Educating by recognising the student. Narratives from the educational disengagement

Abstract

Dropping out of school is a problem for education policy and practice from which we can learn. Those who drop out can show agency and autonomy through this decision.  Dropping out of school can show students' capacity for agency and autonomy. Their experiences allows us to rethink the school. This is the starting point for this research, in which we propose to improve the school through the reflection of students who drop out. We have worked with 30 life stories of people between 18 and 35 years of age with discontinuous educational trajectories. The analysis allows us to appreciate disengagement as the process and emotion of perceiving oneself as a "bad student", not being recognised within what the school institution promotes and values. Their accounts also highlight good teaching practices as spaces for building common ground, based on the creation of the teacher-pupil bond, facilitating the feeling of belonging to the school. In conclusion, it is necessary to approach education as a space for student recognition, as an opportunity to make their merits visible. Progress in this area should be based on dialogic practices that allow for the construction of a common project.