RESUMO

Orientador: Augusto Niba Ido da Silva Tríviños

MARTINI, Jussara Gue. The meanings of Brazilian and Chilean teachers and students social representations about scholar failure.

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study is to investigate, describe and search the meanings of social representations concerning educational failure by Brazilian and Chilean students and teachers. The definition of the topic is related to the researcher's professional experience and with her interest in analysing, mainly, scholar failure in Brazil. The subjects of the study are teachers and students from elementary and high school in the cities of Porto alegre and Concepcion, as well as two teachers from two faculties of education. Semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups and snowball sampling were used to verify how teachers and students represent the production of failure in elementary and high school. The representation of scholar failure as a product of the students and their families' physical and psycological conditions was expressed by most of the teachers. Their speech also indicated the scholar failure complexity and multiple causality, emphasizing the involvement of teachers, teaching methodologies, schools and educational policees in its production. Students from elementary school represent scholar failure as temporary learning difficulties due to subjects' complexity and insufficient time for learning. The lack of time and interest, in addition to the complexity of the subjects and unprepared teachers were aspects mentioned by high school students. Comparing Brazilian and Chilean students' representations, significant references to the presence of violence in schools were observed in the speech of elementary school students from Porto Alegre. Students from Chile refered to punishment in elementary school, parents' participation on the organization and administration of schools, as well as the support to aid learning difficulties in Concepcion. They also referred to the greater number of enrollments and permanence of students in Chilean schools. The research concluded that Chilean education has reached more significant results in combating school failure than Brazil. It is believed that this probably happens because Chileans approach the matter not only from a pedagogic point of view, but also from a social and political one, while Brazilian teachers understand this problem as a consequence of the students' personal conditions. However, some of the Brazilian teachers' speeches referred to the complexity and multicausalities of the phenomenon which is considered one of the greatest challenges in education.

Keywords: social representations, scholar failure, education, learning

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  19 Sept 2014
• Date of issue
  Sept 1999