The Future of Education

The present study aimed to investigate the potential impacts of students’ relationships with the school, family, school professionals, and the community on students’ subjective perceptions of their school trajectory. To this end, we used the Relational Factors for the Risk of School Dropout Scale  – Alternative (IAFREE-A), which is based on the relational perspective of the five dimensions of school dropout risk [1]: students’ relationship with the school (SSc, with the factors Infrastructure, School as a safe place, and Discrimination), family (SF, with the factors Parenting, Support at Home, and Family Involvement), school professionals (SP, with the factors Teacher expectations, Pedagogical quality, and School management and organization), community (SC, composed of the factors Relations with Community and Associations with school system), and students’ relationship with themselves (SSt, composed of the factors Interpersonal relationships, Belonging, and Expectations regarding education). This theoretical framework assumes that all these dimensions are interrelated, which is supported by the correlation coefficients evaluated in the confirmatory models [1]. In turn, this study aimed to examine the influence of the attention factors in the SSc, SF, SP, and SC dimensions on the attention factors in the SSt dimension through a structural equation modeling approach. The explanatory model showed excellent results [χ²(898) = 7453.153; CFI = 0.986; TLI = 0.984; SRMR = 0.044; RMSEA = 0.045 (0.044–0.046)], with regression coefficients indicating a substantial contribution of the perception of school as a safe place to students’ levels of interpersonal relationships (B = 0.76, p < 0.001) and expectations regarding education (B = 0.57, p < 0.001), indicating that the higher the perception of school as a safe place, the higher the levels of expectations regarding education and interpersonal relationships. In addition, School management and organization was the strongest predictor of sense of belonging (B = 0.90, p < 0.001), indicating that an increase in School management and organization leads to an increase in the perception of belonging.