‘You work, I copy’. Images, narratives and metaphors around academic plagiarism through Fotovoz

Academic integrity is part of the process that explains the communication of information in an ethical manner. Although the prevalence of dishonest acts at university has been noted, it is an aim of the educational system to analyse what motivates them from an age prior to their incorporation into university studies. The aim of this work is to collect the visual-narrative representation of academic plagiarism made by secondary school and university students, as well as to analyse their perception of it and discover the keys that explain this malpractice. A participatory study was carried out, in which two high school students took on the role of co-researchers in training. Information is collected from 178 students from three schools in Spain and Portugal through participatory photography or Photovoice. It is analysed with Maxqda22 software in two stages: (1) deductive analysis of the narratives, identifying categories and thematic codes, in a participatory way with the trainee researchers; and (2) inductive analysis of images and metaphorical expressions. The results allow us to outline three representations of the action of copying: as a punishable act, as a picaresque act and as a quick and easy opportunity for the student. This classification reveals the issues that dominate the discourse of the participants, suggesting the effects and causes that aggravate the commission of plagiarism: the simplicity of the process and the possibility of not being detected.