Why Does School Disengage?

Students’ Social Representations

Abstract

This study analyzes the Social Representations (SR) of high school students regarding school disengagement, aiming to understand how they make sense of the loss of engagement with schooling. It is grounded in Social Representations Theory, within its structural approach, articulated with Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology and Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity. A total of 570 students from public institutions in southern Brazil participated, whose free evocations to the term “disinterest” were analyzed using the EVOC and Complex software, complemented by content analysis of their justifications. The results indicate a central core composed of terms such as “teacher does not explain well”, “boring classes”, and “repetitive lessons”. It is concluded that school disengagement is not reduced to an individual failure or youth apathy, but constitutes a collective and relational phenomenon stemming from the disconnection between the transmissive logic of teaching and youth realities in liquid modernity, aggravated by teacher overload and curricular rigidity. Grasping the structure of this SR constitutes an ethical and political act capable of reorienting pedagogical mediation toward more dialogical, affective, and meaningful practices.