Abstract
As dropping out of school is considered a violation of moral norms, the family associated with the drop out can react with anger directed toward the pupil or with anger directed at others that might know of the drop out. In our vignette study (N = 129), we found that anger at others and anger at the pupil were significantly higher if our community participants imagined a drop out from a vocational education rather than a general education. As expected, anger directed at others was fully explained by a concern for the family’s social-image (i.e., a concern for condemnation by others), while anger directed at the former pupil was fully explained by a concern for the family’s self-image (i.e., a concern for their moral self-image). Thoughts for how to better understand family reactions in relation to drop out are discussed.
Highlights
«Hvorfor er det sånn at jeg må være flau, hvorfor må de som har valgt et yrkesfaglig program bli stemplet som dumme, teorisvake og skoleleie?» [“Why do I have to be embarrassed, how come those who choose vocational education are labeled as stupid, theoretically weak and sick of school?”]
In order to investigate whether families would respond with anger to condemnation for dropping out of school, we asked community participants to imagine how a family would react if their son or daughter dropped out of an educational program
Even though there can be good reasons for dropping out of an educational program, a drop out generally violates societal norms (e.g., Dorn, 1993; Gausel, 2014) such as the meritocracy norm of perseverance (Lerner, 1980) and taking advantage of the possibility to climb the social ladder via the educational system (Festinger, 1954; Hauser et al, 2000; Van Hoorn and Maseland, 2013)
Summary
«Hvorfor er det sånn at jeg må være flau, hvorfor må de som har valgt et yrkesfaglig program bli stemplet som dumme, teorisvake og skoleleie?» [“Why do I have to be embarrassed, how come those who choose vocational education are labeled as stupid, theoretically weak and sick of school?”]. As there is a real risk that failures can draw condemning attention from others (Gausel and Leach, 2011), a drop out may pose a serious threat to the family’s socialimage as respectable in the eyes of others If such a threat to the social-image is appraised, people often react with anger directed at the others that can possibly come to condemn them for their failure (Gausel, 2013). There is ground to assume that being associated with dropping out of school can be appraised by a family as a threat to their self-image as dropping out symbolize the failure to demonstrate perseverance, as well as the failure to conform with the social ascension belief This might very well predict anger directed at the responsible one, i.e., the pupil. Anger directed at others would be explained by a concern for the family’s social-image
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