School Failure? The personal meaning of Higher Education for students who experience academic difficulties Abstract

Abstract

For Historical-Cultural Psychology, human constitution and development are not separate expressions of the conditions of possibility placed on human existence, on the contrary they are processes that take shape and content in reality. Especially with regard to consciousness, Leontiev (2021/1975) highlights its intimate relation and, therefore, institution in human activity. According to the author, “individual consciousness as a specifically human form of subjective reflection of objective reality can be understood only as a product of relations and mediations that arise in the course of the formation and development of society” (Leontiev, 2021/1975, p. 151). Thus, among other elements, in the thesis developed by Trindade (2021), the basis was the analysis of the educational context of Brazilian Higher education and its consequences in the constitution of students who experience academic difficulties. In other words, the starting point for understanding the form and content that make up the meanings and conduct of academics was the current educational context marked by important rates of university dropout and repetition. That is, we started from reality to understand the subjects, together with the movement of understanding how the subjects mean and act in reality.