Taking into consideration the Brazilian context of wide social inequality, the primary objective of this research was to investigate how social inequality impacts the maintenance of attendance of low-income students (majority) in a public vocational-technical high school in Rio de Janeiro. The concepts of psychology of freedom, social-historical psychology, and institutional analysis were used. An action research was conducted using a structured interview, a focus group, and participant observation of students. All information gathered about the everyday struggles faced by the students was taken into account. The results revealed that the participants acknowledge the existence of varied difficulties, and the most frequently mentioned were fatigue, distance between school and home, and learning issues, which can affect the maintenance of attendance of students in schools. This study aims to show the inner functioning of institutional logic and reaffirm the importance of considering and focusing on the reality of students' everyday life to develop public policies to support and provide quality public education for all.
Adolescent; Teaching; Social inequity; Social psychology