(Re)Constructing Schooling Experience From Youngsters' Perspectives

• In Event: Out-of-School and At-Risk Adolescents and Young Adults: Five National Perspectives

Abstract

Even though student learning outcomes, enrolment, and completion rates have been rapidly improving in the last 40 years, early school leaving rates in Portugal are still at 14%, far from the Europe 2020 target of 10% (European Commission, 2013; PORDATA, 2016). In this paper we look at factors that may hinder/ foster academic success and school completion rates through the eyes and experience of 4 adolescents. We strive to offer a complementary look to this highly complex phenomena, namely to the prevailing neoliberal narratives that construct families and their low income/ educational attainment as the main factors for academic failure and school dropout, without fully examining them.
The impact of family socioeconomic background and of the mother’s schooling level on dropout and accumulated retention rates is strongest in Portugal than elsewhere (Santiago et al. 2012). For culturally subordinated and working class groups, the school culture often constitutes a process of oppression and symbolic violence that leads to academic failure (Giroux, 1992). The compensation measures provided by the system seldom succeed in reconnecting these students with school work (Torres Santomé, 2011). The dominant discourse of the neoliberal agenda, of ‘blaming the families’, still prevails, which does not do any good in restoring the schools’ credibility among these students and their families, thus perpetuating inequality (Kainz & Aikens, 2007; Silva & Stoer, 2005).
Following convenience sampling procedures, 4 students (14-15 year olds, 2 boys and 2 girls, White, from middle/ working class families) were selected for 45-60m in-depth ethnographic interviews, because they were regarded, by their school, as at-risk students. These interviews are the 1st step of on-going biographical case studies that are being developed and whose results will be incorporated in the final paper. They were all in the same school, in an urban area in the North of Portugal. They were subjected to special compensation measures: they were undergoing a different curriculum, purposefully developed by their school for them, with carefully selected teachers. They participated voluntarily in the study (with the consent of their families). The interviews focused on their perceptions and experiences on the following themes: the school context, the family context, the neighborhood context, work experiences, leisure and friendships, and identity traits. Data was analyzed using a combination of content analysis and critical discourse analysis procedures (Titscher et al., 2000).
The results indicate that these students internalize the ‘blame’ discourse, self-attributing the causes for their academic failure. The strategies implemented by their schools for managing difference (cf. Popkewitz, 2008) fail with these students, paradoxically accentuating their exclusion. Their narratives also evidence the extent of the teachers’ power in fully developing their student’s potential (Jardine, 2007).
Much of the research studying school dropout and early school leaving focuses on socioeconomic and sociocultural factors, as well as variables connected with school provision. This research contributes to understanding the scope and depth of the factors involved, by focusing on the personal circumstances, from the failing students themselves and their life histories.

Authors

• Maria Alfredo Moreira, Minho University

• Pedro Manuel Patacho, Oeiras City Council, Portugal

• Sónia Estela Monteiro, Maia School Cluster