High school dropout rate unchanged in Quebec

Teens from Quebec’s disadvantaged milieus are still dropping out of high school at alarming rates, despite the provincial government’s New Approaches, New Solutions intervention strategy designed to keep adolescents in class.

A new study from Concordia University, Université de Montréal and Université du Québec à Montréal researchers has found the government’s intervention strategy only partially achieved its goals. Dropout rates, academic motivation and performance in core curriculum have not budged, although violent and a disruptive behavior in schools was curbed among teens supported by their schools and families.
 
“The New Approaches, New Solutions intervention strategy was effective only at schools that fully integrated the program,” says coauthor Philip Abrami, Concordia Research Chair in Education and Director of Concordia’s Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (CSLP).
 
Between 2002 to 2008, the Quebec Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports (Ministre de l’Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport) commissioned the interuniversity team to assess its intervention strategy. Data was collected across the province from some 30,000 students and 4,000 staff from a sample of 57 French schools and nine English schools.

“This study was among the largest ever conducted in Quebec and one of the few studies of its kind in the world,” says study leader Michel Janosz, a Université de Montréal psycho-education professor and director of the Groupe de Recherche sur les Environnements Scolaires.
 
The research team found the main stumbling block in Quebec’s education system was lack of support to implement the New Approaches, New Solutions strategy. “Measures required were new, demanding and would have necessitate increased support from school boards and the Ministry of Education, Recreation and Sports,” says Philip Abrami.
 
The research team identified several other factors that mitigated the New Approaches, New Solutions strategy: staff mobility; complexity of the strategy itself; limited teamwork at schools; an overly bureaucratic planning process; and slow changes in classroom practices.
 
View a summary of New Approaches, New Solutions.