Urban youth and the (un)occupied territories

reports from public high school students

Abstract

The concept of educational cities values urban space as a place of learning, social experience, and formation of values. Thinking about low-income urban youth, who inhabit the segregated reality, encourages reflection on the place of these young people in the urban context. This research seeks to understand how low-income young people interact with the urban space and what are the spaces and forms of appropriation and social interaction. The research is characterized by qualitative evaluation and uses the case study strategy, which includes an analysis conducted in a public high school with students in the first and third years, in a public high school, located in the city of Vila Velha, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The following instruments were used for data collection: identification questionnaire, guided dialogue, affective mapping, and affective questionnaire. Based on young people's reports about their daily trajectories, the places they frequent and which they build bonds, the objective was to absorb the speeches, to know the way in which socio-spatial relations occur and to elaborate reflections. The results reveal that most do not experience the urban space as a place of social interaction, due to insecurity, violence, and lack of opportunities. They establish their routines mostly indoors and have limited access, usually through school, to the cultural equipment of the neighborhood and the municipality.