Abstract
This article reflects on the mediations between the school and youth worlds, based on perceptions of students from northern Portugal about their education. We focus on secondary education (which is compulsory to all youths in the country since 2009), more specifically in the context of specialist arts education, one of the options available to Portuguese youths. Our investigation looks into the challenges of secondary education and the required integration of youths into its context, while taking on the perspective of youths in order to problematize the response of specialist arts education to elements of the social, cognitive, civic and professional order intrinsic in school education. To achieve these goals, we conducted six biographical interviews with students in the three years of secondary specialist arts education at an institution in the city of Porto. The youths’ ages ranged from 16 to 18 years old, and the interviews explore their educational trajectory in order to biographically situate the meanings they attribute to attending a specialist arts program in secondary education. Data were analyzed based on a narrative approach with the help of content analysis techniques. Results indicate a valuing of the educational process by students, one in which a major part is played by school dynamics that allow deconstructing hierarchic systems, in a bet carried out through informality and innovation. These are corroborated by a spirit of diversity and social dialogue.
Secondary education; Youths; Schooling; Narratives