The purpose of this study was too understand the dynamic of the social representations concerning children and adolescents, among the social representatives who participated in the 1987-88 National Constitution Assembly, in which children and adolescents were given their legal protection rights. The public dealings granted to the child and the adolescent, in the social Brazilian history were approached as a locus of representations, spaces and social practices. The investigation advanced into its empirical universe, the National Constitution Assembly, which elaborated the Federal Constitution, with legal innovations for the child and the adolescent. The analysis lead to discoveries in a two-way direction: the distancing between the Constitution Process and the constitution text; the distancing of the constitution outcome and the Brazilian social thoughts. Brazil after the Constituent Assembly is updated, having as analytical reference the social representations of children and adolescents.
child and adolescent; social representations; constitution process