Dropping Out Of Middle School and Labour Migration: Case Studies from the Community of Interior Decoration Contractors in Surin Province

Abstract

This research aimed to study the causes of dropping out of middle school and labour migration and the labour of the people from the community of interior decoration contractors in Surin Province. The informants were 9 interior decoration labours who had dropped out of middle school. The data was collected by in-depth interview and observation.

The study shows that there were 3 factors affecting dropping out of middle school: 1) family economic status, 2) violence in school and 3) the lack of motivation for school with two types of this factor both 3.1) the pure lack of motivation for school and 3.2) the need to go to work instead of schooling. When these informants had already dropped out of school, they had involved in labour migration processes as followed: 1) the migration behavior learning from friends, relatives or neighbors who were in a migration network, 2) the accumulation of migration decision factors include, the push factors: family economic status, the increase of self-esteem and the culture of migration and the pull factors: being invited and assisted by a migration network and the opportunity of work and urban life learning and 3) the migration and the adaptation to be a decoration labour which were not that hard because they were assisted in the travelling, housing, and a job. However, there were some cases who had problems with colleague’s inappropriate behavior.