This work analyses the academic regime of secondary school, by describing and analyzing its modalities in schools working with students in a vulnerable condition. In the tradition of research on secondary school, the academic regime is rarely considered as a matter that affects students´ school experience, although it states conditions that are hard to be modified and may obstruct students´ school trajectories.
The research project “Secondary school and vulnerable population. Academic regime and sense of school experience” (PICT 33531 UNQ- UNGS, Argentina) has focused in the analysis of two initiatives recently implemented in Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. The initiatives were specifically designed for teenagers and youth, and they consider changes in the academic regime: Re-ingress Schools in Buenos Aires City and Secondary Basic Schools in Buenos Aires Province. In both cases, these schools are working on former difficulties founded when trying to include vulnerable population.
This article advances in conceptualizing academic regime, and presents both the initiatives and the various ways of appropriation that could be produced by the proposed changes, both in the academic regime strictly, and in wider ways of organization of school work. Over the closure, we remark the differential characteristics of the two innovations and we raise tensions solved or installed, both for analyzing institutional experiences and for educational policies.