Critical Factors that Contributed to the Successful Completion of Students’ Education Path in Youth and Adult Education Integrated to Secondary Level Vocational Education in Brazil

Abstract

This article presents the results of an empirical study whose aim was to identify critical factors that contributed to the successful completion of the educational trajectories of a group of former students of a Brazilian secondary level course integrating Youth and Adult Education with Vocational Education. Content analysis was applied to the data obtained through semi-directive interviews with ten former students. We explored the notion of positioning, as a social phenomenon that circumscribes the position that an individual or group occupies in a given social system (Bernstein, 1996) in line with the socio-affective and cognitive dispositions related to the processes of pleasure/displeasure present in the school context and with the representations and conceptions of the content, respectively (Bourgeois, 1999). The results point to higher positioning in hierarchical structures circumscribed by schooling, learning, knowledge, socio-cognitive relations, and professional outlook, which are correlated with the development of socio-affective and cognitive dispositions in the dimensions of motivations, aspirations, appropriate values and curricular characteristics, namely collaborative learning, and teaching methodology.

Keywords

• adult education
• vocational education
• positioning
• socio-affective and cognitive dispositions
• school success