Life trajectories and expected changes as factors for young adults’ participation in second chance education

Abstract

Second Chance Schools (SCSs) have been operating for twenty-five years in Greece, that provide basic education to adults (18 years of age and older) who have not completed the compulsory nine-year education but have a primary school leaving certificate (six-year study). This study reports and analyses the participation factors of young adults (18–29 years old) in Second Chance Schools in Greece, investigates their degree of satisfaction with the curriculum, the treatment they received from their educators, the degree of influence of their immediate family, friends, acquaintances and work environment in their decision to participate, but also whether participation in SCS is connected to their life course, with direct reference to life transitions and expected changes. It is a quantitative survey that was conducted in 2023, in which 152 young adult students from Second Chance Schools of mainland Greece were involved and more specifically from the administrative regions of Central Macedonia, Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, of Thessaly and Attica. The data were collected through written questionnaires, followed by the analysis in SPSS. Factor analysis was applied to the empirical data with the method of principal component analysis. A set of factors emerged from the analyses that appear to influence the decision to participate.