DESIRES FOR LIFE: WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADOLESCENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE PERIPHERY SAY

Abstract

The aim of this study is to interpret the desires for life of young people and adolescents, checking their contradictory relationship with the activity of studying in secondary schools on the outskirts of the city. The theoretical basis for the discussions is based on Historical-Cultural Psychology and Activity Theory, which understand desires as regulators and motivators of the appearance and disappearance of needs. These, in turn, can generate the motive that drives human activity. The data was collected in 2018 in two schools in a city in Mato Grosso do Sul and two schools in a city in Rondônia. We used the results obtained from the written questionnaire, which covered 335 students attending the 1st to 3rd year of high school. The desires presented were classified into 13 axes, of which the most cited were related to "college and/or future work" and the least cited to obtaining knowledge. In general, it is understood that these are working class students who mainly want a job and/or a degree that leads to a job (23%) and that with their salary they can maintain financial stability (7%) capable of buying a house and a car (material goods - 12%), as well as having personal and social well-being (15%). The particularities of the study activity offered in schools on the outskirts of town direct them towards adapting to the flexible job market, which needs individuals with the socio-emotional skills to survive the precarious conditions of employability, not to work as a constitutive category of the human race/social being.