The role of the family in the view of failing students and teachersAbstract
The belief in individual effort as the cause of academic success is widespread. Both schools and families are fundamental agents in education, but instead of acting for that purpose, they look for culprits when the student has school problems. This study investigated, through the Bioecological Theory of Human Development, structured interviews with open questions, and subsequent content analysis, how the school failure process produced relationships between parents, students, and teachers and how these relationships changed over time. Failure produced parental reactions such as fights, punishment, and disappointment. Teachers complained that parents did not care or spend time on their children’s education, evidencing the absence of Proximal Processes, which favored the school failure of students with more difficulties. These results show the importance of the home-school Mesosystem and the family in the education of children.
Keywords
Family; Human development; School; School teachers
Resumo
A crença no esforço individual como principal causa do sucesso acadêmico é disseminada amplamente. Embora escola e família sejam agentes centrais no processo educativo, frequentemente passam a buscar culpados quando surgem dificuldades escolares. Este estudo investigou por meio da Teoria Bioecológica do Desenvolvimento Humano como o processo de reprovação escolar produziu relações entre pais, alunos e professores e como essas relações se alteraram com o tempo. Foram realizadas entrevistas estruturadas com perguntas abertas, seguidas de análise de conteúdo. Os resultados indicaram que a reprovação desencadeou reações parentais como brigas, castigos e sentimentos de decepção. Professores relataram que os pais demonstravam pouco envolvimento com a educação dos filhos, evidenciando a ausência de Processos Proximais, o que contribuiu para a reprovação escolar de alunos com maiores dificuldades. Esses resultados mostram a importância do Mesossistema casa-escola e da família na educação dos filhos.
Palavras-chave
Família; Desenvolvimento humano; Escola; Professores escolares
The school life of children and teenagers is made up of a series of obligations and tasks developed with a gradual increase in complexity. Failure is one of the possible events in the lives of students, parents, and teachers, and it produces effects on everyone regardless of who experiences it. Failure rates in Brazil are higher in High School, reaching 10.8%. The age/grade distortion, which is the difference of at least two years between the grade the student should be in, and the one indicated for their age, is also more pronounced at this stage (Gil, 2021). Although there is no consensus on the role and consequences, there is a tendency of the school community to support the existence of failure, and many of its behaviors are based on its existence. Teachers recognize it as a mechanism of coercion and justice; parents believe that it serves so that students do not pass without learning. The students believe it is a matter of justice and another opportunity to learn, even though they perceive the negative effects in producing delays and frustrations (Jacomini, 2010; V. V. A. Silva & Santos, 2022).
The development of children and teenagers is crossed by several contexts, and among these the school plays an important role since the schooling process is long and occupies many hours of the day. In this way, school issues end up becoming fundamental issues in the lives of both students and their families, who have the school as support in the academic training and their children’s development (Lima & Souza, 2020).
In situations of insufficient school performance, students’ behavior considered inappropriate, and in more serious cases such as school failure, blaming usually emerges as a simplistic justification. In this context, parents blame their children for their poor performance while the school blames parents and students. Most students, in turn, take the blame and attribute school failure to difficulty in understanding the subjects, inappropriate behavior, absences, and little interest in the contents worked on in the classroom (Asbahr & Lopes, 2006; Lima & Souza, 2020).
In a study conducted by Jacomini (2010) it was shown that both parents and students were in favor of school failure for those students who did not achieve the goals of that year and did not properly learn the contents. For both, failure was related to a second chance and a new opportunity to learn. Also, the fear of failure was an important pressure mechanism for the student to study. The idea that the student needed to “wake up” or “come to their senses” was seen as one of the functions of failure. Note that in this same study, although they stated that failure was another opportunity, the parents recognized that their children did not become better students after this experience (V. V. A. Silva & Santos, 2022).
Saraiva and Wagner (2013) showed that teachers considered the parents confused and incapable of helping their children with school issues, and that parents participated little in their children’s school life. The teachers stated that many students came from “unstructured” families, with many children and divorced parents, which in their opinion favored the use of drugs by the children, among other risk situations. The families participated little in school issues, which hindered their children’s performance. The idea of an “unstructured” family was related to income issues and socioeconomic status. Nonetheless, this study showed the most engaged families were those whose children had the best grades. Similar results were found by Oliveira et al. (2017) who showed the importance of parental participation for a better performance of their children. When this participation did not occur effectively, grades tended to be worse as well as the child’s behavior, greatly increasing the risk of failure. Teachers’ dissatisfaction with families appeared in several studies that showed parents did not participate in their children’s schooling process, going to school only when they were called, and even then, they missed meetings. They also stated the parents did not care about their children’s education and, because they worked hard, they ended up not having time to dedicate to their children’s school life (Mahendra & Marin, 2020; Schweitzer & Souza, 2018; R. M. C. Silva et al., 2022).
The effect of school failure on families and students can be manifested in several ways. Although many teachers minimized the seriousness of the experience of failure and believed it had little impact on the students’ lives, they reported their experiences as having had consequences in various areas. A common reaction was the feeling of guilt by the student, highly reinforced by the family and the school. Blame can be attributed to biological reasons, such as inability to learn or concentrate, and to behavioral issues (V. V. A. Silva & Santos, 2022). Another feeling reported in this study by the students who failed was the disappointment that the families felt when they heard about their child’s failure. Although the parents suffered, many offered their child support to deal with the situation, showing their important role in coping with failure. Other effects reported in this study were feelings of shame, frustration, and sadness, as well as feelings of loss of time and future opportunities.
The understanding that the school is an important environment for development has been showed in several developmental theories, including the Bioecological Theory of Human Development (BTHD) (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Human development understood via BTHD is defined as a phenomenon of changes and continuities in the biopsychosocial characteristics of developing individuals throughout their lives, as well as generations before and after them (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). The BTHD is anchored in a model known as PPCT that shows four fundamental and inseparable elements, which are the Proximal Processes, the Person, the Context, and the Time.
Proximal Processes can be understood as interactions with gradual and progressive levels with people, objects, and symbols in their immediate environment over a prolonged time, on a regular basis (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). To occur, they depend on the person in development being engaged in a regular activity and conducted for extended periods of time with increasing complexity. The relations established in these activities must be reciprocal between the developing individual and the other components of the interaction (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). In a school environment, Proximal Processes can occur between the individual and their colleagues, teachers, school employees, and with objects such as books, workbooks, and various pedagogical resources. There are also Proximal Inverse Processes, which can generate negative effects for development, in favorable environments, resulting in less competence and greater dysfunction. In unfavorable environments, these Inverse Proximal Processes can produce higher levels of dysfunction and reduced competence (Merçon-Vargas et al., 2020).
The characteristics of individuals in development (Person) comprise age, gender, skin color, physical appearance, among other factors, which in the BTHD are called Demand, which are the qualities that can invite or discourage reactions in other people in promoting Proximal Processes (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Previous experiences, acquired skills, among others are the Resource characteristics, which influence the ability to engage in Proximal Processes. The Force characteristics can be exemplified as curiosity, interest, and responsiveness that manifest the ability to establish the Proximal Processes. Nonetheless, characteristics such as impulsivity, apathy, and inattention can inhibit its establishment (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
The Context is about where development occurs, and the environments related to this and that influence the relationships established between the individual and other elements of the environment. The environment where the individual engages with other people, objects, or symbols is considered the Microsystem, which can be home, school, work, or any place in which a good part of their time is spent establishing Proximal Processes. The set of several Microsystems is called a Mesosystem. From this perspective, the interaction established by a student at school, at home, at the home of relatives, at church, at internship, at work, in the square, in language courses, among others, constitute their Mesosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). The Exosystem deals with environments in which the individual is not present, but still has the development influenced by it, such as the parents’ work, the home of teachers and their classmates. The Macrosystem deals with the integration of all environments, bringing the political, social, and economic context in which people develop, and is therefore fundamental in understanding development (Bronfenbrenner, 1994).
Time, fundamental to any theory of human development, can be divided into Microtime, can be considered the moment when the Proximal Processes occur, in the small actions and their intervals. Mesotime deals with the frequency of the occurrence of Proximal Processes that can take days or weeks to manifest in an alteration of developmental characteristics (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Macrotime deals with long periods, such as generations, in a socio-historical perspective of events, considering past, present, and future time (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). This study aimed to investigate, in the light of BTHD, the conception that students and teachers showed regarding the role of the family in their children’s performance at school and their participation in the lives of students experiencing failure.
Method
This study had a longitudinal, quantitative, and qualitative design (Schneider et al., 2017), based on BTHD. It was conducted in a public High School located in a middle-class neighborhood of the city of Vila Velha, a Microsystem characterized by good indexes and scores in the Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM, National High School Exam) compared to other public schools in the metropolitan region of Espirito Santo. In accordance with the precepts of BTHD, samples were collected in three moments. The first one was conducted in August 2018 with students enrolled in the first and second grades of High School, prior to the release of the approval results. The second collection was conducted between March and April 2019, when students were starting the school year experiencing failure, and the last one in November 2019, at the end of the school year.
In the first moment, 306 students who answered a sociodemographic questionnaire participated in order to qualify the sample, and a structured questionnaire with open and short questions about previous school failures and the possibility of future failures. In this study, we considered answers related to the family’s participation in the events that led to the failure and in their experience in the following year. The objective answers were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and by the software IBM®SPSS®. In the second moment, 10 students who failed were interviewed. Of these, three dropped out of school and seven participated in the third moment of data collection. Seven teachers involved in the failure process were also interviewed. In the second and third moments, structured interviews with open questions were applied. The interviews, which were held in a room reserved for individual care of students with special needs, were later transcribed and submitted to all moments of content analysis. To preserve the identity of the participants, fictitious names were used, starting with the letter A for the students and P for the teachers, considering the gender of the participants for each transcribed statement. To conduct the research, the BTHD was used as a basis in data collection and interpretation. The project was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee of Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo (CAAE: 93460718.0.0000.5542, protocol nº 2.899.480).
Results
Analysis of Students’ Answers Before School Failure on Parental Participation
At the first moment of data collection, 306 students answered the questionnaires, 128 (41.8%) were males and 178 (58.2%) were females, whose ages range was from 14 to 19 years, with a mean age of 16.25 years (SD = 0.93). Of these, 148 (48.4%) were enrolled in the first grade and 158 (51.6%) in the second grade of High School. Of this sample, 112 (36.6%) had already failed. In addition, 57 (18.7%) students had an age/grade distortion, that is, they were at least two years behind in school compared to a student at the same age who had never failed.
Regarding the marital status of the parents, a characteristic of the students’ appeal, 154 (57.5%) students declared that their parents were married, while 117 (38.2%) had divorced parents and six (2%) had single parents. Seven (2.3%) students reported having a widowed father or mother, and 22 (7.2%) did not know or did not answer. The age/grade distortion in students of divorced parents was 24.7%, while in students of married parents it was 15.6%.
In the first moment of the collection, the students were asked what the consequences of a possible failure were, who they asked for support when they failed, and what kind of support they received. They were also asked who they would ask for support if they failed, how their parents could help them in this case, and how they would react. Finally, if they failed, what would change regarding the parents’ behavior.
Regarding the consequences of a future failure, of the 285 students who answered, 88 (30.87%) said they feared their parents’ reaction. Among these, the most common reactions would be punishments such as restriction of leaving the house, or having access to technology, with 40 (45.45%) answers. Disappointment on the part of the parents, fights, and shaken relationships with 37 (42.04%), and physical punishments, with 10 (11.36%) answers. Only one student answered that his parents would provide support if he failed. The answers to this question showed that the expectation of failure would bring a shake in the establishment of Proximal Processes or would produce Inverse Proximal Processes. Issues related to delays in training, loss of time, late entry into Higher Education were the consequences pointed out by 126 (44.21%) students. The other answers addressed disappointment, sadness, regret, loss of motivation, shame, among others, totaling 27 (9.4%). Such negative feelings would mostly be provoked due to the Inverse Proximal Processes established in case of failure.
When questioned who they asked for support when they failed in previous years, 102 of the 112 failed students answered. Family members such as siblings, grandparents, cousins were mentioned by 40 of the 102 students (39.21%), and of these, 25 mentioned only their parents as people to whom they resorted. Note that only 25.5% of the failed students turned to their parents, which is justified by the fact that 30.87% of the students feared their reaction to a failure. Even experiencing a situation of failure, 55 (53.92%) students stated they had not requested or received any aid. Only four (3.9%) students stated they had asked their friends for help to cope with failure, and none of the students mentioned that they had asked their teachers for help.
The students were questioned about who they would ask for support if they failed at the end of that year. Of the 277 students who answered, 149 (53.79%) stated they would turn to the family, and of these, 105 mentioned only their parents. It was possible to notice that students who did not fail tended to rely more on their parents to study than students who already did. This fact indicated that failure was configured as a disruptive process for the establishment of Proximal Processes. Overall, 79 (28.51%) students stated they would not ask for or receive help from anyone. Thirty (10.83%) students stated they would ask a friend for help and 21 (7.58%) stated they would ask a teacher, indicating that although teachers are rarely mentioned as a source of help, in the group of students who mostly did not fail, they were mentioned by some of the participants. By analyzing separately the students who had a history of failure from those who never failed, it was possible to observe a great difference in the idea of asking their parents for help if they failed. Of the 165 who never failed, 129 (78%) would turn to their parents for help if they failed, however, of the 102 who failed, only 20 (19.6%) would ask their parents for help.
When asked how their parents could help them avoid failure, of the 257 students who answered, 42 (16.34%) said they did not know how. A total of 139 (54.08%) students stated that they could help with encouragement and motivation to study. Having more effective participation in the teaching process, such as going to school, helping with their studies, and demonstrating interest in their academic life, was the answer of 38 (14.78%) students. Ten (3.89%) students stated their parents could help by not pressuring or demanding so much and 13 (5.05%) mentioned hiring a private teacher as a way for parents to help deal with failure.
Students were questioned about how their parents reacted when they failed and there were 104 answers from the 112 students interviewed. A total of 53 (50.96%) students stated their parents had negative reactions such as being sad, disappointed, fighting, or punishing. Overall, 27 (25.96%) students stated their parents had neutral reactions, such as not caring or not having done anything about it, and 17 (16.34%) stated their parents had a positive attitude, giving encouragement and understanding the situation.
Finally, the students were questioned about how their parents would react if they failed at the end of that year. Of the 243 students who answered, 169 (69.54%) stated their parents would have negative reactions such as being upset, disappointed, sad, fighting, etc. Thirty (12.34%) students answered that failure would not have any impact on their parents, stating that nothing would happen. A total of 38 (15.63%) students stated they would have positive consequences, such as having more support, attention, and demand to obtain better results.
The data showed failure was seen as something negative by parents, and in most cases, it would involve the responsibility and punishment of the child. Only 15.63% said that parents would have a positive reaction to failure.
Parents’ Reaction and Relationship with their Children with Failure
In the second moment of the research, students who failed the second year of High School were interviewed. The interviews were conducted at the beginning of the experience of failure between the months of March and April 2019 and at the end of the process, in November of the same year.
The failed students were asked what their parents’ reaction had been when they heard about the failure and how they were reacting in the first moment and later in the second moment, when the failure was already over. Of the 10 students interviewed, two students were experiencing failure for the second time, and said that their parents used this argument when they fought with them after they heard about the failure, they mentioned that they were very disappointed, especially because it was already the second time. One student reported that his mother said that the failure happened because of “lack of shame”.
According to the students, the parents considered the failure to be impactful, sad, and disappointing, changing attitudes and changing the demand on their children’s school life. The punishments received were losing their cell phone and being scolded by their parents. However, what had the most impact was the fact that they had to deal with their parents’ disappointment when they heard about the failure. The parents expressed their disappointment in various ways, such as comparing the failed student with siblings or cousins who never did, and some had emotional reactions as in the report: “It was very difficult for my parents. My father was very sad. It was the first time in my life that I saw my father cry” (Arthur). Failure was shown to be an event that changed the relationship between parents and children, leading to the establishment of Inverse Proximal Processes.
By the end of the failure process, in the third moment of the collection, when asked again about the parents’ reaction, the students brought softened memories of the moment, including advice from parents such as not seeing failure as a defeat but as a challenge to study more. However, the word disappointment still appeared in the interviews and the students’ exclusive responsibility for what happened. Nevertheless, the failure experience made the news received by parents less traumatic in the students’ view. These reactions could be perceived in the statement: “my parents don’t talk about it anymore, but they hope I pass this year, but I will” (Alessandro).
After the news of the failure, sometime later, the relationship between parents and children underwent changes in all families. Most of them were unstable relationships, with many fights and arguments due to failure. There were reports of accusations by parents blaming their children for failing and stating they should have dedicated themselves more to school because they had no other function. The parents, when dealing with their failed child, were very angry and ended up fighting with them, making the family relationship more difficult, as in the following statement: “we have been fighting a lot, but I love my father, you know? Just today, before leaving for school, I hugged him and said I loved him” (Arthur). Although they still mentioned their parents’ disappointment, they pointed to behaviors such as greater demand and greater rigor, especially among students with multiple failures. They complained about not being able to leave the house too much, having their schedules and phone use controlled, and that their parents were much more demanding.
Some conflicts at home were reported, however, unrelated to school life, such as pregnancy from another marriage of a student’s mother. The demands and fights made by parents in an attempt to make their children study more were seen as useless by the students, who thought they would perform better when they had more freedom. The parents’ reaction regarding their children’s failure was in the sense of holding them accountable, reinforcing the idea of guilt for having failed, observed in the following statement of the mother reported by a student: “no, you’re going to do school right, you failed because you wanted to, the teacher did not fail you for nothing, so you are going to do school right” (Andrea).
According to the students, the relationship with their parents at the end of the failure continued in the same way in relation to the demands and control of the study. However, reports that the parents were happier and more satisfied with their grades and school life were collected, as in the statement: “my mother is happier because I’m improving, my grades are good, so my mother is happy with that” (Alice).
At first, when asked about what kind of support they could receive from their parents to avoid failure, 54.08% of the students stated that the support would be due to encouragement, support, motivation. After failure, when asked about the participation of their parents in failure, the answers still dealt with more individual action on behalf of the student. Statements that they could only count on themselves, or that their parents did not have the time or academic background to help them by answering questions were collected, as in the following statements: “No, my mother didn’t finish High School, and she doesn’t even have elementary school, so I bear with it myself” (Amanda). Some students stated their parents helped in solving exercises and teaching the subject. In general, they stated they had support from their parents, either by teaching or by offering help from a private teacher.
The Teachers’ View Regarding the Participation of the Family in their Children’s Education
When questioned about their opinion about the role of the family in their children’s education and during failure, the teachers showed a negative attitude in relation to the behavior of the parents. Statements were collected saying that all the encouragement should come from the family, because the student did not fail alone, but due to the family’s negligence and that neither the pedagogues nor the teachers would be responsible for the students, as observed in the statement: “The role played by the family is not even small, it is nothing!” (Paula). They stated parents were permissive and gave their children too much explanation about the prohibitions, as in the following statement: “nowadays it’s up to them, what makes you happy: you want to be rich, then you’re going to be rich, you want to be a porn star, so you’re going to be a porn star” (Paula).
There were collected complaints stating that parents turned against teachers and questioned them in front of their children and only came to school at the end of the year when there was nothing else to do, and that many parents raised children for Bolsa Família, a government program to assist the poorest. They also criticized the fact that their children had no limits or control over their schedules, and that due to their parents’ negligence they ended up spending all night on the Internet and the next day they could not follow up the classes. Still, many students spent the whole day alone and there was no one at home to charge or discipline and because of this they ended up going the easy way as in the statement: “some parents who work all day say: ah, you’re already grown up, you get by, and it’s a lie. If they have failed, it is because they are not being assisted at any time the whole year” (Paula). There was a criticism that the children were not encouraged by their parents because they were not interested themselves. There were statements that it was a cultural issue that parents did not charge their children in High School, that only the parents of good students participated in the guardians’ meetings, and that the other parents only went to school at the end of the year when the child had already failed.
The expression “unstructured family” was present in the discourse of three teachers, as in the sentence:
Failure in this case is highly evaluated in relation to the student’s structure, if you take a student who does not have a structure, does not have much encouragement at home, a family, and has no focus, failing this student ends up demotivating them and they stop studying. (Priscila)
The teachers believed that the family should punish, charge, and blackmail the student so they would not be disoriented.
Discussion
School failure was observed as a remarkable event in the students’ lives. The possibility of failure, even if remote for some students, interfered with their behavior, their families’, and teachers’, serving as a threat, an encouragement, or a punishment. Within the studied group, 36.6% of the students had failed, and most of them, especially with multiple failures, were boys, and in families whose parents were divorced. Such results corroborated official data that showed that public High School education had a high number of failed students, especially when compared to students from the private network, with a failure rate three times higher and an age/grade distortion about four times higher (QEdu, 2021). The fact that parents were divorced was related to a higher rate of multiple failures, although it was not possible to establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship, this condition has been treated for many decades as a factor that could produce negative school effects, but which fosters many prejudices in relation to diverse families (Brand et al., 2019).
The students’ biggest fear regarding failure was their parents’ reaction, especially for fear of fights and punishments. Among the students who had failed, few declared they had asked their parents for help. Among those who never had, most believed they would turn to their parents for support in case of failure, in the search for support and encouragement. When students failed, most parents had negative reactions, and even more parents would have the same reaction if they failed in the future. The fact that students who fail ask their parents for little help and are also afraid of their reactions is justified by the fact that they take the blame for failure (Asbahr & Lopes, 2006; Lima & Souza, 2020). The parents have a favorable position regarding failure and believe that if the student did not try hard enough, they should fail (Jacomini, 2010). These two ideas produce relationships that hinder the establishment of Proximal Processes, making it difficult for children to access their parents for help.
When asked who would ask for help if they failed in the future, there was a big difference between students who had already failed and those who never had. Of those who had already failed, only 19.6% would ask their parents for help, indicating that based on the reaction experienced in the past and living in the Microsystem at home, most would not count on their parents to deal with a possible failure in the future. Nevertheless, most students who never failed answered that they would turn to their parents (78%). These data show that students who have never failed have a more favorable relationship with their parents for academic life. They would trust their parents if they experienced a future failure, or have already resorted to them, which may be precisely one of the factors that made them never fail, as shown by the study by Oliveira et al. (2017) who reported the importance of parental participation in their children’s performance so they obtained higher grades and lower chances of failing. These data together showed the importance of the home and school Mesosystem, and how the involvement of parents can be crucial for the establishment of Proximal Processes in this context, leading to favorable developmental results and showing the importance of a third person in this establishment who can act by encouraging, assisting, motivating, among other possible contributions (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
Regarding how they would like to be helped, most stated that help should be encouragement and motivation, showing that students expected little from their parents in relation to their studies. Only about 15% mentioned more effective participation, such as studying together, going to school more, and showing interest in their academic life, suggesting that the parents’ participation in their children’s school life in High School was small. When they failed, only 16.34% of the students in the first moment of the survey stated their parents had positive attitudes, showing again that the effective and positive participation of parents was insufficient, which may have favored the failure process. Similarly, according to the students, only 15.63% would have a positive reaction regarding a future failure, giving support and attention. However, it is important to emphasize that a negative reaction from the student’s perspective does not necessarily mean that the reaction was in fact negative, since in the parents’ conception of the application of a punishment, or greater control over their children’s schedules may mean an attempt to change behaviors favoring better school performance. These data are in accordance with the idea that most parents agree with failure, and if it happened, it was due to the student’s fault (Jacomini, 2010).
The negative aspects of the failure experience were greatly aggravated by the suffered punishments, disappointment, and sadness of the parents in the face of the situation. During this process, students reported unstable relationships, fights, and accusations, characteristics of Inverse Proximal Processes established in the adverse conditions brought about by failure. Interestingly, in the third moment of the research, the students reported a friendlier attitude of the parents, and even the memories reported were already milder, indicating that the coexistence throughout the year was becoming more favorable and that probably the Proximal Processes established with the parents had the function of reducing the dysfunction more than the gain of competence, an expected fact in unfavorable environments to development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). This unfavorable environment can be seen in the statements of the interviewees when they mention the low participation of their parents during the experience of failure, since of the 10 students, only three reported having received help from their parents in some way.
The teachers’ view of parents was very negative and marked by blame, accusations of negligence, permissiveness, and even abandonment. Reports about the absence of parents in pedagogical meetings, school visits, and participation in school life were common. The analysis of the statements of the seven teachers interviewed showed that most of them had a great distance between the school and the parents, however, only this distance was attributed to the parents, without realizing that the emission of this discourse already demonstrated that the school was not receptive to the families. They also stated that when parents went to school, they disallowed the teachers, giving a clear idea of distance between the people who should be most interested in joining efforts to produce a richer education. Saraiva and Wagner (2013) stated there was an accusation on the part of teachers that parents were incapable of helping their children, who would have a greater chance of failing in school because they were from “unstructured” families. One teacher even said that the indifference of parents regarding their children’s education, the low search for school, and the fact that they did not attend meetings was due to cultural issues, similar to what was addressed by Patto (2015), when he showed there was an expectation that poorer families had worse academic performance due to a cultural lack that put them at a disadvantage in relation to school students and distanced them from teachers who saw themselves as belonging to a higher social class.
This separation between teachers and parents results in a process of blaming in which teachers believe that students are doing poorly because they do not have support at home, because, besides not having the necessary academic training to help their children, parents do not care about school or their children’s academic life. The students, in turn, end up taking the blame and perceiving an insufficient participation of the parents, and in an inappropriate way with punishments and fights. Parents believe that it is the student’s fault, and thus, students end up taking all the responsibility for the low performance at school, believing that it was just a lack of interest and effort, not taking into account a whole system that should work for their academic life, but by assuming that they already fulfill their role, they end up neglecting students who have difficulties (V. V. A. Silva & Santos, 2022).
The Mesosystem established between the house and school of the research participants showed their development was crossed by pertinent issues to relationships established with parents and teachers and between these two groups indirectly. The attitude assumed by teachers to reduce school problems to certain characteristics of families ended up removing the responsibility from them and, therefore, any action in the sense of seeking new strategies for teaching and relating to students and families. Behaviors of this nature have shown personal characteristics of Force that discourage the establishment of Proximal Processes of the teacher-student-family relationship, causing students to have a worse performance and consequently a more difficult relationship with their parents (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).
The participation of the family in school life and the teachers’ view of this participation have bases that go beyond the home-school Mesosystem, but are rooted in a condition belonging to the Macrosystem, which operates in a logic of considering families of public school students less capable of dealing with the academic life of their children, linked to a capitalist logic of producing results that excludes students who have more difficulties from the process. Also for economic reasons, there are teachers who have excessive working hours, very large classes that consume the teacher’s time in collective actions, leaving no time to deal with individual issues, not to mention many other problems experienced by teachers such as insufficient remuneration, domestic problems, and personal problems that constitute the Exosystem of the students but which most of the time is neglected in less careful criticism of the academic practice of the teachers.
Conclusion
In this study, it was possible to observe that a good school performance goes beyond what the student does during classes but is related to a large group of actors who can contribute to a more positive and productive school experience. Although students are largely responsible for the insufficient performance established by the school, teachers and parents are important in this process, however, most do not see themselves in this position, reinforcing the blaming of students and also of the family.
Students who reported seeking less family support were the most likely to fail, and when they did, their parents responded, most times, to punitive and repressive behaviors. The students, nonetheless, would like greater attention and more effective participation from parents to help them instead of punishing them.
The teachers did not feel involved in the task of minimizing the effects of failure. In their speeches, they did not consider themselves responsible, on the contrary, they transferred the responsibility to the parents, accusing them of being silent, uninterested, and not prepared to deal with their children’s school issues. The students were left to deal with little support, and achieve developmental gains via Inverse Proximal Processes, which played the role of increasing the dysfunction of a context that blames them and left them alone to deal with their educational issues. Over time, students ended up resignifying failure, taking the blame for insufficient performance and producing new ways of experiencing school. At the end of the process, they managed to be approved, dealt with guilt and believed that failure was a positive action in their lives. The parents resigned themselves to the situation and were happy with the failure resolution when they heard that their children were finally approved. Teachers did not seem to be affected by the failure process.
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Article based on the dissertation of M. S. PACHECO, entitled “A vivência da reprovação escolar por estudantes de uma escola pública de ensino médio: um estudo à luz da Teoria Biológica do Desenvolvimento Humano”. Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, 2022.
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How to cite this article:
Pacheco, M. S., Rosa, E. M., & Pacheco, P. M. (2026) The role of the family in the view of failing students and teachers. Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas), 43, e230057. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-0275202643e230057
Data availability
The research data are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Edited by
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Editor
Raquel Souza Lobo Guzzo
