School adaptation in the discourse of fourth graders and their parents

Abstract

The article describes the model of school adaptation adopted by fourth graders and their parents, which translates to a large extent into the perception and evaluation of one's own role in it, and thus sets the framework for activity, in accordance with the adopted constructivist perspective. The phenomenographic perspective of the analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with fourth graders younger by a year and their parents revealed how the respondents describe school adaptation and how they value their own role in it. The ways of thinking about school adaptation and the role of both of its subjects have been interpreted as discursive knowledge. Based on the theory of reproduction an attempt was made to describe the mechanism of consolidating a specific way of perception of school adaptation on the second educational level. The presented research results show that perceiving adaptation as a difficult, fearful process in which parents are responsible for the functioning of fourth graders as pupils is socially acceptable and obvious.