR SCHOOL DROPOUT

Authors

Adrian OPRE*, Ramona BUZGAR, Daniela DUMULESCU, Laura VISU-PETRA, Dana OPRE, Bianca MACAVEI, Monica BUTA, Sebastian PINTEA

Department of Psychology, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

ABSTRACT

Present-day European education is confronted with an alarming increase of school dropout. More and more players and institutions have become involved in preventing and counteracting the phenomenon. The present study provides an overview of such an effort and its results. The objectives that initiated and guided our research were: (1) to identify and assess the risk factors associated with school dropout in Romania; and (2) to evaluate the efficiency of the specific preventive-curative “Tool kit” program. The results revealed the following: (1) corroborating the educational components with children's cognitive and socio-emotional particularities has indicated that the socio-affective factors play a crucial role in determining the quality of children's interaction with the educational environments; and (2) the „Tool kit” program, developed and implemented within a major project, “Choose school”, displayed an unequivocal efficiency in optimizing a number of educational and psycho-behavioral factors relevant for preventing and/or reducing school dropout.

KEYWORDS: school dropout, socio-emotional competencies, psycho-educational preventive program.

PAGES:185-194

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