Injustices experienced and demands for recognition in a public school: expressions of High School students

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine the expression of High School students regarding the injustices experienced in the daily life of the democratic school and its resulting demands. This is part of a research that aimed to analyze the conceptions that school subjects have of justice, which is associated with situations of conflict and violence in the school organization. The theoretical debate deals with concepts such as plural justice and school practices. The case study via focus groups with High School students from a public school in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, generated debate among the subjects, whose manifestations indicate the strong presence of discrimination, especially from a religious and racial point of view, as aspects that awaken the schoolchildren’s feeling of injustice. It is concluded that this feeling leads them to show resistance, as well as enhances their identification with the specific school universe. Students demand recognition of their religious, ethnic and racial identities, which are silenced in everyday school life. The institution, in turn, fails to avoid the debate about issues that are so present there and loses opportunities to mobilize students with a view to creating a closer relationship with the school.

Fair school; Plural justice; Injustice; Recognition