A construção do pensamento histórico e das identidades juvenis: um estudo com jovens de 8ª séries do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This thesis presents the research results developed in post-graduation Program Master's in Education of UFU about the historical thought formation and the youth identity. Our problem was to understand: who are they? And how do the young students of 8th grade think? What are the meanings, relationships and influences of knowledge and ideas, about the civic dates, in the historical thought formation and the young students' identity? Our general goal is to analyze the process formation of the historical thought about civic dates and the young students' civic identity construction in classes of 8th grade of basic education in Uberlândia city, Minas Gerais / Brazil, in 2006 . In the first chapter, we aim to characterize the young students' profiles of 8 th grade from public and private schools and to identify and analyze the young people's conceptions, subjects of this research, about their youth condition and regarding the history teaching. In the second chapter, we searched to identify and analyze the importance of civic dates for the young people researched. And in the third chapter, we discuss how the young people's historical thought about civic dates relates to the youth identity formation, mainly, in regard to citizenship and political dimension. We evidenced, in this research, the quantitative and qualitative approach, and it was applied 134 questionnaires, in 05 public and private schools in Uberlândia city. We also developed five focal groups, with the participation of 28 young people from a universe of 134 ones who answered to the questionnaires. Data collected were analyzed from the dialogue with studies, concepts and approaches on youth issues, such as: Sposito (1997), Corti and Souza (2004), Dayrell (2003) and Parents (2007), and also with literature about the young people's historical thought, Barca (2000/2004) Monsanto (2004), Chaves (2006), Shimidt (2007) and Melo (2007). We noticed that the youth identity sets up by multiple components that bind to the age group, to the economical condition, to the projections to the future and so forth. We concluded that the significance of an event date / mark, in the case of those bound to civic dates, are changed as the socio-political context, conceptions of history bound in school, ethnicity, the socio-cultural environment and the proper dynamics of focal group discussion. Different components are intersected and converged to the constitution of the young people's historical thought, from the European history influence taught in schools to the media influence. About the political and citizen dimension, we realized, at the same time, that young people are aware of the politics relevance in their lives, most of young people researched don't see themselves as being important subjects to interfere in the processes of political participation, because they are under age and can't vote. We hope, with our research, contribute to the research field that evidences young people as research subjects and, in special, their knowledge, the senses / meanings they attach to the youth identity and the historical knowledge. We still have the claim that by sharing with our readers the experience of hearing what young people think about their own condition and about some historical knowledge bound to citizenship and politics, we can be more understanding and less general about the clichés and / or labels that , often, we attach to the youth.