Dropouts in Professional and Technological Education

ideologies, conceptions, tensions and disputes surrounding it

Abstract

School dropout is a complex phenomenon historically present in Brazilian education, which involves multiple factors, dialectically interconnecting social, economic, political and cultural issues, which, in times of crisis such as the current pandemic, has affected even more students with greater social vulnerability. Reflection on the conceptions and ideologies that permeate and represent dropout in education, particularly in professional and technological education, as well as the analysis of its effects on the possibilities of an emancipating education, which overcomes its reproduction, thus assumes an imperative character. In order to deepen the reflection on the theme, we have tried to establish a dialogue between authors who study the subject, such as Dubet, Fornari, Fritsch, Canário, among others, and those who support the debates on professional education, such as Ciavatta, Frigotto, Ramos, as well as other scholars who discuss educational issues from a critical perspective. As a result, it became evident a project in dispute within the institutions of professional and technological education, in which the school dropout serves and reinforces a project of capitalist society, intensified in times of crisis, such as the current pandemic, and based on principles such as meritocracy, individualization, and blaming its subjects. Studies and research have pointed out the need to understand the complex totality that surrounds the dropout phenomenon, in order to propose and develop actions in defense of an education with a critical perspective centered on human emancipation, as an expectation for its overcoming.