Failure of school project: the role of social, material, behavioural, physical and mental resources among multi-cultural students.

Youth context require social-material-behavioral-mental resources to realize school achievement and their community participation, but they are lacking or altered for many adolescents. In an early adolescence context, this study assessed the associations of these factors with repeating a school year, low school-performance, and quitting-school thinking at 16 years. Methods: Questionnaires were completed by 1559 middle-school adolescents from north-eastern France including: sex, age, family structure, parental education, income, and occupation, WHOQoL (quality of life for 4 domains physical, psychological, social relationship, and environment; <25th percentile value), last-30-day consumption of tobacco/alcohol/ cannabis/hard drug, regular sports/physical activities, victim of violence, sexual abuse, implication in violence, suicidal ideation, social supports, repeating a school year, low summer-term school-performance (<10/20), and quitting-school-thinking. Data were analyzed using logistic models which yield adjusted odds ratios (OR). Results: Repeating a school-year affected 14.7%, low school performance 8.2%, and quitting-school-thinking 3.9%. Repeating a school-year was significantly related to increasing age (OR 2.18), father being a manual worker (2.79 vs. manager/professional), clerk (2.36), craftsman/tradesman/firm-head (1.68), or unemployed (4.65), low WHOQoL-environment (2.29), tobacco use (1.70), and hard drug use (2.35). Low school-performance was linked with increasing age (OR 1.25), father being a manual worker (4.81 vs. manager/professional), clerk (3.30), craftsman/tradesman/firm-head (2.36), or unemployed (5.41), tobacco use (3.95), low WHOQoL-physical (2.27), and low WHOQoL-psychological (1.56). Quitting-school-thinking was associated with being male (OR 4.03), divorced/separated-parents (2.92 vs. intact family), not living with parent(s) (3.45), implication in violence (5.19), sexual abuse (4.11), and suicidal ideation (2.47). Conclusion: Socioeconomic living conditions and physical/mental difficulties have impressive impacts on failure of school project in youth. Public policy aiming at improving school achievement should focus on improvement of environment and living conditions, well-being, and monitoring physical/behavioral/mental difficulties as well as services appropriate to reduce school difficulties. This should promote community participation at adolescence and also at adulthood.