Is self-esteem enough? The importance of trust in retention of youth in education

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the concept of self-esteem and place it in a context of individualised interventions that, on its own, fails to grasp the complexity of retention of vulnerable youth in education. We show that self-esteem is best understood in collaboration with the more socially directed concept of ‘educational trust’. The concept of trust is unfolded theoretically as well as empirically and, further, we develop and specify the concept of ‘educational trust’. Anthony Giddens and Niklas Luhmann offer sociological accounts of trust while Kenneth Gergen contributes a relational perspective within social psychology. The method is based on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations. Twenty young people from a provincial town in Denmark were involved in the study. Aged between 16-19, and having dropped out of formal education, this group were interviewed 2-3 times over a period of 15 months, making some 40 qualitative interviews of a duration of 30-90 min. Observations followed the participation of 11 informants in educational activities aimed at supporting them in ordinary education. The analyses are grounded in a social-constructionist approach with the focus of understanding self-esteem and ‘educational trust’ in a landscape of participation, relation and positioning. The article illustrates how interventions based on self-esteem suggest the placing of responsibility on the individual while the more relationally directed concept of ‘educational trust’ encourage a shared responsibility between youth, schools, mentors and teachers. The theoretical discussion unfolds educational trust as a social phenomenon and empirical cases show how self-esteem and educational trust in education are interwoven. We argue that self-esteem develops in collaboration with educational trust via socially secure school environments, communication and dialogue, the maintenance of expectations, scholastic progression and a more general trust in the educational system.