Resumen

Withdrawal from universities and failure in mathematics are currently considered complex research issues. Available literature on these topics advocates for holistic theoretical approaches. Following this suggestion, the present article uses Situated Learning Theory for studying the processes through which freshman students craft and develop their identities while participating in practices within a university community, focusing particularly on the socio-cultural construction of success and failure in mathematics. The research, based on a qualitative methodology approach, was carried out on a Computer Science degree program, which is characterized by giving special importance to mathematics in the first-year curriculum and for featuring high dropout and failure rates. Data were collected during six months of ethnographic fieldwork involving six freshman students and three first-year teachers. Data analysis gave rise to four emergent categories regarding success and failure as socio-cultural constructions: labels used to categorize students and their developed identities, the relationships established between teachers and students, the different ways of understanding withdrawal, and the differences between high school and higher education.