Étude du rôle des signifiants culturels dans le décrochage scolaire chez les jeunes filles de la ville de Moundou au Tchad

Abstract

In Chad, the school dropout rate is very high, and studies seeking to determine statistics on the secondary school completion rate are rare and face political, financial and socio-demographic difficulties (MENPC, 2020). In Moundou, many young girls fail to complete their secondary education and they drop out. Many difficulties experienced during their school career undermine their personal, family and social experience, which ends up degrading and destabilizing their academic future. The objective of this study is to identify the cultural signifiers that determine school dropout among young girls in the city of Moundou. The sample includes dropouts from French-speaking and Arabic-speaking schools in Moundou, all high school dropouts. To support this situation, we retained as variables the cultural signifiers that are the types of families and the culture of the languages which reveal a great impact on the schooling of the pupils. We have chosen as explanatory theories the theory of cultural relativism, social cognitive theory and the theory of Rumberger and Larson (1998), as frameworks for analyzing our hypotheses. Two methodological approaches (quantitative and qualitative) enabled us to achieve our objective. The study was conducted among 91 dropouts aged between 14 and 35 (the equivalent of secondary school education in Chad) from several neighborhoods in the city of Moundou. Our qualitative survey by individual interviews was conducted with 12 dropouts. The results of this research show that the interaction between factors such as cultural values and habits, the coexistence of two official languages which is characterized by a low level of French, the lack of parental involvement, the orientation suffered, the feeling of self-efficacy relating to school learning, cultural stereotypes and prejudices, low self-esteem, low commitment, experiences of failure and repetition have led young girls to drop out.