ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the dynamics of business undergraduate students political awareness at a Brazilian public federal university concerning their citizen participation in participatory public spaces. The data were gathered and analyzed in two stages, through questionnaires and semistructured interviews in 2014, submitted to content analysis approach. Interest in exercising citizenship, improving public policies, getting involving in political issues and defending their interest in conflict circumstances are justifications listed by those who participate. Students with more active participation show beliefs, social values and expectations connected to political efficacy, collective identity, antagonistic interests, feelings of justice and injustice, which favor the will of acting collectively because they see their interests match the goals of collective actions in the movements they are involved. The students who do not participate suspect these participatory public spaces and show to be uninterested in public issues, even though they seem to be uncomfortable with not participating. Their beliefs, social values and expectations, associated to feelings of political inefficacy hinder their development of political awareness. We concluded that these students have common sense political awareness. They show social and political values that are inherent to current fads of peoples everyday life. On the other hand, students with more active participation display conflict political awareness, which motivates them to participate in places deemed as effective to their propositions. However, the Centro Acadêmico, main space for representing students' interests and participation shows to have no direction and participation in institutionalized bodies of the university.
Political Awareness; Citizen Participation; Participatory Public Spaces; Organizational Studies