Life priorities of underachievers in secondary school

Abstract

There is a predominant belief in literature and school practice that high school achievement is an important precondition for optimal professional development and success in life, as well as that school failure is a problem that should be dealt with preventively. The goal of this paper is to shed light on the problem of school underachievement from the perspective of students who are positioned as underachievers in educational discourse. The following questions are especially important: whether underachievers recognize the importance of high school achievement for success in life, as well as which constructs are the core and which the peripheral ones in their construct system. Research participants were 60 students from the third grade of secondary school who failed three or more subjects during the school year or at the end of classification periods. Interview and Implications Grid were applied in the research. The results indicate that the most important life priorities of students are the following: acceptance by friends, school completion, school success, love and happiness. It was established that the construct acceptance by friends as opposed to rejection by friends is the core construct for success in life in the construct system of underachievers. The paper points out to the importance of appreciation of personal meanings of school achievement and initiation of dialogue between teachers and students in preventing and overcoming school underachievement.

U literaturi i školskoj praksi preovladava uverenje da je visoko školsko postignuće značajan preduslov za optimalan profesionalni razvoj i uspeh u životu, kao i da školski neuspeh predstavlja problem na kome treba raditi preventivno. Cilj ovog rada je da problem školskog neuspeha osvetli iz perspektive učenika koji su u obrazovnom diskursu pozicionirani kao neuspešni. Od posebnog značaja su pitanja: da li neuspešni učenici prepoznaju značaj visokog školskog postignuća za uspeh u životu, kao i koji su konstrukti sržni, a koji periferni u njihovom sistemu konstrukata. U istraživanju je učestvovalo 60 učenika trećeg razreda srednje škole koji su u toku školske godine ili na kraju kvalifikacionih perioda imali negativne ocene iz tri i više predmeta. U istraživanju su primenjeni intervju i Mreža implikacija. Rezultati pokazuju da su najznačajniji životni prioriteti učenika: prihvaćenost od strane drugova, završetak škole, školski uspeh, ljubav i sreća. Utvrđeno je da konstrukt prihvaćenost od strane drugova nasuprot odbačenost od strane drugova predstavlja sržni konstrukt za uspeh u životu u sistemu konstrukata neuspešnih učenika. U radu se ukazuje na značaj uvažavanja ličnih značenja školskog postignuća i pokretanja dijaloga između nastavnika i učenika u prevenciji i prevazilaženju školskog neuspeha.