Abstract

VAN DIJK, Sylvia. Public Policy to Reduce the Dropout Rate and the Opinions of Children, Guardians, and Teachers. RMIE [online]. 2012, vol.17, n.52, pp.115-139. ISSN 1405-6666.

This article presents the results of research carried out in Guanajuato, Mexico, with children who stopped attending school. The study's objective is to discover the everyday world of the main actors, in order to provide feedback on the public policies proposed by the state of Guanajuato for reducing the dropout rate. The right to education is analyzed with the help of five categories taken from the international Convention on the Rights of the Child. The study is empirical and uses primary sources of information that include individual perceptions and opinions of the right to education as expressed by children and teenagers, as well as their teachers and guardians. Advantages and omissions were found in public policy; the underlying problem, however, is the conventional paradigm of the educational system, in which actors do not assume their roles as teachers and guardians in an integral manner. Nor do they see the forms of discrimination and violence that they provoke and tolerate. The article introduces the alternative of looking at possible solutions from another perspective, based on listening actively to children and adolescents.

Keywords : children's rights; educational policy; dropout rate; school violence; social discrimination; Mexico.

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