Resumen:
This paper analyzes the student dropout phenomenon from the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará (IFCE) [Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará], Juazeiro do Norte campus, with focus on the Technical program on Edifications integrated with high school, based on a bibliographic and documental research. The general goal of this study is to investigate the occurrence of dropout in the referred program and identify the causes, having as a tool of research the school histories made available on the Academic System of the IFCE of the Juazeiro do Norte campus, as well as the socio-economic questionnaires which were filled out by the students upon their enrollment. The sample was made up of the universe of those who dropped out of the program during the period of 2010.1 to 2015.1, considering the students who enrolled in the semesters of 2010.1, 2010.2 and 2011.1. The focus of the research seeks to characterize the profile of the students who dropped out. The technique applied had as its base quantitative elements which, after being collected were inserted in a Microsoft Office Excel 2013 data base and later transferred to the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 16.0) program, used for carrying out the descriptive statistical analysis of frequency and percentages generating the charts presented. To give a base for the investigation we sought out contributions from authors who deal with problems relating to education, and specifically the issue of the process of teaching/learning and of school failure/evasion, as well as to analyze foundational documents of the Brazilian educational legislation. The research is structured in three chapters: the first brings the approach about the conception of teaching-learning considering the contribution of the theoreticians Paulo Freire, David Ausubel, Jean Piaget, Vigotsky and Edgar Morin and makes a counterpoint with school evasion, supported in research referring to the theme as well as in the national legislation; the second chapter deals with professional education in the environment of the Federal Education, Science and Technology Institutes and presents a concise report about the IFCE Juazeiro do Norte campus and about the Technical in Edifications program Integrated with the High School. In the third chapter the data obtained is presented together with their analysis distributed in academic and social economic parameters such as age, gender, semester of enrollment, ethnicity, school frequented, marital status of parents, educational level of the father, educational level of the mother, the person financially responsible for the family, family income and type of dwelling. The main findings of this investigation indicate that it is a challenge to draw out a profile of the student who drops out being as the different variables tied with the many factors such as social, cultural, economic, academic have implications in the school performance of the students being able to provoke a lack of interest in school and consequently contributing to early dropout. One perceives that the challenges of the teaching institutions to be able to identify the main causes of drop out are not simple. Finally, may it be registered here that continued research be carried out which can contribute in the elaboration and implementation of actions which can contain and prevent the occurrence of the phenomenon of school dropout.