Navigating the occupational transition of dropping out of school: Anchoring occupations and champions as facilitators

Abstract

This paper has the dual aim of first presenting an understanding of school dropout as an occupational transition and second, to suggest how this occupational transition may be navigated successfully. School dropout is of concern to occupational therapy as it limits peoples' full social inclusion. We draw on data from a biographical inquiry into the nature of occupational engagement of men in a low socioeconomic, South African community who dropped out of school. In this study, narrative data were generated from 3 men, followed by a narrative analysis and thematic analysis. The findings reflected that two of the men established stable occupational trajectories after dropping out of school, contrasted with the third man who was unable to do this. The interpretations suggest that a successful occupational transition for these two participants occurred through establishing anchoring occupations as a result of chance encounters with individuals who acted as 'champions'. These champions ensured the successful negotiation of available opportunities. Through offering these insights, this paper provides an illustration of how concepts interpreted and discussed in occupational science

A scoping review exploring ‘opportunity’ in occupational science: Possibilities for conceptual development

“…However, in certain instances, the findings in the papers offered ways to develop more nuanced understandings of the key concepts (Pereira, 2017;Sterman et al, 2019;Whiteford & Pereira, 2012). Some papers presented frameworks or models within which opportunity are embedded (Pereira, 2017;Stadnyk et al, 2010;, while others theorized concepts or aspects that appeared to relate to opportunity (Hammell, 2016(Hammell, , 2017aPeters et al, 2016;Rivas-Quarneti et al, 2018;Sterman et al, 2020;Townsend, 2012;Whiteford, 2003). We came to view these concepts or aspects to be possible 'elements' of opportunity through our analysis.…”

“…The essential contribution of opportunities towards a different state of affairs for participants in the two studies described, highlighted the role that opportunities might play in contributing to an experience of occupational justice (Francke et al, 2019;Peters, 2011;Peters et al, 2016;Wildschutt et al, 2014). This alerted the authors to the potential for exploring opportunity as a concept within occupational science.…”

“…Two research studies in particular provided additional impetus for this paper. The first was an interpretive biographical study that explored the lives of three men as they navigated the occupational transition of dropping out of school in a low-income community in Cape Town, South Africa (Peters, 2011;Peters et al, 2016). A comparison of their biographies highlighted how two of them were able to participate in ways that were contrary to what was expected for members of society who do not complete formal schooling within the South African context (Instant Grass, 2007 as cited in Peters, 2011).…”

“…To refine the purpose of our review and distill our research question, we reflected on insights generated through our previous research (Francke et al, 2019;Galvaan, 2015;Peters, 2011;Peters et al, 2016). We had identified that few studies focused on the concept of opportunity or opportunities within occupational science.…”

“…While most of the publications were from authors in the Global North (10), all papers made reference to understanding the experiences of people in marginalized social groups. The limited number of publications from occupational science scholars in the Global South on this topic possibly limits the way in which we currently understand opportunity in the discipline, given the unique epistemological perspectives that such contexts could bring to understanding this concept, as was evidenced in the work by Rivas-Quarneti et al (2018) and Peters et al (2016). All the empirical studies included, as well as the study data referenced in the theoretical papers, reflected a qualitative research design which was well aligned with the focus of the papers.…”