Supporting the educational attainment of youth in residential care: From issues to controversies

Both the poor educational attainment of youth in out-of-home care and its consequences have been well documented in recent years. It has also been demonstrated that multiple issues, such as motivation, expectations, parental involvement, change of school and level of cooperation influence their attainment generally. Collaboration between professional partners has been suggested as a means to a solution, both to address these complex issues and develop responses. Our research objective is to understand the development of collaboration in relation to these multiple issues. Specifically, our goal is to promote understanding of processes of collaboration to better understand what promotes or prevents problem solving. To fulfill this objective, we mobilised Actor-network theory. The study employs a qualitative case study. Data collection techniques include 24 semi-structured interviews with teachers, youth workers, social workers, managers and youth, and the review of 103 additional documents. Our results provide an understanding of how the various actors define problems and manage to make them visible in order to increase engagement with the issues. We have also identified multiple controversies that blocked or enabled a collaborative approach to generating solutions in relation to these issues. Finally, our results help clarify what needs to be done to support the academic and educational success of youth in residential care.