Setting and Sampling

This comparative fieldwork was carried out over the course of 14 months from 2014 to 2015 in England, Denmark and Hungary. As part of the research, 28 successful former students were interviewed, and observations were undertaken in second chance provisions.

The Thematic Working Group on ESL underlines in a survey that there is a need to study the settings in which students pursue their studies and feel valued and listened to (TWG, 2013). This is why I chose three reputedly supportive educational institutions located in the three countries under investigation. Access to the three participant institutions was obtained via the E2C with whom, as an active member of the association, I have had professional and personal connections for eight years. I consider it an additional advantage that I have lived, studied and worked as a teacher and/or young researcher in all three countries. These three

(Hungary), Landing College – Grey Town (England), were selected to provide contrasting policy contexts. Each represents a model of educational provision with different levels of success for the target group of this research investigation. These institutions are members of E2C, which means that the teaching methodology significantly differs from the mechanisms in use at mainstream schools as they focus on individual students’ needs (Day et al, 2013).

3.2.1 Accessing participants at the fieldwork sites

The overall sample for my doctoral research includes policy makers, teachers, school leaders, career counsellors, mentors and social workers, but mainly former students of the three participant institutions who obtained a qualification. A total of 28 interviews were conducted with successful former students to explore young people’s views on education, moreover 21 interviews with professionals (policy makers, teachers, school leaders, career counsellors, mentors and social workers), which were used to describe the policy context of the three countries under investigation; the contextual details are presented in Chapters 4 and 5. The former student participants were selected from the sampled institutions in negotiation with the school leadership and/or the career counsellor, social worker or teacher using the criteria that they were at-risk students/dropouts prior to second chance provision, and due to the positive effects of second chance education they had obtained a qualification. The findings of these interviews are presented in Chapters 6, 7 and 8. The different stakeholders and grass routes professionals were selected in negotiation with the school leadership as they were informed about local opportunities, furthermore I also asked relevant experts (e.g. the local E2C representative) for potential contacts. In addition, there were some cases when a local expert after the interview advised me to turn to a relevant local professional to get more informed about the given topic.

Theoretical sampling was used in this research as part of the grounded theory approach. I faced many challenges whilst undertaking my fieldwork, including the availability of gatekeepers, changing countries within the limited period of time, and using my financial resources effectively to collect the data I had planned to from the three countries under analysis. These factual details and the three research contexts that formed the basis for this project shaped the practical ways in which I was able to apply the methods described above. Therefore, theoretical sampling processes were not as rigorously implemented as the related literature (Corbin & Strauss, 1998; Draucker et al., 2007) suggests. Accordingly, I went into the three fieldwork sites with a focus on obtaining responses to the most interesting initial question and to gather information about the concepts I wanted to learn about. The leading question was: What are the factors that motivate at-risk students/drop-outs to stay in a supportive teaching-learning environment, and how do these impact their future career and

learning pathways?

In order to maximise the chances of promptly starting my fieldwork, the same procedures were followed to negotiate access to research participants. More specifically, each participant institution was approached a year in advance and my doctoral research was introduced. Each visit consisted of discussions with the school leadership and/or relevant professionals; moreover, I sent the research proposal and the additional upgrade documents, including the approved ethical approval form (Appendix 1) with the copy of my DSB, to inform research participants thoroughly about the research project. In the case of Denmark and Hungary, gatekeepers were able to help soon after my arrival, and put me in contact with some former students. In England, the relevant gatekeepers were not available to help, even though I followed the same initial procedure to avoid any delay in my research. I visited Landing College twice before the fieldwork, but due to staff changes my initial contacts were no

causing some delay. This involved resending my research proposal and the ethical approval, as well as speaking to college leadership. The initial visits to this fieldwork site were spent in the canteen and the library where I was able to familiarise myself with the atmosphere of the college. After some time at the fieldwork site, I was able to negotiate permission to observe some classes, but my role was not fully understood.

After conducting the first interviews in Paprika City and Øresund City, I transcribed the interviews and wrote short memos. Preliminary analysis revealed that each participant had had a lot of negative experiences and failures in primary education, which led them to drop out of their first secondary school: as one of them claimed, he ‘was mistreated by the system’. After listening to these stories, I became more curious about why people become at- risk students and/or drop- outs. I shared my initial findings with the career counsellor and the school leader in Øresund City, and with the social workers in Paprika City to help convince them to put me in contact with a diverse group of at-risk students/drop-outs. The Danish and the Hungarian professionals understood the purpose of the new direction of data collection and helped identify and put me in contact with potential interviewees. They contacted former students on Facebook, sharing a short description of the research and my contact details. Most former students who were approached, were willing to participate, and emailed me to request that they preferred to maintain contact with me on Facebook because, as they said, ‘Facebook is fancy and trendy’ among young people and Messenger is fast and commonly used on smartphones. From these responses, I realised the power and importance of social media in their lives. Consequently, it can be seen that the sampling in these two fieldwork sites was based on negotiations and considerations of new criteria regarding how to select the sample, following the main principles of theoretical sampling.

In contrast, the sampling procedure in the UK was more haphazard as there was limited opportunity to work with the relevant gatekeepers due to the delays in negotiating and renegotiating access. No interviews were undertaken during the first visit, but with the support of some teachers, a number of interviews with former students were undertaken. Students were approached in different ways. First, an active student wrote a letter about my research at the request of a teacher that was posted to potential interviewees. Second, a teacher provided me with a list of former students with contact details, highlighting those who might be interested. Following this, I took the lead in negotiating access to the interviewees from the list. Third, a teacher emailed a couple of former students, introducing me and informing them about my research, copying me in. As a consequence of these experiences with accessing students, it was evident that theoretical sampling was not feasible in the English case. Therefore, random and snowball sampling were applied; a small group of initial people were used to nominate, through their social networks, other participants to take part who met the eligibility criteria. As the sample number increased, enough data were gathered to be useful in research (Morgan, 2008).

In practice, I made several telephone calls from the teachers’ office using the list of potential interviewees. I also asked some interviewees if they could recommend a friend from their former class who might be willing to take part in my research as well. There was an interesting moment in the process of recruitment when a potential participant with Asperger’s syndrome emailed me indicating that she was more than eager to talk about her positive experiences, and added that she would like to come with her best friend, who had attended the same class. I replied immediately encouraging them to arrange a meeting. This approach boosted the potential pool of interviewees.

Consequently, the processes of negotiating access to participants in the three research contexts were different. This shaped the practical ways in which theoretical sampling was applied. It was easier to gain access in Denmark and Hungary where gatekeepers were more able to help. In England, a more strategic approach to sampling was used, which allowed me to conduct a sufficient number of interviews, thereby enabling a theory-driven analysis that reflects Corbin’s observation: ‘a researcher can do a high level analysis on whatever data he or she has’ (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p.150).