Theories of common sense regarding teenage labor in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract

This research aimed at the analysis of social representations of work by working and non-working teenagers in two Brazilian state capitals. The sample was composed of 208 teenagers from São Paulo and 180 from Rio de Janeiro, aged between 14 and 22, working and non-working, students at public schools. Data collection consisted of 40 focus groups, directed by the themes of school, daily life, work during adolescence and the future. Alceste 4.7 software was used to sort the data, and the results were analyzed within the dimensions of social representation: attitudes, images and information. The results were compiled into a dendogram and distributed in two blocks called: “The Universe of Interpersonal and Affective Relationships in Adolescence and Daily Life” and “The Universe of Work and School and the Transition Space between the Child and the Adult Being”. The first one was divided into two categories: “About Friends and Colleagues: forms and expressions of interpersonal and affective relationships in adolescence” and “The Teenager’s Daily Life”. The second block originated four categories: “The Universe of the School and its Interrelations”, “Speaking about Future: adolescents between plans and dreams”; “The Family and its Projections for the Future” and “The World of the Work”. A contradiction was observed between the representation of work as a moral and positive value to the youth’s psychosocial development and the educational challenges resulting from the challenges in the structuring of public education, and also the physical and psychological burden imposed on the working teenager in both cities.