Juventudes, educação e trabalho: reflexões sobre os desafios da escolarização na Educação de Jovens e Adultos

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on youth, education and work and the challenges of schooling in Youth and Adult Education - YAE - (EJA, in Portuguese). This is on the assumption that education has not successfully prepared the young for the job market and for life, so as to allow students to understand their economic, political and social reality. The objective is to understand how the contact between youth, schooling and work occurs in the Brazilian reality, in view of the major demographic and educational aspects of the youth population in the country, and to identify the way the educational policies addressing YAE are implemented as well as the effects on meeting social demands and ensuring the right of access to education in this population segment. Currently, the problems faced by young people are closely related to the dynamics of capitalism, which pervade individualism, unfair competition and the requirements of production processes. Therefore, we seek to further identify the contradictions in the relationship between youth, education and work, in view of the advent of neoliberalism, which has altered the dynamics of work and the social relations of production, and situated education, in this context, as an ally of the relations of domination. For theoretical support we resorted to studies by authors who approached this topic, such as Abramovay, Andrade and Esteves (2007), Arroyo (2007), Carrano (2007) and Pais (1990). It was concluded that the YAE should be structured from the students’ needs and provide a liberating vision of the reality in which they live, allowing them to join the labor market with a critical perspective.