Transversalities in the study on young people in Brazil: education, collective action, and culture

Abstract

This article examines the possibilities of analyzing collective action by young people, especially that which derives from cultural practices within a perspective that tries to recall the guiding lines of the Brazilian sociological thought which denies a rigid segmentation of study fields. Starting from a survey on student production in Post-Graduation programs in Social Sciences, Education, and Social Work, it is possible to delineate new challenges for the research on young people and their collective practices. A body of studies made since the mid-1990s provides an important framework of manifestations from the so called groups of juvenile style and culture, mainly in music. Darks, punks, and rappers were the main styles investigated and, in a lesser scale, the funk culture. A compacted understanding of the diversified presence of young people in public settings with their collectivities refers to a necessary transversality that demands not disregarding other dimensions of juvenile experience in the analysis. Transformations coming from an intense expansion of education systems in Brazil in the last decades, the new configurations of the working market, and the significant forms of appropriating the urban space, which articulate new forms of sociability, are important aspects to take into consideration in analyses on juvenile cultures and their forms of collective action.