INTEGRAL EDUCATION AND THE (IM)POSSIBILITIES FOR YOUTHS

Abstract

The text results from the systematization of the conference presented at the thematic panel: "Full-Time Education and the (Im)possibilities for Youths," during the XI International Colloquium on Curriculum Policies - VII National Seminar of the Research Group on Curriculum and Educational Practices and the IV Symposium of the Northeast Region, an event held in João Pessoa in October 2024. In this work, I aim to demonstrate that basic education and youth education in an integrated perspective in Brazil has been, and still is, associated with human development ideologies, competing for spaces and projects amidst other social interests, particularly those of liberal forces that view and project youth as an asset for the market and productive life. With this in mind, I first situate full-time education within the approaches that see it as an alternative for another possible world, and then highlight full-time education projects directed at youth that have challenged and continue to challenge the forces of a social model marked by predominantly economic interests, in which the public nature of education is being shifted toward a private service. We conclude by arguing that the utopias of integral human formation need to be redefined in terms of concrete struggles, well situated, articulating theoretical conception with strategies for occupying political spaces, where the most substantive decisions are made.