The craft of test taking: youngsters’ impasses in the transition to higher education

Abstract

The expansion of higher education observed in Brazil since the 1990s gave origin to a first generation of youngsters that reached the stage of taking higher education entrance exams. This phenomenon transforms the perspectives of the youngsters that reached in the 2010s the highest school longevity in the country’s history. However, put under stress by post-2015 political and economic instabilities, the expectations surrounding the access to higher education have been challenged in a scenario of uncertainty and impasse. With this situation in mind, this research is based on a fieldwork conducted in Brasília (DF) that comprised visits to three community-based pre-exam schools, during which twenty students were selected for semistructured interviews. We argue that the youngsters notice the presence of a rupture related to the misalignment between the student attitude they held so far, and the attitude expected from a youngster preparing him/herself to take higher education entrance exams – a situation we labelled “the craft of test taking”. Such craft stands on four pillars: commitment to a study routine, knowledge of the rules of the game, negotiation of a family project, and the experience with uncertainties regarding their near future. To a greater or lesser degree all interviewees inhabited a no-place of the secondary school-higher education transition, and revolved around the challenges and possibilities to construct such craft. The way in which students deal with such elements is revealing of the impasses experienced by youth in the transition to higher education.