‘During the break we have fun’: a study concerning pupils’ experience of school

Abstract

This paper attempts to elucidate pupils’ experience of school and to interpret the meaning of their experiences. The theoretical roots of this study are to be found within the phenomenology of the lifeworld. The pupils’ experience of school is made apparent with the aid of creative activity in the form of the production of drawings, combined with subsequent oral comments. During the analysis of the empirical material, different patterns and structures were noticed, and eventually six different themes emerged, which are presented without any relative order of precedence. The themes are in the space of experience of: learning and knowledge, social relations, orderliness and rules, subjects, feelings and time-dimensions. The results which emerged, in the form of the pupils’ experience of school, show multifaceted experiences which have many nuances, such as a lack of time to accomplish schoolwork, the importance of breaks and relations between friends, the importance of the relations between the teacher and the pupils, the fact that rules are decided upon over the pupils’ heads and the fact that learning things and developing knowledge are positive even if school is sometimes experienced as boring.

Keywords:

• pupils’ experience of school
• drawings
• lifeworld
• phenomenology