Abstract
School dropout is a concern globally and in South Africa, where approximately 60% of young adults dropout before completing secondary school. While much is known about school dropout, very little is known about the factors that enable some learners to re-enter education after a period of dropout. This qualitative descriptive study with 12 adolescent female learners from a rural school in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa sought to understand the social-ecological resilience processes that facilitated their re-entry after a period of one to two years of dropout. Findings indicated several personal and relational resilience processes, including learners' desire for success and others' encouragement of learners to focus on the future. Informed by resilience and push-pull theories, the findings suggest that a collective narrative of education as being key to one's future was powerful in facilitating educational re-entry. The authors argue that school social workers could cultivate this narrative to prevent school dropout and to facilitate re-entry of dropped-out learners back into school.