Male teenagem woekers: family, word school, violence

Author(s)

Felipe Watarai

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2006-07-20

Examining board members

Geraldo Romanelli; Margareth Aparecida Santini de Almeida; Ana Paula Soares da Silva

• Advisor: Geraldo Romanelli

Abstract

This research aimed to exam the forms of sociability established by male teenagers in their families, at work and school, and how they live with the violence that takes place in their neighborhoods. The projects of future they elaborate from their precarious conditions of life were also investigated. The subjects of this study were ten male teenagers, from 16 to 18 incomplete years, who were attending a public secondary school in the evening period; presently working, either legally registered or not; and from low-income class families of Ribeirão Preto/SP, Brazil. The datum collect were developed through semi-structured interviews with each subject, that were recorded and literally transcribed. The observation of the subjects at their school and during the interviews was another instrument for this research. The datum analysis was performed through the theoretic references of Anthropology. The results indicate that the relationships established by the subjects with their socialization environments tend to instill in them values such as commitment with work and honesty. In the relationships with their families, specially with the parents, these values were transmitted both through direct advises and orientations, and through models of behavior offered by the parents to their children to follow. The subjects? beginning to work, even if it wasn?t completely a decision of their parents, was approved and encouraged by them. On the other hand, the subjects tended to consider this beginning was mostly a decision of their own, seeking maturity and autonomy from their parents. The subjects mentioned that after they had begun working, they became, even if only partially, ?grown up?. The worker identity established from their jobs tend to outstand from other identities, such as the student one. So, the teenagers justify their attending to school for their desire of getting better jobs through academic qualification. Indiscipline, which is considered a children?s behavior, and crimes weren?t considered proper attitudes for the adult and worker identity that they intend to establish. The relationships with peers, from their school and neighborhoods, were also structured by this identity, once the subjects aimed to differ from ?bad? students, and from people that consumed drugs or were involved with crimes. The violence that the subjects described was connected to urban criminality, which, beyond the concrete damages it can cause, might also interfere in the identity of the subjects, once they shared the same neighborhoods with the criminals. Poverty can offer a negative identity to these teenagers, due both to the precarious conditions of life, and to the exposure to violence that equals poor workers to criminals. In their projects of future, the subjects express the desire of conquering better ways of living, at least more stable than they have in the present, marked by poverty. On the other hand, this instability may be related to the adolescence phase of development in which the subjects were, when future projects weren?t very clear to them and present was perceived as something transitory. (AU)