Students at Risk in Education: Participation, Access, and Support Pathways

Abstract

Unequal participation and constrained access remain persistent barriers to educational attainment, social mobility, and inclusive development, and they shape the probability that learners disengage, experience low attainment, or drop out. The article aims to clarify how participation and access operate as distinct but interdependent dimensions of educational risk and to propose a practical framework for identifying and supporting students at risk. A structured synthesis of research and policy evidence is used to integrate global monitoring and equity frameworks with studies of participation indicators, digital exclusion, and inclusion, then translate these insights into an applied risk model. The analysis shows that access should be defined beyond enrolment to include continuity, safe learning conditions, reasonable accommodation, and meaningful opportunities to learn, while participation is conceptualized as engagement over time reflected in attendance, belonging, learning participation, and progression.  The proposed model links early warning indicators to multi-tiered interventions, emphasizing disability inclusion, poverty, displacement, and digital exclusion as cumulative drivers of risk. Effective risk reduction requires integrated governance that combines ethically managed, data-informed identification with resourced school-level supports and system-level policies addressing inclusion and infrastructure. Future studies should strengthen causal evidence on intervention bundles, validate early warning systems across contexts, and develop measures that capture participation quality rather than enrolment alone.