This paper analyses the opinions of parents and students on social promotion by learning cycles. The field research was conducted in two public school in São Paulo City for a whole school year. Date were collected through observation of everyday school life and from semi-structured interviews with 56 parents and students, and organized into thematic categories, according to Bardin (2004). There were two central questions behind the research: Why are most parents and students against social promotion? How did they reach this way of thinking? The belief that retention exerts a "healthy" pressure on the students is a general assumption among them. So, for the subjects interviewed, pupils would felt obliged to study more, to behave well and to dedicate themselves to their studies. As the subject's school experiences do not confirm the positive effects of school repetition, they were asked why they continue thinking in this way. Their statements suggest that they have appropriated the dominant discourse, which is against the social promotion policies, without thinking critically about their own school experiences.
students; democratization of education; parents; grade repetition