The four youths facing the expansion of secondary enrolment and higher education: studying, working, finding yourself.

• Grant number: 24/05745-9
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Visiting Researcher Grant - International
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Fundamentals of Education
• Principal Investigator: Graziela Serroni Perosa
• Grantee: Graziela Serroni Perosa
• Visiting researcher: Manuel Alejandro Giovine
• Visiting researcher institution: Universidad Nacional De Córdoba/Unc, Argentina
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In 2021, during a period of confinement due to the Covid-19 epidemic, we carried out an exploratory study of young people aged 18 to 24, from different social groups, based on four categories proposed by ECLAC: young people who only study, those who only work, those who study and work and those who neither study nor work. Is this classification enough to grasp the strong social inequalities present in the current situation in Latin American countries? How has the expansion of access to secondary school and higher education contributed (or not) to changing the proportion of young people in each of these categories? FAPESP's funding of Manuel Alejandro Giovine as a Visiting Professor will allow us to carry out decisive stages of this research: i) build a historical series (2000-2024) of these categories based on ECLAC statistics; ii) revise and deepen the questionnaire used in 2021, in order to reapply it and thus increase the sample of respondents; iii) carry out studies based on factor analyses to try to identify changes and permanence in the structure of living conditions, in the study and work trajectories of young people, notably. Manuel A. Giovine has expertise in this type of data processing. He will be able to analyse the quality of the data, systematise and structure it in order to carry out a factor and classification analysis. The main objective is to question the effects of increased access to and completion of secondary school on the trajectories of these young people who, at the same biological age, have such different living conditions. On the basis of the data obtained and the discussions we will hold at USP, he will propose the design for a qualitative sample aimed at carrying out semi-structured interviews with young people living in the municipality of São Paulo. The main hypothesis proposes that the generalisation of access to secondary school diplomas represents a process of intense modification of educational and occupational aspirations which, among other effects, produces the formation of a much greater demand for higher education. Beyond this more obvious effect, it tends to have decisive effects on social mobility and, in some cases, is associated with deeper processes of reinventing oneself. Thus, the results of this visit as a Visiting Professor in São Paulo are promising and represent the possibility of continuing the work started in 2021, as well as consolidating a common research agenda. (AU)