A critique of ‘Early School Leaving’, ‘Drop Out’ and ‘NEET’ from the UK, Denmark and Norway: marginalisation and co-created education research project

The European Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE) project co-created proposals for an equitable education system through participative action research with students and young people. Academics and university students co-researched between one and five young people’s educational experiences each using an ‘Indirect Approach’ (Bunting and Moshuus, 2017) This paper presents a critical contextual overview of ‘Early School Leaving’, introduces the Indirect Approach, and presents the findings from the first year of research across three countries in the light of the Equalities Literacy Framework. Conclusions are drawn from suggestions made by young people and researchers.