Original article

The School-Family-Community Relationship in the Case of Female School Dropouts: Discourse Analysis at the Upper Middle Level

Laura Rocio Ruiz González^{1  *} 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5019-7863

Paola Margarita Chaparro Medina¹ 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7270-9903

Dina Elizabeth Cortes Coss² 
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4150-1541

¹ Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua. México

² Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. México.

ABSTRACT

The decrease in female enrollment at the Higher Secondary Education level in Mexico is a problem that is influenced by different factors that intervene in the interpersonal relationships of women in every facet of their lives. This academic dropout has its origin in causes dependent on the student's gender. The objective of this article is to demonstrate that the speech received at home and at school establishes the gender difference, as well as to expose the influence that this has on school dropout. To achieve this, the method of critical discourse analysis was used, which made it possible to label, catalog and analyze the speeches of the speakers. From the results obtained, it can be concluded that the dropout students of this academic level dropped out of school especially during the first semesters of high school. Among the main reasons are economic, family and cultural factors.

Keywords: school dropout; Higher Secondary Education; women; gender differences; sociocultural factors

Introduction

The possibility that women Adolescentes, between fifteen and eighteen years of age, can conclude the studies corresponding to the standard level Superior is influenced by the different environments where these are developed and carried out as familiar, cultural and social spaces that determines the educational process.

The influence of these areas of social development in the dynamic life of women allows them to define the social behavior accepted through the knowledge acquired; thus, they identify the importance of the different activities to be performed, that in the case of this investigation come to influence the decisions taken around the school space.

The development of the problem that could influence the decision of women for abandoning the programs Higher Secondary Education programs is located in the sites of development present in their life; among them are the family, the environment that surrounds them and the school.

Therefore, the present investigation has as objective to identify speeches influenced s from family and social same areas that determine the abandonment of Higher Secondary Education, case of participants study sample, who were enrolled in a academic program attached to a public educational institution.

Methods and materials

The above object will be shown after the application of the method of critical analysis of the speech, from contributions from Pierrre Bourdieu and Louis Althusser for an interpretation of the results obtained by the implementation of interviews with the female research subjects.

In order to meet the particular reasons that lead women teens to the defection of Higher Secondary Education, interviews to females who had raised the characteristics according to the purpose of this investigation were conducted. In choosing the participants they were taking into account aspects of homogeneity; as claimed by^{Van Dijk (1996)}, it is a priority to reaffirm that the selected population Comes Alive to a number of similar characteristics or, in other words, that all people in similar circumstances have the same chance of being of the interviewed subjects.

This research seeks regularity which these people exist and also understand how it is that certain situations that are standardized lead to the defection female of Higher Secondary Education. To analyze the social problem under investigation and to present the common situation of these women, the following steps were followed.

At the end it was established an approach with females during its passage through the Higher Education Media decided to leave the academic program before its completion.

Afterwards, the participants were interviewed, who were summoned in a park called "Parque de las banderas", in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. To make these meetings will be counted with the support of the leader of the colony, with whom he established communication prior and by the knowledge that she had on neighboring colony it was prepared an appointment.

The total number of women interviewed was thirty, whose responses were transcribed and may be identified with the letterEand the numbering from01to30, a number to be indicated at your request within the Punta Oriente Disaffiliation Corpus (DPO). Each of the interviews is composed of five questions considered essential to know the reasons why they defected from the Higher Secondary Education taught in public institutions.

The questions included in the questionnaire prepared are listed below:

1.

1. Could you indicate the Colony where you live?

   • With this issue it seeks to identify where women interviewed develop his life; being this the first filter to debug the study.

2. What is your age?

   • This question has the purpose of detecting women who are not found in the case of article 3 of the Constitution, which was amended on February 12^th, 2012. This article dictates that the obligation to provide Higher Secondary Education to the population rests with the State, that is to say, the study focuses on all women who initiated the at the age of fourteen years old, that is, born in 1999, with a minimum age of twenty years.

3. What is your maximum degree of studies completed?

   • A question about the highest degree of academic studies undertaken is intended to dispense with women who did not initiate the Higher Secondary Education and also allows us to know who, once registered, to take on the decision not to continue with their studies and reasons that led them to make that determination; the latter being the key piece of the study. With this delimitation and, once the sample is obtained, an answer to the question will be sought.

4. What was the reason for you to abandon your studies?

   • This question was asked to meet broadly the picture that was developing women at the time of taking the decision to abandon studies in High Middle Level. It is sought to allow the person to express to all what they consider relevant, in order to be able to extract the greatest possible amount of data.

5. Do you know any woman in your environment that also left the Higher Secondary Education and do you know what were her motives?

   • It is important to know the opinion and judgment by the interviewed women about other women with similar circumstances, because that way they can express an opinion or pass judgment on the abandonment, in general, academic education.

Results

To begin with, it is necessary to know that within family development there are various causes of female academic dropout; these are due to social, economic and political structure, the limiting or hinder regular attendance and good academic performance. In this sense, UNICEF (2018) found that the conditions of poverty and marginality, as well as early entry into the world of work or degrees of social vulnerability come to influence such desertion.

For its part, the^{Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2018)} maintains that the continuous responsibility for the production and reproduction of these circumstances rests with third parties and in extracurricular spaces, such as the community, groups of friends, family and the community. The contribution of personal training that women obtain from these spaces gives relevance to elements that hinder the school journey or operate as triggers for withdrawal and abandonment of the system.

Up to this point, it is possible to consider the causes of academic desertion are determined by poverty, marginalization, by prioritizing the work world and the ways in which the reproduction and production of social, cultural and family dynamics that surround those who are immersed in this socialization circle.

In addition to the causes, we proceed to point out that various factors contribute to the topic of desertion;^{Carrillo (2017)}argues that circumstances such as the family's economic situation, cultural tradition, family dynamics and integration, and the educational community play important roles in determining the development, actions, behavior and aspirations that could result in the abandonment or completion of the studies High Middle level of women enrolled in an educational program of this kind.

These social situations (economic level, cultural tradition, etc.) are reinforced by the academic environment in which the adolescents find themselves through the teaching of pedagogical practices by an educational institution. These are normally found within the hidden curriculum and reinforce the possibility of succeeding or abandoning, definitively, upper secondary academic education.

Ideological Apparatus of the State to ratify the speech in favor of desertion academic and puts women at a disadvantage will be the family, because domestic education has an important role in the lives of women.

In the integration and interrelation as a member of a family, girls and young people of school age learn to "be a woman". This assertion is derived from the studies obtained from the Punta Oriente Disaffiliation Corpus, in which, through the testimony of different women, the need and importance of family education are expressed to establish a position defined by the imaginary and representations around the feminine, they are installed in practices in which what is associated with the domestic space, the private, the raising of infants and the family become what is recognized as "the role that corresponds to them as women." Because it is the discourse that puts into practice the place that each one occupies in society, for ^{Althusser (1988)}this is reflected in practical life.

In this section, as mentioned above, they are critically analyzed speeches extracts obtained from the sample describeda priori, which may be identify the causes and factors described. To achieve the above, based on the sources consulted on the state of the matter, three categories of analysis have been extracted: family, academic and cultural, which will provide information on the reasons for dropping out of school.

Familiar scope

This category encompasses economic factors, work at home, and imposed socializations. Household tasks, normally performed by women, are transmitted from mothers to daughters and once the task is learned it is delegated to the daughter, who acquires a new obligation within the family dynamics, instructing the prioritization of domestic activities before schoolgirls, as specified below:

E11: According to her, I had to clean the house and make food for when she came home tired from work, I think she thought that at school you just went to play (D PO : 11).

In the case of interview E11, the interviewee was immersed in a series of domestic activities as part of her daily obligations, where the school activity was detracted by the mother. According to this woman, her mother considered the failure to carry out activities within the home to maintain order in the house. Following the position of Althusser, it is noticeable how the family has a superior social weight, where domestic activities are valued beyond the skills acquired in formal academic education; thus the dominant ideological apparatus is the family as an institution that dictates and ponders the importance of the tasks performed within this family dynamic.

In the following extract, the socioeconomic factor tends to be a persistent problem and, due to the prevalence of this condition, the student's payment for studies becomes irrelevant:

E01: I wanted to be different and to finish school, but it was a lot of money that was needed because I had to take two trucks to get to school and two back and that's a lot of money. Besides, they always asked me for something at school because of material and as well as cardboard or money for a trip because I had no way to pay, so that day I did not go, or when I did not have money to pay for the truck, I did not go either, so I gradually stopped going, it was very difficult to stay there if I had no money, that is if I want to, but because there were more important things (DPO: 01).

Economic Scope

The economic aspect has a high impact on the academic trajectory of women, in which the limitation of family finances hinders student development. This is because the centers imparting education Higher Media Education administered by the state are not fully adapted to meet the monetary gaps, given as a result limitation and isolation of the student with these characteristics^{(ECLAC, 2018)}.

A practical example of the above is described as follows:

E04: my boss is raffled by working all day and I sitting in physics class, being able to do something like working to put bread on the table (DPO: 04).

As stated by the interviewee, going to school on a regular basis allowed her to access academic knowledge, in this case of physics, which is demerit in practical life or during initiation to the world of work. In this sense, this cause of academic dropout refers to the contempt of what was learned in school as opposed to the economic problems that could exist in the family nucleus since these do affect their daily life and the decisions they make.

This reproduction of activities and decisions is explained by^{Bonder (2017)} as part of the personal training in which these women develop, because it attends to the environment where they develop. In addition, it is in this environment where academic education is demerit and the possibility of entering the world of work is prioritized, since by not having a close reference of the benefits of academic education, it is no longer necessary to optimize life family budget. An applied example is shown as follows:

E05: I lived with my parents, but my father had to cut staff at the maquila (DPO: 05).

In the previous passages, it is perceptible how the women interviewed were in unfavorable economic family situations, in which the possibility of having money to pay for school was scarce. Simultaneously, after adopting family speeches that demerit High School Education, the predominant perception was that of "wasting time". In this way, the students concluded that getting a paid job would be a better act of support for the family than continuing with their studies at the Upper Middle level.

Related to school

^{Curieses (2017)}maintains that part of the school dynamics is marked by the hidden curriculum, through which, through the topics, the division of labor and gender roles are reinforced according to the sex of the students, as specified in the following snippets:

E02: there was a teacher who hated me super, she was always against me and always wanted me to fail, apart from that she spoke badly of me with the other teachers so that they would also hate me and disapprove of me, so as always they would disapprove of me because I had to pay make-up exams and my dad told me that I would have to work for that if I wanted to pay for them (DPO: 02).

Following ^{Bourdieu (1998)}, it is suggested that school failure could also come from the academic center, highlighting the vision of school dropout as a resistance to the socializing codes provided by the school. From this perspective, it is found that the school instills the hegemonic culture, teaches values and models the personality according to the interests of the ruling class.

On the part of the educational institution, there is no organization that benefits the inclusion of the students, whose objective is to organize and offer appropriate strategies so that students with different cultural attributes can integrate and resemble the prevailing school culture, recognizing and approving their own culture. Instead, this institution segregates and stigmatizes them by assuming them as subjects lacking the capacities and dispositions to learn.

To reflect on the educational space, it is first important to understand that it is part of an institution of the state, from which practical ideological unfold whose aim is to reproduce the behavior through different forms of organization and for which it is intended to promote a social order. Through the institutions of the State, as Ideological Devices are concerned, the social behaviors formed by the different environments of production of subjectivity are reproduced ^{(Althusser, 1988)}.

The school as a constitutive part of the Ideological Apparatus of the State is in charge of reproducing thestatus quo.It is also in charge of children of all social classes, from kindergarten, to whom they instill "skills" clothed by the dominant ideology. With the teaching of these skills, a large part of the social relations typical of capitalism are reproduced. The Ideological Device of the School, therefore, is considered as an educational space and at the same time as a reproductive agent of the conditions of inequality, inequity, submission and obedience.

Undoubtedly, the school plays an essential role in the reproduction of production systems. This preservation of the school order is carried out through the teaching of the hidden curriculum and the official curriculum, as stated by ^{Curieses (2017)}, differentiating the hidden curriculum from the formal one, noting that: "The formal one refers to the written document, which, usually, it provides teachers and managers with the guiding theoretical framework of a certain educational project" (p. 75). While, the hidden curriculum is defined as formal "which consists of beliefs, myths, for principles, rules, rituals that directly or indirectly establish modalities of relationship and behavior" ^{Curieses (2017)}.

In relation to the problems worked on throughout our research, gender differences are identified as an area that establishes values and behavior patterns that produce and reproduce the asymmetric positions between the masculine and the feminine. In this sense, ^{Pini (2013)} describes the way in which the discourse will show and illustrate the adequate representation of the behavior of the genders, the correctly accepted actions and thoughts, as well as those that are socially expected.

From the contributions of Althusser, it can be interpreted that, through the Ideological Apparatus of the State, the school is a means of production and reproduction, where these young women usually come to receive a discipline of academic instructions and are simultaneously taught about social behavior in a speech.

In this process, the school is not adapted to offer support to economically disadvantaged families. As suggested by ^{ECLAC (2018)}, this isolates and hinders students who have the characteristics that define academic possibilities, excluding them and violating the access to quality education, as shown below:

E08: Well, it wasn't my thing, I went every day, but I didn't understand anything the teachers told me, apart from that they always made me less like I was stupid or something and because that made me feel very bad ( DPO: 08).

Within the school there are factors recognized as their own that also correspond to pedagogical practices, which are teacher-student interaction or student-student coexistence. Studies that consider teaching staff as a primary cause of student failure often refer to the inability of teachers to offer their students tools and epistemic and socio-affective strategies that allow them to learn, and also strengthen, their capacities and abilities in the process ^{(Larrañaga, 2014; 2013)}.

Among the aspects inherent to teaching staff that appear linked to lack of interest, lack of motivation to learn and low academic achievement,^{Martínez and Ramírez (2017)}suggest that the attitude and possibilities of the educator regarding the student body are essential. Indeed, various investigations relate learning and school performance with the representations that teachers have of students and their families, as in the following fragment:

E11: Well, when I was studying in the Bache, the truth was very boring, they teach you things that are irrelevant, and to top it off they give you an exam, and they have no useful application in life (DPO: 11).

As explained by^{Curieses (2017)}, the hidden curriculum plays a great role within the academic education of women. This type of teaching practice left the women interviewed in a vulnerable situation.

Cultural scope

The dropout rate in adolescent women increases considerably when they marry and leave the parental home. Thus, schooling goes to a secondary level within the priorities of life, as argued by^{Carrillo (2017)}.

E05: We went to live together, we rented a house near work and we are very happy despite the envious ones, every Friday he takes me to eat corn on the cob and on Sundays we go often (DPO: 05).

In interview E05, the woman comments on the happiness in which she has been involved since she has been living with her partner, because she considers that as the purpose and objective of her life. It also manifests the knowledge that other women would like to find themselves in their place, fulfilling a life objective:

E13: since I found out I was pregnant, I no longer went to school, what for? I better learned to make food, clean the house and started practicing how to take care of babies with my cousins' children, pretend that I learned to be woman (DPO: 13).

Another factor that leads to girls dropping out of school has been the already widely discussed adolescent pregnancy. This has been a social and cultural stigma since it is more viable for young women in their personal development to learn "to be women" through the reproduction of activities established and socially recognized as feminine ^{(Bourdieu, 1998)}.

E15: when I left school it was because I got pregnant with Javier, we already had a year of dating and I no longer wanted to be just the bride, I wanted to be the wife with a wedding and everything (DPO: 15).

What the interview says exposes the little relevance that academic development has in her situation. Problems that are typical of age, such as teenage pregnancy, are more relevant, they are even enough reason to drop out of school. That is, they go to school while in their life there are no more important situations to drop it; thus, academic education is at the bottom of the priorities.

Discussion

The results obtained through this study allow us to observe that the students who dropped out of the Upper Secondary Education level gave up their academic education mostly during the first semesters of high school. Likewise, the main reasons taken into account for dropping out depended on economic, family and cultural factors.

In general, of the thirty women interviewed, the reasons for dropping out of school in this study were economic, which included both the lack of household resources to face the expenses required to attend school, and the abandonment that occurs to work or to seek employment. They accepted to have economic problems, being this the most notable cause of school dropouts in the analyzed corpus. Similarly, there are family problems, those associated with lack of interest, including the virtual and unreal assessment that make fathers and mothers on education; as well as school performance problems: poor performance, behavior problems and others associated with age.

Currently, who does not reach the least twelve years of schooling and did not acquire the status of a graduate of the Upper Secondary Education has few opportunities to enter the labor market and obtain quality jobs to improve its living conditions and poverty situation. In turn, the defectors are more likely to engage in exclusionary dynamics that can endanger their physical and emotional integrity, a situation that has been warned by the^{CEPAL (2018)} through its publications. Likewise, the cultural capital that they will later transmit to their children is impoverished, which reproduces educational and social inequality from one generation to another.

This transmission occurs through the discourse in which they are immersed, from which they themselves can conclude that school does not represent an advantage to improve their living conditions. The behavior is regularly based on this transmission because it approved in different areas of development (school, familiar and cultural). Reversing the school dropout process involves taking charge, in the first place, of the interests, demands and forms of social intervention of young people and trying to integrate the youth culture within the school culture. This involves, among other things, to develop the Teaching-Learning Process in line with reality and with the interests of young people, but also includes expanding spaces and institutional mechanisms involving them.

From the results of this study, it can be concluded that students who drop out of the level of Higher Mid Education is characterized by young school leavers to be especially during the first semester of high school. Among the main reasons for dropping out, in this group were economic, family and cultural factors. It is young people who consider regulating their performance school, without having committed or plans to future, as mostly discussed the null need for studies rated High Mid-level, being the economic factor and the belief that education is not an element of change not social, and does not have a great impact on the improvement of working conditions. The above coincides with the studies carried out by^{Carrillo, I. (2017)}.

In the same sense,^{Silva (2018)}comments that the development of the problems that could participate in the decision to abandon the programs of Upper Secondary Education can be found in the places of development present in the lives of women, among which they find the family member and the schoolboy. This situation has been verified through the thirty interviews carried out, in which it was possible to know a spectrum of his life and where we were able to warn, according to what was stated, that the decision to abandon the educational program has been influenced by the situation ones both family and school. Contrary to what indicates ^{CEPAL (2018)}, within academic institutions or government agencies aimed at social assistance, some women interviewed expressed have been in the possibility of receiving any state support; However, they expressed that the possibilities related to their living conditions, both economic and familiar, and even individual, were insufficient to continue, regardless of the possibility of obtaining said support.

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Received: May 22, 2021; Accepted: August 09, 2021