The article analyzes the influence of the traditional conceptions of Psychology in teachers and students' speeches about school failure nowadays. For that, it makes one brief revision of the psychometric and the theory of the cultural lack as representative of the ideological conception that centers in the individual and the "environment" the causes of the failure. Later, it analyzes critically stretches of interviews with educators and pupils of a municipal public school that shown the repercussion of this conception, in its diverse nuances, in thinking and making pedagogical. Finally, it reflects on the approaches and ruptures of Psychology with the ideology, presenting the principles of historical-cultural psychology and its contribution to the understanding of the school phenomena.
Academic failure; History of psychology; Ideology