Reference: Freire, A.; Carvalho, C.; Azevedo, M. Freire, S. &

Oliveira, T. (2007). Learning paths: A challenge for an

inclusive education in Portugal. Proceedings from The 2nd

Sociocultural Theory in Education Conference: Theory, Identity

and Learning. Manchester.

Learning paths: A challenge for an inclusive education in Portugal

Ana Freire, Carolina Carvalho, Mário Azevedo, Sofia Freire, Teresa Oliveira

Centro de Investigação em Educação

Departamento de Educação da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa

afreire@fc.ul.pt

Nowadays, one of the main problems faced by several educational systems

around the world is educational exclusion. Portugal is no exception.

Educational exclusion can assume different forms, which change according

to the social, cultural, economical and political contexts of each country. It

is recognized that those who drop out education are at risk of social

exclusion, with reduced opportunities to participate in the society. Those

who remain in the same level for two or more years during compulsory

school present high probability of dropping out. Portugal still presents high

rates of truancy, failure and dropping out. With this report of an ongoing

study we aim at better understanding educational exclusion from the

perspective of the students. The central questions that summarize this study

are the following: (a) How do I see myself as a student?; (b) How do I think

the others see me as a student? These two questions seem to reflect relevant

features of school student’s identity. We developed four focus group

interviews with students presenting high rates of truancy and failure

(N=20). Against our expectations several students do not see school as a

negative experience; rather showing intend of pursuing their own path in

the school system. They see themselves as able of changing the conditions of

failure in order to succeed in school.

In the 20th century, western societies have undergone huge economical, political,

social and cultural changes that have created new demands for traditional schooling.

Human values, centred on dignifying Human life, focused on the development of

equitable opportunities for all and with the construction of more fair and solitary

societies have been stated in several international documents (UNO, 1945, 1948, 1959,

1989). Education as a fundamental right is now seen as a way to help in the construction

of a better world, more prosperous, tolerant and also as a tool to promote personal and

social development (UNESCO, 1990, 2003a).

Despite education increased political worth, many individuals are still denied it, as

they are kept apart from the regular educational system or can not succeed in its

completion (UNESCO, 2000, 2001, 2003a). These individuals are not only being denied

a fundamental right, but also are being positioned in an at-risk situation concerning

social exclusion and marginalization (UNESCO, 2000). Indeed, it is nowadays

recognized that those who are denied a quality education present reduced opportunities

to participate in the society and to find a job, and present higher probabilities of

experiencing discriminating situations (Ainscow & Ferreira, 2003; UNESCO, 2003a,

2003b). Nowadays students live an increasingly complex world, so they need to know

that school will provide them with tools for dealing with it and schools should facilitate

them the appropriation of transversal competencies and not just specific bodies of

knowledge (Ministério da Educação, 2003; Perret-Clermont, 2004). As Heath (2004)

reminds us,

Everyone is thereby likely to be engaged in transitions and transformations,

changes that come on unexpectedly and for which transmission learning never

prepares us. These transitions come about and test the ability of youth and adult to

take risks, make new rules, find new social connections, and think of risk as

inevitable. (p. 44)

Portugal had made considerable efforts to offer a quality education to all its

children, not only by increasing enrolment rates, but also by increasing literacy levels of

its school population. Nevertheless, it still faces serious problems with truancy, failure

and dropping out (Ministry of Education, 2006). In 2004/05, school failure (retention)

rates in 9th grade (last year of compulsory school) were still 20.3% and they were

32.1% for secondary school (Ministry of Education, 2006). Besides, dropping out

school rate is over than 40% (CNE, 2007).

Portugal used to be a homogeneous society, but with the overall geographical and

political changes it became a heterogeneous one and so the school population (Barreto,

1995; Ulrich, 1991). In 2004, about 10% of the compulsory school students’ are foreign

person (ACIME, 2004).

Portuguese schools had been though for the average-student (school motivated,

well behaved, presenting high future aspirations, from a family that values school and

education). Nowadays schools face some difficulties with answering the needs, values,

rhythms, future aspirations and goals of a high heterogeneous school population

(Barroso, 2003; Canário, 2000; Cortesão, 2003, 2006). Those students from less

favourable geographical, social and cultural backgrounds are the ones most vulnerable

to the school inability to deal with the difference (Barroso, 2003; Canário, 2000, CNE,

2007; Ministry of Education, 2006; Rodrigues, 2001).

School discourses play an important role in excluding its students. It is school that

defines what is “normal” and what a student should be. Those who do not fit these

definitions are considered different and a “problem” (Canário, 2000; Matos, 2005;

Rodrigues, 2001; Skliar, 2006; Smyth, 2006). Many times, the “problem-student” does

not identify with the image that school tries to impose on him/her and give up or

challenge it (Archer, Hollingworth, & Halsall 2007b; Cortesão, 2006; Reay & William,

1999; Smyth, 2006). As Smith (2006) states:

Succeeding at school, for many students, means having to suppress their own

identities and act within a narrowly defined and institutionalized view of what it

means to be a “good” student. For many young people, going to school involves a

particular and difficult type of identity work – negotiating/ suppressing their own

identities. Schools offer possibilities for future independence, and they also offer

conceptual resources that can contribute to some identities. The struggle over

identity at school, however, can become difficult to negotiate for some. For

students who ‘dropout’, school has effectively lost its potential to contribute to

their life plans. School is no longer seen as a viable place in which to do identity

work. (p. 290)

In the school context there are many different actors, with different positions,

status and power, that shape each other and influence how each individual sees himself/

herself, how he/ she sees the others and how he/ she thinks the others sees him/ her

(Archer, Halsall, & Hollingworth, 2007a; Archer et al., 2007b; Canário, 2000; César,

2003; Cortesão, 2006; Flores-Crespo, 2007; Holland, 1997; Holland, Lachiotte, Skinner,

& Cain, 1998; Pollard & Filer, 1996, 1999; Reay & William, 1999). It is like a struggle

game between positions (and identities) which are socially desirable (associated with

power and status, and generally those held by the teachers and school institution) and

less valued identities which are imposed (by the school, teachers and, even, society in

general) to students from certain social and cultural backgrounds, which prompt them

into unfavourable positions (Archer et al., 2007b; Canário, 2000; César, 2003; Cortesão,

2006; Barroso, 2003; Flores-Crespo, 2007). Trying to escape from those imposed

identities (and positions), students develop (or activate) other identities (Archer, 2007b;

César, 2003; Flores-Crespo, 2007). Many times those identities (for instance, “school is

not for persons like me”), prompt them into more fragile positions in the school context,

raising the risk of educational exclusion (Archer et al., 2007b; César, 2003; Flores-

Crespo, 2007).

Acknowledging that identities influence behaviour (Holland et al, 1998; Pollard,

1996, 1999), we consider central to better understand how the images the students held

about them selves as a student and how the images they think the others held about

themselves. In particular, we want to focus on students at risk of educational exclusion.

Method

With this report of an ongoing study we aim at better understanding educational

exclusion from the perspective of the students at-risk of educational exclusion. So, data

were collected in one urban school that presents high truancy, failure and dropping out

rates.

Participants

Participants were twenty students from basic school (8th

level), whose parents (or

institution where they live) gave an agreement to participate in the study. They were

different ages, ranging from 13 to 18, as many of them had a heavy story of school

truancy and failure. Many students presented difficult life situations (related to

problems with the law or parents having problems with the law; students who live in

institutions and not with the parents). Many came from foreign countries: one of them

from a former European eastern country, whose first language was not Portuguese, and

some others from Portuguese old colonies.

Participants were all from the same class, a class that was seen as problematic by

the school, whose most students had discipline problems and whose teachers complaint

a lot about them. We contacted the chemical teacher, who explained the goals of the

study to her students (and to the teachers) and who stimulate them to participate.

Data collection

For collecting data we used a focus group interview. We had to make several

options concerning the dimensions and constitution of the group, trying to balance

technical problems with ethical problems. For ethical reasons we discarded the option of

interviewing only those students who had failed in the past and, as a result, the

possibility of establishing a homogeneous group was also discarded (Krueger, 1994;

Morgan, 1998). We kept groups in use in the Project Area class, as focus interview was

carried on during that lesson. The groups were, then, composed by people who had

already a relationship, which might be problematic and constrain some of their answers

(Krueger, 1994; Morgan, 1998). That was not an easy option, but was the possible one,

considering the characteristics of the school and of the students we wanted to interview.

Doing otherwise, we could have created stigmas among the students.

The groups were five to six students. Interviews were made one each week, they

were audio-taped and transcribed for analysis.

Data analyses

We used a content analyses method. The categories were defined previously the

interviews (and they structured the interview process).

The categories were:

How I see myself as a student.

o Educational paths and decisions.

o Future (educational and professional) aspirations.

o Perceived role played by the school in concretization of these

aspirations.

How I think that the others see me as a student.

Perceptions about school, teachers, peers and curriculum.

Empirical evidences

Most of the students have a precise idea about their own future: some want to

finish high school and then to find a job and many want to pursue their studies and

apply to university studies.

Despite their high aspirations, students have contradictory feelings concerning

schooling. On the one hand, students devalue school diplomas and even professional

paths that school can open up for them. For instance, one of the students states that:

“Many students are unwilling to study because they know that when school is over they

won’t have a place to work. They won’t be able to work where they would like to”. Still

other focusing on higher education mentions that “Studying for 20 or 22 years… and

then do not find a job!” Or still other, who mentions: “School is losing time”.

On the other hand, for many of them, school still presents itself as the only way to

achieve their goals. School is seen as an instrumental means to pursue their studies

further or to find better jobs. As a student said, “Cause if we want to be… who knows…

a doctor or an engineer, we won’t make it unless we study. We have to learn what we

will make for living”. Or another one: “The longer we study, the better jobs we will

get”.

Nevertheless, they do not like School and their own school. For many, school “is

useless”, as is stated by one of the students. It might have an instrumental use (either for

pursuing studies or for finding better jobs, and that is not clear at all), but it certainly do

not provide them with what they need – the practical knowledge they need to make

daily options, to answer their daily preoccupations or to comfort them with their

concrete problems. As one of the student states it:

“I think that schools should be better. They should not focus exclusively in school

subjects. They should talk about other things that are equally important. I think

that those things are more important for our future, so that we know how to act,

then school subjects. School subjects will help in our work, but not in the daily

situations (…) School subject is important for work, but not for life”.

In addition to this sense that school is useless for their life, most of the students do

not like the present school. Those who like the school stress the relationship with the

friends and some special teachers and others the extra-curricular activities.

Socializing is, indeed, an important issue for all the students. However, school

doesn’t have enough spaces to socialize or in good conditions. Even extra-curricular

activities are scarce according to the perception of most of them. Those who have an

extra-curricular activity (hip-hop dancing) practice it by their own, with no help of a

teacher. Hip-Hop dancing was developed by a teacher, when he left (the year before)

students joined together and kept on practicing it. They lack a socializing room, with

music and games. The year before, the school closed up on of the rooms where they

could be with each other. Now it works as the teacher room.

Besides the lack of socializing spaces, students complain about the overburden of

their school schedule. Not only they have to stay at school for long periods, but also the

periods to socialize with each other are getting further reduced. Some of the students

stress that they have too much school subjects, many of which are useless (for instance,

Project Area, Guided Study, Civic Education, but even curricular subjects, as History).

One student mentions that: “Some of the school subjects exist only for occupying our

free time”.

The relationship with the teachers is another issue of disappointment. Not only

most of the students have a sense that their teachers do not work as model-adults who

could help them with “life issues”, as also they feel that teachers are not engaged with

their own learning and with school and that they do not stimulate them:

“Teachers arrive; they dump the school subject and leave. They do not care if we

like the lessons or not”.

“Teachers do not stimulate. They devalue their students. They think that with that

behaviour students will be willing to study more”.

“Teacher told me that I would be nobody”

Some of the students feel that teachers do not like them and others feel excluded

or feel that others less ideal students are excluded from classroom activities. One

explains his school failure by the behaviour of the teachers:

“I failed because of me… But also because of the teachers. They didn’t care if I

came or missed classes. My director de turma [teacher responsible for all the

class] didn’t care at all. Every time I’d show up, he would say: “Ah! Policy is

looking for you”. And other things. And the other teachers would say: “Ah!

Lessons are much better when H is not present”. If they don’t want me here, I

won’t come!”

For them the ideal teacher is the one who establishes one personal relationship

with his/ her students, who worries about them, who stimulates them, but on the same

time, who presents good pedagogic qualities. Referring to a particular loved teacher,

one student says: “He is also very demanding. He knows when it is time to play and he

knows when it is time to work”. Nevertheless, they think and feel that most teachers do

not care about them, either as students or as persons, who have their particular problems

and feelings, their own important life experiences and knowledge. As one of the student

mentions: “Oh, look at you. You are 16 years old. You do not know anything’. They

think that we do not know anything, that we are unconscious. They undervalue

youngsters”.

In addition they have the perception that teachers think that they do not care about

school and studies and that they only want to play and not to learn. Nevertheless, they

fight the negative image that they feel that teachers try to impose on them. Although

most of them have a history of school failure, they do not recognize themselves as

failure. In their point of view, they failed because they didn’t study, because they lost

interest with school subjects and school and still because they missed school. However,

they see themselves as able of doing otherwise, of changing their position in what

concerns school learning. As one of the student explains: “I always told to myself that I

will make it… And I will. If one person thinks that he can, he certainly can”. Or as

another student says: “I failed because of me. It was nobody else’s responsibility. But I

will make it. I know that I will make it. Why should I give up? I have to keep on

fighting… That’s life”.

Final considerations

Western societies are suffering great changes and what worked for the older

generations do not work for the youth nowadays. Even patterns of socialization has

changed and ways of relating (Head, 2004; Perret-Clermont, 2004). As Perret-Clermont

explains:

Families and school systems, professional training and division of labour, and

even boundaries of ethnic and religious group are undergoing important changes.

These changes affect both the conditions in which young people live and their

access to the experience of former generations, as well as their understanding of

its relevance for the present. The historical and cultural circumstances invalidate

certain social modes of functioning, foster new ones, and modify the general

scenery in which young people discover themselves sources of agency (p. 6)

Schools used to play an important role in the socialization of youth… But what

should be it role nowadays?

Participants of the study do not engage with school and do not believe it can play

an important part in their living. They have lost thrust in school; they do not believe that

it will provide them with the tools to deal with an increasingly complex world. Not only

schools subjects knowledge and competencies do not transfer to their daily life (and

hence the feeling of uselessness), but also the kind of relationship they develop with

most teachers as well as their classroom practices do not provide a solid support in their

task of constructing meaning of life experiences.

It is urgent to change students’ disengagement with School and to create secure

“thinking spaces” (Perret-Clermont, 2004) where they can pursue meaning for their life

experiences. They can develop this task by interacting, sharing and negotiating

meanings, namely with teachers-as-adults, or trough the appropriation of transversal

competences and relevant knowledge. Within this task, reflective competencies play an

important role:

Young people also need to be explicitly encouraged to reflect upon such learning

opportunities, a necessary step for experience to become learning: that is, not only

to venture them, more or less by change, but also to express experience, consider

it, remember it, learn from it, and plan new trials. (Perret-Clermont, 2004, p. 6,

italics in the original)

Our study reveals tensions between the image students have about themselves and

the image they think (most) teachers have about them, which does not facilitate the

creation of secure “thinking spaces” (Perret-Clermont, 2004) for reflecting about life

experiences and learning from it.

Most students recognize themselves as valid students, who are able to learn and to

study (if they want to) and to live successfully their lives. Besides, they recognize

themselves as persons, with valid experience and knowledge, with feelings and values.

They attach importance to life experience, much more than to the protected and

unnatural school experience.

Conversely, they think most teachers have a narrow image of them-only-as-

students, and a devalued one: they cannot and do not want to learn, know nothing, cause

discipline problems and have no aspirations or expectations concerning future. Also,

students think that teachers perceive themselves as having the subject knowledge that

will help students become someone in life. So teachers value transmission of school

subjects’ content. But students are willing to develop tools that will allow them

managing life experience.

School with its body of de-contextualized and no-transferable knowledge can not

provide students with what they need and with what they are looking for – knowledge

that will help them living their own lives, in high complex and ever-changing contexts.

The young will learn to take responsibilities in an autonomous, skilful, and

socialized way only if given flexible and safe opportunities to negotiate step by

step, and with the necessary support, their advancement in participation,

reflection, and accountability. This implies (…) a space for discourse, debate,

decision making, and feedback from outer reality. (Resnick & Perret-Clermont,

2004, p. 22)

In order to involve students in School and to build an education that is inclusive of

all the students, we must start by providing them useful, meaningful, worthwhile and

relevant competences and knowledge that will support future goals and present

concerns, as well as creating spaces that facilitate sharing and reflecting about

experience.

Referencies

ACIME, 2004. Estatísticas da Imigração. www.acime.gov.pt

Archer, L., Halsall, A, & Hollingworth, S. (2007a). Class, gender, (hetero)sexuality and

schooling: paradoxes within working-class girls' engagement with education and

post-16 aspirations. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28(2), 165-180.

Archer, L., Hollingworth, S., & Halsall, A. (2007b). ‘University’s not for me – I’m a

Nike Person’: urban working-class young people’s negotiations of ‘style’, identity

and educational engagement. Sociology, 41(2), 219-237.

Barreto, A. (1995). Portugal na periferia do centro: mudança social, 1960 a 1995.

Análise Social, XXX(134), 841-855.

Barroso, J. (2003). Factores organizacionais da exclusão escolar. A educação inclusiva.

In In D. Rodrigues (Ed.), Perspectivas sobre inclusão: da educação à sociedade

(pp. 25-36). Porto: Porto Editora.

Canário, R. (2000). Territórios educativos de intervenção prioritária: a escola face à

exclusão social. Revista de Educação, IX(1), 125-134

César, M. (2003). A escola inclusiva enquanto espaço-tempo de diálogo de todos e para

todos. In D. Rodrigues (Ed.), Perspectivas sobre inclusão: da educação à

sociedade (pp. 117-149). Porto: Porto Editora.

Cortesão, L. (2003). Cruzando conceitos. In D. Rodrigues (Ed.), Perspectivas sobre

inclusão: da educação à sociedade (pp. 57-72). Porto: Porto Editora.

Cortesão, L. (2006). O arco-íris e o fio da navalha – problemas da educação em face das

diferenças: um olhar crítico, um proposto de análise. In D. Rodrigues (Org.),

Inclusão e educação (pp.115-140). São Paulo: Summus.

CNE (2007). Debate Nacional sobre Educação. Lisboa: CNE.

Flores-Crespo, P. (2007). Ethincity, identity and educational achievment in México.

International Journal of Educational Development, 27, 331-339.

Gee, J.P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of

research in education, 25, 99-125.

GIASE (2006). Séries cronológicas: 30 anos de estatísticas de educação – Alunos 1977

a 2006 (vol. 2). Lisboa: GIASE.

Heath, S.B. (2004). Risks, rules and roles: Youth perspectives on the work of learning

for community development. In A. Perret-Clermont, C. Pontecorvo, L.B. Resnick,

T. Zittoun, & B. Burge (Eds.) Joining society (pp. 41-70). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Holland, D. (1997). Selves as cultured: as told by an anthropologist who lacks a soul. In

R.D. Ashmore & L. Jussim (Eds.). Self and identity. (pp 160-190). Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Holland, D., Lachiotte, W. Jr., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in

cultural worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Krueger, R.A. (1994). Focus groups. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

Mattos, M. (2005). O conselho de classe e a construção do fracasso escolar. Educação e

Pesquisa, 31(2), 215-228.

Ministério da Educação (2003). The National Curriculum of Basic Education –

Essential Competencies. Lisboa: Ministério da Educação.

Morgan, D.L. (1998). The focus group guidebook. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.

UN (1945). Charter of United Nations

UN (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights

UN (1959). Declaration of the Rights of the Child

UN (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child

Perret-Clermont, A.N. (2004). Thinking spaces of the young. In A. Perret-Clermont, C.

Pontecorvo, L.B. Resnick, T. Zittoun, & B. Burge (Eds.) Joining society (pp. 3-

10). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pollard, A. & Filer, A. (1996). The social world of children’s learning. London: Cassel.

Pollard, A. & Filer, A. (1999). The social world of pupil carrer. London: Cassel.

Reay, D. & William, D. (1999). “I’ll be nothing”: structure, agency and the

construction of identity through assessment. British Educational Research

Journal, 25(3), 343-354.

Resnick, L.B & Perret-Clermont, A-N. (2004). Youth in Postindustrial Societies. In A.

Perret-Clermont, C. Pontecorvo, L.B. Resnick, T. Zittoun, & B. Burge (Eds.)

Joining society (pp. 11-25). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rodrigues, D. (2001). A educação e a diferença. In D. Rodrigues (Ed.), Educação e

diferença: valores e práticas para uma educação inclusiva (pp. 13-34) Porto:

Porto Editora.

Skliar, C. (2006). A inclusão que é “nossa” e a diferença que é do “outro”. In D.

Rodrigues (Org.), Inclusão e educação (pp.15-34). São Paulo: Summus.

Smyth, J. (2006). ‘When students have power’: student engagement, student voice and

the possibilities for school reform around ‘dropping out’ of school. International

Journal of Leadership in Education, 9(4), 285-298.

Ulrich, F. (1991). Administração, instituições, cultura empresarial. In Fundação Luso-

Americana para o Desenvolvimento (Ed.). Sociedade, valores culturais e

desenvolvimento. Lisboa: Publicações D. Quixote.

UNESCO (1994). Declaração de Salamanca sobre princípios, políticas e práticas na

área das necessidades educativas especiais. Conferência Mundial de Educação

Especial. Salamanca, Espanha.

UNESCO (2003a) Open File on Inclusive Education. Paris: UNESCO.

UNESCO (2003b). Overcoming exclusion through Inclusive Approaches in Education.

Paris: UNESCO

UNESCO (2000). Education for All Forum