NARRATIVES OF ACADEMIC (UNDER)ACHIEVEMENT: THE FOCUS/PROCESSUAL DYNAMICS AS ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATION – DESIGN AND INSTRUMENTS

Academic (under)achievement has been studied through variables connected with individual (for instance, motivation), social (for instance, familiar capital) and instructive factors (for instance, teachers. educational practices). The social relevance of the topic explains its attention in literature, although there isn’t enough empirical evidence that allows its analysis in a holistic framework (Levin, 2007; Preckel, Holling & Vock, 2006).
We pretend to present at International Technology, Education and Development Conference a project in course, in Portugal, that aims at contributing for the understanding of academic (under)achievement phenomena, at two levels. This includes two longitudinal and innovative studies focusing on the profiles and pathways of (under)achievers through theirs’ and their parents’ subjective constructions. To do so, we pretend to analyze, by one hand, the parental perception on the (under)achievement pathways of students, by analyzing personal, social and instructive variables and, on the other hand, the parents’ and students’ narratives on academic underachievement, through their self constructions of academic significant moments, because there are few Portuguese investigations that aim at alternative models of its understanding. Since the studies are actually in course, we intend to present their design and instruments at this Conference.