Relationship with knowledge and territorialization tactics of young high school scholarship students in private school

Abstract

This article is part of the debate about youth and high school in a Brazilian context and aims at young students who migrate from public school to private school via scholarships. The objective of the research is to analyze the processes involved in the relationship with knowledge established by these youths upon entering this new school territory. It is based on studies about the relationship with knowledge, and linked to authors from the fields of sociology of youth and geography, with a focus on territory-territorialities. The school that served as a field of research belongs to a confessional network of private schools in Minas Gerais, and the data were produced by means of document analysis, participant observation, and interviews with nine youngsters. The analysis presents the socio-educational profile of the young scholarship students. In relation to the interviews, the concept of tactics proposed by Michel de Certeau is used, which allowed the identification of three territorializing tactics of young people in private school: closeness, survival, and study. The results point to socioeconomic inequalities experienced by the students and the construction of tactics by these students to stay in private school while they continue learning in order to get to public higher education, which stands as a territory of promise. We conclude that it is important to value public schooling, and we also point out the need for further studies to broaden the horizon of debates about young high school students who have scholarships, especially in the context of covid-19.