High School Reform in Brazil: questions from the relationship between young people, studies and work

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Secondary education in Latin America: reforms and youth experiences in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic

Proposal

This article presents reflections on the interfaces between education and work considering the current reform of high school education in Brazil. The developments of this reform have achieved great repercussions in the Brazilian public arena, especially considering the implementation of training itineraries, including components directly linked to the world of work: vocational training and the curricular component called “Life Project”. It can be recognized that one of the objectives of high school education is to help young people to build repertoires that provide them with better conditions to plan their life projects, especially in relation to studies and work. However, one might ask to what extent the current reform is contributing to a broadening of the horizons of young Brazilians, particularly from the lower classes for whom the experience of work has been constitutive of their paths, even in the face of the almost universalization of basic education, increased access to higher education and the increase in the average schooling of the population in the country in recent decades. Brazil has approximately 35 million young people between 15 and 29 years of age who work, seek work or combine work and studies. The presence of work does not happen in the same way for all Brazilian youth - there are differences and inequalities considering the ages at the time of youth, socioeconomic origin, gender, color/race and place of residence, that mark both the experience and the meanings attributed to this dimension. In the case of the expected age to attend high school - 15 to 17 years - the presence of work has decreased in recent decades, but there is still a group of adolescents who work, seek work or combine work and studies, some in illegal conditions. Based on documentary analysis and preliminary results of discussion groups held with young people in the State of São Paulo, one of the first to implement the current high school reform, still in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. We intend to argue about the limits of current high school education in considering both the reality of work of young students and offering perspectives to face the context of new configurations of work in contemporary society.

Author

• Maria Carla Corrochano, UFSCar