Cartas ao futuro presidente : o que dizem os jovens?

Abstract

It is understood that the concept of citizen implies a constant critical look and a growing demand towards social phenomena. Thinking about the role of Education as the promoter of active citizens in common spaces environments and the Social Psychology as a subject which encourages emancipation with regard to the dialog between youngsters, politics and school, the present study aims to understand how this process of citizen construction and citizen identity is occurring among High- school students in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Several processes may be activated to instigate the construction of this political subjectivity. Literature suggests the importance and the responsibility of the family and the school to initiate the democratic life. However, there are evidences showing that the Brazilian population tends to have little participation in the political sphere. Besides the unsatisfactory participation, it is often observed that schools seem to be little efficient in promoting an environment which encourages a democratic thought from the students’ part. Taking that into consideration, this work proposes to approach the way students interact with questions concerning the political sphere, in case there is any. As a method, the research was based on the project “Letters to the Next President” L2P2.O, through which the students are invited to think about the relevant political and social conditions around them, and which ones are relevant to them through the elaboration of letters. This is an exploratory research of qualitative character. A public school in Porto Alegre was contacted based on convenience. 209 high school students participated as a data collection method, where a questionnaire was created in an online platform which had a trigger question (based on the original question), followed by seven questions concerning politics, democracy and citizenship. The result of the analysis of the answers to the trigger question: “What do you have to say to the next president of Brazil?” and the question: “Do you know what a president does? Please describe.” will be presented. The themes emerged by the results of the first question were named “Unfamiliarity”, “Deliberation”, sub-divided in “About laws” and “Decisions”, “Representative” and “Authority”. These themes evidenced the difficulty the participants had in answering properly about the presidential practices, indicating general ideas about decision making, representing or power holder. Regarding the second question presented, the themes were categorized by the names “Disbelief”, “Public and private” and “The topics”, which were also subcategorized as “Social topics” and “Thematic tripod”. The results point out that the detachment between youngsters and politics found in literature is the same way evidenced by the participants. They also demonstrated the use of a set up discourse concerning political topics, evidencing an expropriated approach. The most elaborated political topics presented by a smaller part of respondents concerned security issues, prejudice, inequality, the working conditions for health and education professionals, nevertheless in brief constructions, contrasting with the original project results. This study discusses that the school is still incapable of encouraging the empowerment of citizens that successfully fulfill their roles as citizens in society, as well as how this detachment can be the reflection of the Brazilian major population- that is faithless about politics and do not compromise with the subject to promote effective social change in political education in Brazil.