Reaching adolescence in youth and adult education: adolescent migrations to night school in Mariana, Minas Gerais

Abstract

This paper stems from a larger study on the growing presence of young people in Adult and Youth Education (YAE) at a public school in Mariana, Minas Gerais, fostering a process that results in the juvenilization of this educational modality. This phenomenon is linked to the migration of 15-year-old students, who have not completed middle school, to night school. The objective was to understand the perceptions of students, aged between 15 and 17, and educators about this transition and its challenges. This qualitative study utilized participant observation, focus groups with students, and interviews with teachers. The observations evinced distinct dynamics and interactions among young people: whereas some students demonstrated distraction and low interaction, others showed organization and collaboration. Both behaviors reflect the class, gender, and social conditions of these “youthful very young people”. Focus groups indicated that the students who seek to be inserted in the labor market face difficulties in balancing study and work, and see the completion of middle school as a path to employability. Teachers, on the other hand, attribute this migration to the pursuit of fast certification in an education scope regarded as less demanding by students. The results challenge the term “juvenilization”, suggesting that it is, in fact, a matter of “becoming adolescent” in adult education, in which socioeconomic factors determine grade retention and failure. It is concluded that educational policies specifically aimed at the needs of adolescents within an age/grade distortion setting are essential to adequately address this phenomenon in the town.