This article deals with the autonomy (in the pedagogical process and in daily school practice) as a student's right and an indispensable requirement for high quality education. It is part of a broad study about the structure of the school and it is based on a qualitative research done at a public school in São Paulo city. To the theoretical contribution from the educational science, this essay adds an analysis of data about interviews with educators and observations of daily pedagogical practice and activities carried out at school. The implications of both political and educational autonomy of the student are emphasized, in order to conclude in favor of the importance of this issue and warn about its paradoxical neglect by the public educational policies.
student's autonomy; elementary school; right to education