Transições e Pontos Críticos das Trajectórias de Escolaridade: Estudo de Caso em seis Escolas Secundárias da Grande Lisboa[Transition and Turning Points in Scholar Trajectories: Case Study with Six Lisbon Upper Secondary Schools]

Analyses concerning success and failure during Upper Secondary usually do not rely upon individual longitudinal data as we do in the present paper. Neither do they generally use that kind of data when trying to assess two among the most important scholar turning points as the transition from the Lower Secondary and the entry into the University. In our perspective this represents an important caveat as success and failure being dynamic processes can only be correctly addressed with data sensitive to time interdependencies. In this paper we had access, throughout a specific survey, to longitudinal data relative to 530 students from six Upper Secondary schools in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Accordingly we were able to adjust a life-cycle segment’s model and depict either the “school effect” – actually the main purpose in this research – and the influences exerted by the social and economic status of the students’ family and by each one’s previous scholar trajectory as well. For that purpose we subdivided the work sample into two reciprocal control subgroups according to school´s social and economic environment and performed both contingency and discriminant statistical analyses. As main conclusions we obtained the relevance of the “school effect” especially in what has to do with success between inter cycles transitions. And the importance displayed firstly by mothers’ and fathers’ school level and by students’ relative success during previous schooling. A gender effect which we had admitted at the beginning could not be proved in the ligh