Academic Expectations: a critical analysis of residential care for female adolescents

Abstract

Abstract Residential care is a transitional life context, by nature protective and vital, in which the youth's superior interest must be guaranteed, following the current Portuguese legislation for the protection children and young people. According to (Muller et al., 2009 Nardi, 2010 Raffaelli & Koller, 2005 Robbins & Bryan, 2004), there are still few studies that have focused on the expectations of adolescents in institutional, residential care (Gonçalves Zappe et al., 2013). Residential care often generates less positive beliefs among children and young people, “(...) thus restricting the relationships of social acceptance that are reinforced by institutional stigma, which, according to Bronfenbrenner's ecological perspective, may constitute a source of change in the child's trajectory.” (Mota, 2008, p. 92). So, adolescents' experiences have influenced their development process, which implies responsibility for residential care professionals for constantly learning and questioning their intervention methodologies. Starting from the logic that academic expectations are directly related to the promotion of academic success, “The valence or relevance of the ‘future time perspective’ variable indicates the value of a certain object or life domain in the future.” (Peetsma, 2000, p. 178). In this sense,the academic component is a vital axis of the projection that adolescents can make of themselves in the future, and of the capacities and competences that will allow them to elaborate their life project, the premise of this study is to contribute to the accomplishment of critical analysis on the academic expectations. The investigation is a case study using a qualitative methodology as “ (...) case(s) under study, shedding light on the problem in which they fit and, even, producing new knowledge about them.” (Morgado, 2018, p. 63), in this case, the academic expectations of female adolescents in residential care. “The tradition of qualitative research in social sciences essentially consists of studying and interacting with people in their field, through their language, without resorting to a distance that would lead to the use of symbolic forms foreign to their environment (Gauthier, 1987, p.32).” (Lessard- Hébert et al., 2012, p. 47). For the completion of the study, residential care internal documents that reflect the typology and organisation of professional practices in the school area were analysed, and interviews were carried out with residential care professionals and adolescents to respond to the established objectives “That is why it uses a variety of information collection techniques (observations, interviews, documents)” (De Bruyne et al., 1975, p.211)” (Lessard-Hébert et al., 2012, p. 54). The objectives were to identify instruments for recognising and analysing academic expectations and interconnecting their use with the processes for promoting academic success developed in residential care. Also, to create among the professional teams a dynamic of critical and reflective analysis, search and sharing of good practices from the perspective of the ecology of human development. With the results obtained, it was concluded that, since the instruments for recognising academic expectations are not in use, they are measured with the adolescents through other systems, but only partially by some residential care professionals. Nevertheless, all professionals value academic expectations and describe the positive impact they have on the school process of adolescents, as well as the importance and potential of working collaboratively. Thus, in addition to the conclusions, it was possible to proposes suggestions for improvement that may be implemented to achieve academic success.