Non-attendance and justifications in the academic regime of Cordoba's secondary schools: between punishments and inclusions

Abstract

This text presents some of the results of the PhD research in Educational Sciences (Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, UNC) developed between 2018 and 2022, which sought to study school discontinuity through student absenteeism in two secondary schools in the city of Cordoba. The thesis is entitled "Discontinuities in school time in secondary education. An investigation on the presences and absences in the schooling of the new generations". 

In this paper I will focus on the normative regulations about absenteeism and non-attendance through the redefinition of the academic regime. I will focus on the two regulations that continue to intervene on absenteeism in the province of Cordoba, in order to problematise the typology of justified and unjustified absences. I then analyse the ways in which absences are regulated in the two schools investigated through reinstatements and justifications. Finally, this development allows us to reflect on the relationships between attendance, inequality and normative and pedagogical interventions on absenteeism in secondary education, recognising the achievements and pending challenges in the process of institutionalisation of compulsory schooling and democratisation of secondary education.

Keywords: absenteeism - secondary education - academic regime - (un)excused absences - reincorporations