Document(s) 9 de 11

Young People’s Opinions Formed in a Context of Research and Popular Education

The research project Brazilian Youth and Democracy: Participation, Spheres and Public Policies was carried out in seven of Brazil’s metropolitan regions and the Federal District, with young people from 15 to 24 years of age. It involved two methodological approaches: opinion polls of 8,000 young people and a qualitative study, which brought 913 youth together in Dialogue Groups in March and April, 2005.¹

At the end of the Dialogue Day,² young participants were invited to answer two questions individually. One prompted them to send a message to decision-makers in Brazil. The other sought to record their assessment of the Dialogue Day.

This was an eagerly-awaited moment for the professionals conducting the survey, who had spent the day in the dual roles of dialogue facilitators and researchers. Now freed from the demanding task of facilitation, they could relax

^* Solange dos Santos Rodrigues is a sociologist and researcher with the NGO Iser Assessoria – www.iserassessoria.org.br, and Project Supervisor, Juventude Brasileira e Democracia – participação, esferas e políticas públicas for the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region.

and listen to the young people’s opinions of the experience they had just had. They were asked to answer the following question: ‘Of all that happened here today, what was most important?’.

Although the question was formulated in such a way as to direct answers towards positive aspects,³ it did nonetheless suggest an evaluation of the Day, without actually using the term. This strategy proved worthwhile, because these interviewees tend to associate ‘evaluation’ with measurement of their performance at school, generally expressed in terms of quantitative marks or grades.

The way the question was phrased prompted them to qualify their answers, and to give content to their evaluation. In addition, the question was open enough to allow them to freely address any aspect of the Dialogue Day. We were particularly curious to hear what they would say. Their answers often surprised and moved us and gave us a wealth of material for later analysis.⁴

This paper analyzes the young people’s opinions on Dialogue Day and examines the methodological path chosen. It reveals that what took place was a learning process for both young participants and researchers, thereby situating this study in the field of popular education and social intervention.

Young people evaluate Dialogue Day

The young people from various regions of Brazil gave very similar opinions basically related to four themes. The first set comprises answers that see the Dialogue Groups as places where they would get their chance to speak to the group. These answers emphasize the opportunity to express their opinions which led to an interchange. They valued the fact that their ideas were listened to and taken into consideration.

Another set of answers relates to the field of sociability. Young people stressed the importance of having the opportunity to meet new people, extend networks of social relations and to perceive a shared identity.

The third set of answers talks about the learning process set in motion during the Dialogue Day. The young people valued various aspects such as the content, form and repercussions of those learnings.

The young people also emphasized that the Dialogue Groups afforded them an opportunity to think about Brazil, its problems and the ways to surmount them. In this round of evaluation, there were also young participants who took the opportunity to say that they had enjoyed the experience and were grateful for having been invited to take part in the study.

Young people speak out

‘What was most important was that I could express myself, because I’m very shy.’ (Rio de Janeiro)⁵

‘I liked this opportunity we had to put forward our opinions, discuss things that I don’t think I would ever discuss otherwise.’ (Belo Horizonte)

‘I had never taken part in a debate that gave young people their own active voice. I am grateful for having participated.’ (Salvador)

‘It was really good. I never thought we’d have the chance to say what we think and feel.’ (Porto Alegre)

‘(…) generally, when they call young people in to hear a talk, they talk about drugs, contraceptives, all those things we already know about, and this one didn’t; it was different because we gave our opinions; that was great.’ (São Paulo)

As can be seen from the quotes, the young people spoke their minds on Dialogue Day. What is expressed is both individual and collective. It was an opportunity to overcome shyness, to disclose opinions and feelings, and to have an active voice. It was an important moment because they were stimulated to talk about matters they are not usually consulted on. They expressed ideas, thoughts and feelings that only gain their full meaning when there is someone prepared to listen to them. The Dialogue Groups were also an opportunity to exercise listening skills:

‘The most important thing that happened today was hearing different points of view, hearing what other young people want and, mainly, hearing what life is like for each one here, their life histories, which are so different from mine. To me personally, that was very important.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

The chosen methodological path allowed young people to consider different opinions and exchange experiences with other people coming from a variety of places and social situations. Talking and listening are constituent elements of the dialogue process that comprise a category that covers many of the answers. In the Dialogue Groups, the young people perceived that ‘coexistence is going to call for concessions, tolerance, respect for diversity and difference’.⁶ It was also interesting to note that there were young participants who, in their evaluations, referred to the commitments made at the start of the Dialogue Day:⁷

‘What was important about what happened today is that I learned to listen without criticizing (…) Here we had to learn to listen and be quiet, and then to speak out at the right moment.’ (São Paulo)

‘Well, I thought today was important because it was a meeting of people with different opinions, that nonetheless should all be respected.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

We were surprised by one boy who declared that the most important thing was ‘taking part in a conversation among young people’, which was an unprecedented experience for him. We know that young people talk among themselves in the various contexts where they socialize – at school or at work, in their neighbourhood, their circle of friends and leisure activities. Perhaps the novelty lay in the kind of conversation, in the situation created especially for the purpose in the context of a survey, where they were interacting with other people they had just met, all coming from different places and with differing life histories.

So these were a different kind of dialogue, where they could see and experience confrontation among conflicting ideas, but where diverging opinions were respected. Or, as one boy put it, ‘with no fights or arguments’.

‘It was the interaction of so many different thoughts (…) everyone expressing their point of view, their way of thinking and everyone joining in a healthy, friendly dialogue.’ (Salvador)

‘To me the most important thing that happened was learning to dialogue with people from different classes, different kinds of people, right? People are opinionated and we have to put up with each other.’ (Belém)

‘What I got out of today here – and I think that goes for everyone – is that everyone’s got their own opinion, everyone’s got a different opinion and we can talk about that.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

‘What I think is really interesting was the sharing. Everyone spoke, we all agreed or disagreed, but even so everyone was open to other people’s opinions and changed their opinions.’ (Recife)

They recognized the importance of working as a group to produce a synthesis: ‘if we [each] analyzed it all on our own, we wouldn’t come to the same conclusion’ (Brasília). This shows that some young people learned the fundamental principles of the methodology by which in order for opinion to be formed, there has to be access to information and dialogue about that information. This dialogue may then alter or reinforce the participants’ initial ideas:

‘I think the day was productive, because I even changed my opinion on some points. That’s what’s good about debate: you don’t just stick with the same opinion, you see everyone’s opinions and take in whatever’s best.’ (São Paulo)

‘I had an opinion when I arrived that was totally different from the one I am leaving with.’ (Belo Horizonte)

‘I liked the freedom of expression, how the dialogue was so full and varied. I think that everyone here is going to leave with a different idea or else with their ideas strengthened.’ (Recife)

This interchange of ideas was also seen as a mechanism that produced learning, which will be considered in more detail below. It should be said, however, that the young participants saw the interchange as extending beyond the relationship established among themselves, to include the researchers/facilitators, the institutions that promoted the survey and the government agencies which were going to receive the results. Some young participants said the most important thing about the day was to see that there are people and institutions interested in hearing, recording and considering their opinions:

‘I liked knowing that there are people who concern themselves with young people because generally people impose what they think is best for us, without getting our opinion.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

‘Most important is that today I argued and was recorded. Because I always argue and argue but nobody listens to us… And now “they”⁸ are going to listen, they’re going to have to listen to our opinion.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

‘To me the most important thing that happened was seeing the government and other institutions take this initiative, and seeing that there are people – who aren’t young people – concerned to hear our opinion. And they’re not imposing opinions, but giving us the opportunity to develop our own ideas.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

As pointed out by the researchers in Porto Alegre, this collection of declarations speaks of ‘a recognition that is so necessary to young people, that here is someone who has something to say and who places a high value on the right to be heard’.⁹ Generally, however, the same declarations suggest that young people’s opinions are not considered. To what extent are they encouraged to express their ideas and opinions freely in the social spaces where they get their experience of daily life – family, school, work, and the groups and organizations they take part in? Do these promote attentive, respectful listening? Do they make true interchange possible? Do they take young people’s knowledge, concerns and wishes into consideration?¹⁰ That lacuna may explain why young people are surprised that there are people, institutions and government agencies ready to listen to them and take their demands into account. And they are grateful for the opportunity.

The first core group of themes highlighted by the young people when they were asked to say the most important thing that happened on the Dialogue Day can be summarized by saying ‘Words given centre stage’. This group includes the opportunity for youth to voice their own words, listen to others, exchange and reformulate ideas and conceptions, and to perceive that there is an interest in recording their opinions.

Young people extend their social networks

The Dialogue Group participants pointed to the importance of having experienced other dimensions of living together in society, by meeting new people and discovering identities. This was one type of response that appeared in all of the metropolitan regions surveyed. In Brasília, for instance: ‘I was very happy to meet the gang’ or in São Paulo, ‘I liked making friends with everyone I met here, that was great’.

Particularly the young people living in the two largest metropolitan regions, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, felt that what was important was that they had gone beyond their immediate circle – their neighbourhood, municipality and the places where they spend their free time – and crossed the metropolis to meet people who, in turn, had come from other places. It shows they are living in times when people do not circulate very much in the cities, limiting their opportunities to share experiences.

At the start of the Dialogue Days (before the small group work), some young participants were rather shy and had difficulty fitting in, but by the end of the day they were participating in animated conversations, and swapping addresses and phone numbers. Many left in groups, extending their time together until the moment came when they would have to catch transport home to their own neighbourhoods.

Participating in the Dialogue Groups also enabled them to penetrate social spaces unfamiliar to most of them, such as universities, NGO offices, clubs and hotels. The entire experience allowed them to expand their networks of social activities and social relations, and also to extend their knowledge of the metropolis, both physically and symbolically.

This encounter between individuals experiencing their youth in Brazil’s metropolitan areas during same period of the early 21st century made it evident to some of the young people that they shared ideas, problems, aspirations and plans:

‘I also thought it interesting because all of a sudden you’re meeting young people from different backgrounds, with different ideas, but with a lot of things in common that can improve.’ (Porto Alegre)

‘There are people here that I’ve never seen before in my life, who live a really long way from me, and who have the same opinion as me. It’s important to know that. And that they want a better country. Both me and other people who I saw here today.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

Therefore one of the immediate results of the Dialogue Groups was that some discovered a common identity. Even when living a long way from one another, they realized that they faced similar problems and lived under similar conditions. This dimension, the recognition of a common identity, was also signalled by the team of researchers in Recife.¹¹

However, they also perceived the differences that mark their diverse social backgrounds.¹² They recognized that, at times, they had different points of view but, by dialoguing they were able to discover affinities and to see that they shared ideas and wanted a better future for Brazil.¹³

Young people learn through the Dialogue Groups

A significant portion of the participants highlighted the learning dimension as the most important aspect of Dialogue Day, saying that they had been given the opportunity to learn. While some answers were generic (‘To me the most important thing that happened was that I was able to broaden my knowledge.’ – Rio de Janeiro), there were also answers that specified just what had been learned:

‘I learned a lot, it was better than a public school. I learned about politics and society.’ (Brasília)

‘I learned the “pros and cons” line of reasoning, because you can’t think just about your own opinion, you have to consider the pros and the cons.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

‘One of the lessons I learned here is that young people today aren’t empty. There’s a lot in these young heads. What’s lacking is for us to really fight for these goals (…)’ (Recife)

This kind of learning may mean going deeper into certain subjects (‘politics and society’, in the example quoted), but it may also translate into a different way of looking at certain issues (‘consider the pros and cons’)¹⁴ or may represent a shift in hard and fast opinions (‘young people today aren’t empty’). Some participants also stressed learnings intimately bound to the subject of the research and the Dialogue methodology:

‘I learned that we shouldn’t just wait for governments, but that there are things we can do ourselves.’ (Salvador)

‘My opinion used to be that volunteer work and the group were enough on their own, but then you could also see that without politics it’s difficult.’ (Belo Horizonte)

The first quote shows that some young participants understood it was not enough to abstractly discuss the options offered during the Dialogue Day. They realized that this thinking exercise involved citizens’ assuming some personal engagement in whatever course was chosen. The second quote indicates that an initial choice was upgraded through the incorporation of constituent elements from other proposals under consideration. In this specific case, the young person discovered that approaches being presented as separate options (acting as an individual or with a group and acting through institutional politics) may at first seem mutually exclusive, but in fact are complementary.

Also in regards to the methodology, the researchers of the Salvador metropolitan region drew attention to the emphasis that the young people placed on the distinction between ‘dispute’ and ‘dialogue’, and their satisfaction ‘with the proposal to look for similarities in small groups and later with all the participants in the Dialogue Group’.¹⁵

It is important that several young people underlined the way this learning came about. It has already been shown above how highly they valued the interchange of ideas that took place on Dialogue Day. Here, the emphasis is on the role that interchange played in the learning process:

‘To me the most important thing that happened was to see us educating ourselves, each other, listening to one another.’ (São Paulo)

The dominant pattern in young people’s experience is to learn from adults, from people of other generations (parents and teachers). The novelty to the young people was in the perception that it was possible to learn from other young people.

In the same vein, there were young people who referred to learning about the process of interchange:

‘We learned to dialogue, just a little, but we learned. We learned to listen to other people’s proposals. (…) My opinion fits with yours, or yours complements mine.’ (Belém)

‘We learned from one another, didn’t we? To respect each other’s space, to listen to each other…’ (Rio de Janeiro)

They learned to deal with differing opinions and even to reconsider their own initial opinions on the basis of what they heard. Some young people emphasized having learned about what are considered basic, constructive elements of social living, supposedly shared by everyone. For example, ‘The important thing I learned here was to work in a group.’ (Belo Horizonte). And, ‘I learned to debate and to coexist with other people.’ (Rio de Janeiro).

This learning grew out of practice and was experienced through the interchange of ideas rather than just by receiving abstract concepts. In this way it came to constitute an incorporated value that might be activated in other situations.

Also worth noting is that, when they recognized the Dialogue Day as a learning experience, they immediately drew comparisons with the teaching-learning processes that go on in school. There is a quote above from a boy in Brasília who singles out his learning that day about politics and society, and says it was ‘better than a public school’. Another boy from the same metropolitan region said that the subject discussed in the survey ‘is not explored at our school’. Another one, from the Porto Alegre metropolitan region, said that ‘at school I was afraid to give an opinion in case it was wrong, but there was none of that here’.

This leads us to a series of questions about the education that goes on in schools, its content and methodologies, and about the relationships between the educators and those they are educating. This is especially important in the of a knowledge society, where so much information is available but does not automatically lead to understanding our realities.

What is the role of educators in selecting, ordering and offering information for young people to think about, so that it can be re-elaborated and lead to new knowledge? A clue can be found in one young girl’s willingness to radiate the experience gained in the Dialogue Day:

‘I intend to pass all of this on at my school, to organize a group to discuss these things, just like we did here, because the people at my school need this.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

Another very significant dimension in this set of learnings is that the Dialogue Day made the young people think, and brought out knowledge they already held without being aware of it:

‘In fact, I didn’t even know that I had any knowledge about this subject, and I spoke quite a lot here today, and I learned even more from you others too. I learned from myself. I just needed someone to motivate me.’ (Belém)

In the final round of remarks, where the young people could talk about whatever they wanted, some took the opportunity to speak about various aspects of the Dialogue experience:

‘I left home thinking that it would be something else. I learned what dialogue is. It’s really good to discuss issues facing Brazil, it’s important to lay out what you think, how things can change.’ (Brasília)

In this brief comment, the boy demonstrated that he was surprised by the methodological proposal, remarked on the importance of having room to express ideas, recognized how he had learned, and valorized the opportunity to discuss the situation in Brazil and the possibilities of social change. This leads us into another dimension of the Dialogue Day which was emphasized by some of the young people.

Young people thinking about Brazil

For young people, verbal self-expression, meeting and learning are valuable in themselves. In addition, some young participants said that the most important thing about the day was having thought about what is happening in Brazil:

‘Today I thought the day was important because of the thinking it prompted, because sometimes you’re so busy working and studying that you end up forgetting the real situation in the country.’ (São Paulo)

‘The most important thing that happened here is that I learned about a lot of problems that affect Brazil and I didn’t know.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

In this way, by focussing on youth relations, democracy and participation in the public sphere, the Dialogue Day provided an opportunity to find out about the situation in Brazil and think about it.¹⁶ This is not just thinking for its own sake. There were young people who emphasized that the discussions spurred them to look for alternatives in order to change real situations:

‘Every one of us left with a wealth of new ideas, of possible ways of changing ourselves and the country we live in.’ (Salvador)

‘Well, to me the most important thing that happened here today was participating in this meeting, knowing that everyone here has different ideas for changing Brazil, for how to be able to change the situation we live in. And to me that was very significant.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

‘What I most liked was hearing other people’s ideas, but with the same purpose of looking for a solution to the problems there are in Brazil, which in my opinion are extremely serious.’ (Porto Alegre)

Others pointed to the link between thought and action:

‘I’m anxious to get back to my city and do something to try to change. We’re not going to forget this. So many ideas were put forward here. So it shouldn’t be just a study, but a programme that perceives how young people are situated in society.’ (Porto Alegre)

‘This type of meeting is an encouragement for us to go right out and start taking action.’ (Salvador)

‘I believe that from today on, all of us here, this select group, are going to change how we act out there, how we act in society.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

When invited to talk about their lives in this way, as Brazilians, there were some youth who pointed out that the Dialogue Day allowed them to broaden the focus and examine the situation in the country, and they referred particularly to the need to bring about changes. The result was that the focus of the thinking shifted from private concerns to public affairs. This created opportunities to express critical analysis and to valorize collective action through thinking and acting people.

On the other hand, in the course of the Dialogue Day, young participants clearly expressed the difficulties of participating in the public sphere. These had to do both with the context of extreme social inequalities that restrict rights and with the lack, inadequacy or inaccessibility of existing spaces for social participation.

One of the study’s major conclusions is that in order to leverage effective youth participation and thereby strengthen democracy, social movements, youth and other civil society organizations and the State will have to make determined efforts to put listening mechanisms in place. This will help valorize youth’s immediate interests and encourage their active citizenship.

Dialogics and learning, research and popular education

The young participants’ assessment of the survey shows that the experience was basically perceived as a process of education through dialogue. In the free session at the end of the Day, young participants made a point of stressing that they had been able to express their opinions, to dialogue and to learn. In all the metropolitan regions, around 40 per cent mentioned the interchange of ideas, and another 40 per cent learning, while some linked the two dimensions, saying they had learned through the dialogue.

The young participants recognized the logic of dialogue (dialogics) that governed this research. That logic generated interlocution on several different levels – among young people, between them and the researchers, among researchers, and among NGOs, government and society. It is evident that ‘the dialogue was not just a method, but that it also stood as a principle’¹⁷ producing collective learning. The link between dialogue and learning is constitutive of this chosen methodological path:

‘Better still if, in this investigative process, it were possible to engage these young people in an exercise that would strengthen the democratic principles investigated, and make for shared, thoughtful learning by young participants and researchers’.¹⁸

Through the dialogue, the young people were really able to think about the problems affecting Brazilian youth, systematize their demands, consider different alternative ways of participating in the public sphere to satisfy those demands and formulate proposals. In short, they experienced a kind of participation that may lead to them valorizing and learning about democracy.

There is another more immediate level, however, where the methodology sets out to produce learning:

‘The Choice Work Dialogue methodology also considers the investigative process as a learning process where the participants have the opportunity to access information, make connections between facts and circumstances, perceive conflicts and engage in a collective process where it is possible to learn how far opinions change when people have access to information and then dialogue on a given subject’.¹⁹

One of the challenges facing the team responsible for this kind of study is to guarantee the participants official information. This explains the extreme care taken in the preparation of the instruments used in the dialogue. The Workbook (the template for the dialogue in the study) was the product of rigorous research, the content of which had to be presented in an accessible form to young people that could be taken home when the work was done; the summary of the main ideas was attractively set out with sounds and graphics in a presentation projected on a large screen; and the venue was hung with banners.

Therefore, researchers were aware of the educational dimension to the study and its methodology. In addition, most of them are also involved in training activities of some kind, either as university professors or as specialists in NGOs working with capacity-building and strengthening citizenship. However, during the Dialogues, we had to be careful to relegate the educator’s role to the background and act as facilitators of the youth dialogue and as researchers observing the process of opinion formation.

That is why it is no surprise to hear the participants say that the most important thing about the day was the interchange of ideas – giving their opinion, hearing others, considering, reinforcing or changing opinions, and arriving at syntheses. However, the emphasis they placed on the learning process did surprise us. One imagines that the young people themselves were surprised: they gained access to a variety of knowledge in a social situation where it was not expected since what they had been invited to was nothing like a class, course or talk.

This learning dimension was very conspicuous, to the point that on several occassions participants reformulated the question that had been proposed to them and written on a poster in front of them. Instead of answering ‘What was most important about what happened here today?’, many of them started off by saying ‘The most important thing I learned here today was …’. Sometimes, we facilitators reminded them of the original question, but the young people went on talking about learnings.

For these reasons, the emphasis they placed on learning, the explicit references to this dimension of the investigative process, can be considered as an unforeseen result of the study. Something similar is described in numerous other studies, where subjects invited to respond to questions in a questionnaire or interview declare that the experience led to unexpected learning because it made them ponder the realities of their lives and become aware of certain processes and challenges. This may have significant repercussions in terms of momentum for action. This happened in the Dialogue Groups as well.

Lastly, it is important to underline the potential influence of the institutional framework in which this study was carried out. The study was proposed by two leading Brazilian NGOs– Ibase and Pólis – which along with other civil society organizations work to improve democracy and overcome the profound social inequalities characteristic of Brazilian society. The survey was performed by a network of NGOs (mostly) and universities.

‘Using a method that allies principles of academic research and of popular education, while remaining distinct from both of them’²⁰ was a challenge, but I think that the methodology is really quite appropriate to the task of knowledge production as performed in the NGO sphere. Generally speaking, research conducted by NGOs is designed to give a qualified response to demands brought by social movements and/or it is intended to be effective in influencing social processes and conflicts.

One of the factors responsible for the success of this undertaking was the interrelationship between researchers from NGOs whose activities are shaped by the principles of popular education and which advocate for youth rights. These include Ação Educativa (São Paulo), Cria (Salvador), Equip and Redes e Juventudes (Recife), Inesc (Brasília), Iser Assessoria (Rio de Janeiro) and Unipop (Belém) – and academic scholars who valorize the work of university extension – from federal universities in Minas Gerais (UFMG, Belo Horizonte), Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and Rio de Janeiro (UFF).

One of the principles of popular education is learning from practice. There is no doubt that the organizations and researchers that participated in this thinking exercise had the opportunity to bring their own forms of social intervention into dialogue with knowledge produced during the study. This is conducive to acquiring new learnings and fits well with the chosen methodological path. As mentioned above, it seeks to foster ‘shared, thoughtful learning by the young participants and researchers’.

Another principle of popular education is the inseparable relationship between knowledge and action. Perceiving that there were young people who were stimulated to think about their lives and their country and to take a position was one of the most significant fruits of this investigative process. There were even participants who showed a willingness to engage in the forms of social action being examined during the Day.

We were glad that these young people’s participation in the study may have short- and long-term repercussions on their activities in society. The thinker Paulo Freire invites us to perceive in the educational process that ‘the given world is a world giving of itself and, for that very reason, can be changed, transformed, reinvented’.²¹ According to Freire, in this way, ‘the viewpoint of the learning changes’.²² This is true not just for the young people, but also for the researchers and organizations involved in this study, which can be changed and transformed.

The work done on Dialogue Day revealed another principle of the relationship established between individuals in a popular education process: commitment. As one boy put it, the study was being carried out by people and institutions with a commitment to youth:

‘It’s great to know there are people concerned about the young, who fight for our rights, who are concerned for us, who are on our side.’ (Rio de Janeiro)

This declaration not only surprised our region’s research team, it moved us. It was encouragement to reassert our commitment to ensuring effective rights for the young people of our country. We were researchers, educators and citizens and the multiple nature of our work was explicit.

To summarize, the Dialogue Groups research methodology offered the young participants a singular opportunity to work in groups. It allowed them to express their opinions, listen to others, debate ideas, seek syntheses so as to formulate proposals – in short, to collectively construct knowledge. They were also able to argue their propositions in a larger group and had to produce arguments to do so. In doing so, they learned in a variety of ways and situated the set of problems they were examining – youth demands and participation – in the broader context of the contradictions that mark Brazilian society. That is to say that the debate on one subject contributed to forming these young people and gained an educational dimension, bringing it close to many of the principles of popular education. This education is taking place outside the school classroom – which, notwithstanding, could incorporate these methodological principles into the formal education process.

Meanwhile, the perception that various agents and institutions took an interest in their ideas gave a sense of visibility to the young people, most of whom are poor and whose rights are continuously abused. While one of the goals was to ‘engage these young people in an exercise that would strengthen the democratic principles being investigated’, another purpose of this study carried out among NGOs was to have political impact and to contribute to broadening the rights of Brazilian youth. The intention of this much broader goal is to ensure that government policies are truly public and to surmount the yawning social and economic inequalities that mar Brazilian society.

Notes

¹  These two methodological approaches cannot be detailed in the space of this chapter. More information is available on the CD-ROM containing the overall project report (Ibase and Pólis, January, 2006). Please see the report on Dialogue Group Methodology, systematized by Patrícia Lânes.

²  The Dialogue Group is the qualitative methodology used in the survey. The Dialogue Day is the occasion when each group is held. Each day was conducted by the study teams in the various metropolitan regions and comprised a series of activities and dynamics to encourage interaction among the young people and dialogue among them on the core research questions. The products from the work done on the Dialogue Days provided the input for the qualitative analyses.

³  As pointed out by the São Paulo metropolitan region study team (Corti et al 2005: 89).

⁴  This article is the product of a multitude of stimulating dialogues: with young people who accepted the invitation to take part in the study; with Marilena Cunha and Alexandre Aguiar, researchers with the Rio de Janeiro team and companions in the adventure of getting young people together and hearing and analyzing their opinions; with Bianca Brandão, the research assistant I talked to for the first time about the expectations surrounding the Dialogue Day; with researchers from the other metropolitan regions and the central team, by way of seminars, reports and an e-forum. My friend, Eliane Ribeiro, from the project’s technical team, with whom I have for some years shared views on issues of Brazilian youth, and Névio Fiorin, a member of the Iser Assessoria team, both made valuable contributions to a preliminary draft of this text. My acknowledgements to all of them.

⁵  The young people’s words were taken from the regional reports on the Dialogue Groups that circulated in the study’s e-forum. The metropolitan region where the young person took part in the Dialogue is noted in brackets. I was directly involved with the project in Rio de Janeiro, which is why I offer more quotes from what was said there.

⁶  As rightly noted by the research team in Belém (Silva et al 2005: 80).

⁷  When the guiding principles behind the Dialogue were set out (listen to people and learn from them; respect different opinions; look for common ground; express disagreement without argument or offence, and so on) (Ibase and Pólis 2006: 7).

⁸  The authorities, decision-makers in Brazil.

⁹  (Fischer et al 2005: 135).

¹⁰  This aspect was signalled both by the research team in Belo Horizonte, which pointed to the ‘lack of settings and channels for participation where these young people can exercise the collective dimension, either in debates or in action’ (Dayrell et al 2005: 72), and by the Porto Alegre team, which mentioned the need to set up institutional spaces for listening to young people when formulating public policies directed at that portion of the population (Fischer et al 2005: 135).

¹¹  On the basis of one boy’s saying he’d discovered that ‘young people are important too’, the researchers suggested that ‘the opportunity to dialogue with their peers seems, in one way or another, to have reinforced the awareness of “being young”’ (De Tommasi 2005: 57).

¹²  As pointed out by the researchers in São Paulo, ‘the young people that made up the public of the Dialogues were from quite different contexts and all that they said and their ways of being and doing bore the imprint of the diversity of youth in the region’ (Corti et al 2005: 94).

¹³  This was also brought out by the survey in Porto Alegre, which indicated that: ‘friendship, as a possibility for expanding networks of relations, is strongly emphasized as a fundamental dimension in building youth identities’ (Fischer et al 2005: 135).

¹⁴  A list of arguments for and against each participation path was presented to the young people in the Dialogue groups as input to their collective thinking.

¹⁵  See Oliveira et al (2005: 77).

¹⁶  As emphasized by the researchers in the Brasília team: ‘the young people perceived the Dialogue Day as an opportunity to talk to each other about important subjects involving politics and citizenship (…), and a fundamentally important space for understanding their role as citizens’ (Costa et al 2005: 79).

¹⁷  See text on the Dialogue Group Methodology, on the CD-ROM containing the Overall Report (Ibase and Pólis 2006: 3).

¹⁸  Ibid, p. 12.

¹⁹  Ibid, pp. 3-4.

²⁰  Ibid, p. 11.

²¹  Freire (1991: 30).

²²  Ibid.

References

Freire, Paulo, Educação na cidade, Cortez (São Paulo, 1991).

Research Reports

Corti, Ana Paula, Souza, Raquel & Oliveira, Elisabete, Relatório da Etapa Qualitativa (Grupos de Diálogo). Região Metropolitana de São Paulo. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Ação Educativa, Ibase, Pólis (São Paulo, June 2005).

Costa, Ozanira Ferreira da, Figueiredo, Karina & Ribeiro, Perla, Relatório dos Grupos de Diálogo. Região Metropolitana de Brasília. Que Brasil queremos? E como chegar lá?, Inesc, Ibase, Pólis (Brasilia, June 2005).

Dayrell, Juarez, Leâo, Geraldo & Gomes, Nilma Lino, Relatório Preliminar dos Grupos de Diálogo. Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Observatório da Juventude da UFMG, Ibase, Pólis (Belo Horizonte, June 2005).

De Tommasi, Lívia, Brandâo, Marcílio & Braga, Graça Elenice, Relatório Região Metropolitana do Recife, Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Equip, Ibase, Pólis (Recife, 2005).

Fischer, Nilton Bueno, Souza, Carmem Zeli, Ramos, Nara, Stecanela, Nilda & Salva, Sueli, Relatório Qualitativo dos Grupos de Diálogo. Região Metropolitana de Porto Alegre. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, PPGEDU/UFRGS, Ibase, Pólis (Porto Alegre, June 2005).

Ibase & Pólis, ‘A metodologia dos Grupos de Diálogo’, in Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas. Relatório Global (CD-ROM), Ibase, Pólis (Rio de Janeiro, January 2006).

Oliveira, Júlia Ribeiro, Silva, Ana Paula Carvalho & Colaço, Fernanda, Relatório Parcial dos Grupos de Diálogos. Região Metropolitana de Salvador. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Cria, Ibase, Pólis (Salvador, 2005).

Ribeiro, Eliane, Lânes, Patrícia & Carrano, Paulo, Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Relatório Final, Ibase, Pólis (Rio de Janeiro, November 2005).

Rodrigues, Solange, Cunha, Marilena & Aguiar, Alexandre, Relatório Qualitativo - Grupos de Diálogo. Região Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Iser Assessoria/Observatório Jovem da UFF, Ibase, Pólis (Rio de Janeiro, June 2005).

Silva, Lúcia Isabel da Conceição, Viana, Rosely Risuenho & Silva, Francisca Guiomar da, Relatório Qualitativo, Região Metropolitana de Belém. Research Project Juventude Brasileira e Democracia: participação, esferas e políticas públicas, Unipop, Ibase, Pólis (Belém, 2005).

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