The schooling processes of students who had adverse childhood experiences. A case study of a school

Abstract

Students have lived different experiences and situations that have influenced their learning process and some of them have their origin in childhood adversities or misfortunes. The scientific meaning that defines these situations is ACE (adverse childhood experiences) concept. These early experiences refer to problems, abuse and abandonment within the family and have a direct impact on the comprehensive development of students. In this work, this concept and reality has been taken to the educational field and a case study has been developed, taking a school as a sample, and investigating its teachers, students, counselors and experts on the subject. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been combined; on the one hand, a questionnaire has been carried out for teachers; on the other, part of the students have been observed and, finally, the school counselor and an expert have been interviewed. The main conclusion is that teachers, in general, are unaware of the ACE concept and do not know how to intervene in such cases, even though they are often in the classroom with students who have experienced adversity in childhood.