RESISTIRMOS: A QUE SERÁ QUE SE DESTINA? - EXPERIÊNCIAS DE (RE)PROVAÇÃO DE ESTUDANTES EM UM CURSO TÉCNICO INTEGRADO AO ENSINO MÉDIO

Abstract

This research aimed to understand the motivations that lead students enrolled in the integrated high school programs at the Instituto Federal Goiano – Trindade campus to remain in school, even after experiencing grade retention. In this study, students' persistence is understood as a form of resistance, and the meanings they attribute to school and its educational project reveal the contradictory role of the institution, which can simultaneously reinforce mechanisms of exclusion and enable emancipatory possibilities. Contrary to studies that associate grade retention with dropout, this research seeks to comprehend the reasons why students choose to stay, even after facing such adverse situations. Grounded in critical social theory — particularly its Marxist derivations — this study affirms that educational processes are shaped by the structure of an unequal society and are therefore anchored in capitalist interests and neoliberal discourse. School failure is viewed as an expression of Brazil’s structural inequalities, selectively and historically directed toward specific social segments, especially working-class youth, Black students, and public-school graduates. This theoretical framework allows us to interpret school failure not as an individual or purely pedagogical deficiency, but as a social phenomenon, shedding light on the resistance mechanisms activated by students who choose to remain in school and invest in their education despite the institution’s exclusionary logic. The study was conducted at the Trindade campus of IF Goiano through semi-structured interviews with students who had experienced grade retention, as well as documentary analysis of academic and socioeconomic data. The findings point to the agency of young students who persist, insist, and resist—not out of inertia, but as a conscious and intentional act guided by the hope of social inclusion, professional qualification, and personal development. School emerges as a contradictory space: while it reproduces social inequalities, it also offers both objective and symbolic conditions for students to resist them. This dissertation seeks to contribute to both theoretical and practical fields of education, especially by shifting the focus from retention as an index of individual failure to a broader understanding of its social, economic, and historical dimensions, emphasizing the importance of young students’ voices in the critical analysis of public schooling and integrated vocational education projects.