The School from the Point of View of Children

Evaluation, feelings and representations in students of compulsory schooling

Abstract

The article analyzes the relationship between children and school, considering their appreciation of the school they attend and the interaction with their teachers, the feelings they experience in everyday school life and their representations of schooling, including the importance they attribute to it for adult life. The information resulted from the application of a questionnaire survey to 837 students of the second cycle of compulsory schooling, conducted in early 2003 in eight schools in the counties of Loures and Lisbon that concentrated a significant contingent of descendants of immigrants.

In general, the students interviewed in this study showed a positive experience of schooling, despite the critical aspects they pointed out in relation to the school they attend; the school comes up as central between what they consider to be important for their lives and most would like to be able to take an upper course. Among the variables considered in the research - the student's gender and school trajectory, the social condition and the national origin of the parents - the (in)experience of disapproval and gender were the ones that revealed greater potential for differentiating ways of living the school.