Distorção idade-série nos anos finais do Ensino Fundamental: o caso da rede municipal de ensino do Natal/RN

Abstract

This work focuses on the age-grade distortion of students in grades 6 to 9 of elementary education i.e. the final years of the second level of basic education in the Brazilian education system. By taking the perspective of 15 to 17 year-old students, teachers and pedagogical coordinators, the research analyzes factors which impact on age-grade distortion at municipal public schools in Natal/RN. This qualitative study borrows from the theoretical and methodological contributions of Vygotsky´s historical-cultural theory and Dewey´s conceptions. The sources used for collecting data were questionnaire with close and openended questions, identification forms, semi-structured interviews and official documents (school archives). The research was carried out with 46 students, 03 teachers and 03 pedagogical coordinators at three municipal public schools in Natal. Data collection, analysis and interpretation was based on the studies of Bardin (1977) and Franco (2012) on Content Analysis technique. The findings revealed that the school internal factors predominate in the construction of the phenomenon investigated as well as that students ́ difficulties to acquire curriculum knowledge about Mathematics and Portuguese are the main causes of school flow delay, which generates age-grade distortion; it was also observed that in the literacy process a number of difficulties arise and interfere further learning; the absence of effective actions for school flow correction in the final years of elementary school contributes to the incidence of age-grade distortion; there's a stigmatized image of these students preventing them from being seen as individuals who can succeed in school and develop as citizens. Finally, from the analysis and results some proposals are presented to minimize the age-grade distortion at municipal public schools in Natal.