Academic Success and Failure among Black Students in Rural Education

Abstract This study investigates the trajectory of black students in primary education and their experiences at rural schools. These students’ conditions of access and permanence at school are presented within the general Brazilian context and more specifically for rural education, considering the reality observed at a school in a rural area of Bahia’s Recôncavo. The analysis looks at the influence of social capital on the construction of individual and collective trajectories based on the concept of trajectories (Bourdieu, 1986), to understand the social environment and the actions of individuals in everyday life, paying special attention to how practices, language and norms can influence and/or modify favourable trajectories or limit social mobility.