Student Participation, School Institution and Democratic Citizenship: Pending Challenges from the Peruvian Experience

The article explores, for the Peruvian case, the potential of the school experience to foster favorable dispositions among the students towards attitudes considered fundamental for democratic sustainability. The article analyzes the relationship between the organization and functioning of student participation mechanisms and self-recognition of one's ability to influence public life. The analysis of the information, product of the combination of uni and bivariate analysis and regressions under the Ordinary Least Squares method, arose from the application of a survey to high school students from six Peruvian public schools. The results evidence the relationship between school experience and the development of democratic attitudes; mainly, with respect to how the effective possibility of the students to influence relevant issues in their school, would affect a greater recognition of themselves as citizens capable to exercise public power. Thus, the article provides evidence to discuss the importance of transcending the electoral (procedural) approach of democracy and to promote that school institutionalism is consistent with the commitment to the formation of citizenship as the democratic main subjectivity.