High Scholl: where the problem of social time and educational trajectories is expressed

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Secondary education in Latin America: reforms and youth experiences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic

Proposal

The analysis of student behavior focused on one educational level -secondary education, for example-, whether in relation to dropout/continuity in the educational system or performance (passing, failing, competencies), is opposed to an integrated view of educational trajectories.
This paper shows, based on data from the National Survey of Adolescents and Young People ENAJ (2008, 2018), the determination that operates of repetition at the Primary level on performance and dropout at the next level (Secondary Education), which justifies the need for the analysis of integrated educational trajectories between levels. In Uruguay, the coverage and completion level of primary education is quasi-universal. However, repetition is high (in 2008, 24% of the population aged 12 to 29 had repeated at least one year of primary school. On the other hand, high school graduation rates place Uruguay at the bottom of the regional ranking, with deficient results, placing the problems of education at this level. There is a tendency to see "the problem" at the level where it is expressed; but the explanation may lie at the previous level. We will show how and how much repetition in primary school determines the probability of graduation from secondary education, which demonstrates the need to study educational trajectories in an integrated manner (between levels).
Secondly, educational trajectories should not be seen in isolation from the rest of the trajectories of young people (labor, family, migration, etc.). In the sociology of transitions (Casal, 2006), key events (markers) of the transition to adulthood are considered to be having the first child, leaving the educational system, leaving the home of origin, entering the labor market -first job-. The schedules, intensities and sequences of these events show very different patterns according to the educational level attained by young people, and according to gender; this demonstrates the social fragmentation among young people that determine radically different present and future living conditions. But, on the other hand, it shows how educational trajectories are impacted by other life trajectories (work, family, autonomy/emancipation and reproductive life (children), which while among some young people (with lower levels of education) occur simultaneously, among those with more schooling they tend to be spaced out over time. The conceptual and analytical discussion of this is based on the perspectives of time (Bourdieu) and social time (Nowtony), which allow us to understand not only a dimension little used for the analysis of inequalities among young people, but also enables us to discuss the mismatches between institutional time/temporality and the social time of some young people. The inclusion of the notion of social time in educational programs and policies becomes crucial.

Author

• Veronica Filardo