Pedro Abrantes

Rights and indigenous adolescence in Mexico: new subjects, new dilemmas

This article aims to discuss the advances and challenges related to the fulfilment of the rights of Mexican indigenous children, especially during their adolescent years (ages 12-18). The article has two main sections. First, we review a selection of qualitative and statistical literature that provides a broad overview of the rights of indigenous youth in Mexico and of issues pertaining to their identities and living conditions. Secondly, we present a synopsis of the results of a collaborative research project recently undertaken in 13 indigenous communities located in different regions of Mexico, and one in the us. The results of the study shed light on the varied circumstances of youth living in diverse rural and urban socio-economic contexts. Drawing upon the study’s findings, we discuss three critical aspects of indigenous youth rights: growing indigenous youth awareness of their rights; the evolving and differentiated identities of indigenous adolescents; and the connection between indigenous youth identity and rights.

Gendering social mobility: a comparative perspective on the nexus of education and class across Europe

Research on social mobility typically acknowledges the relevance of gender. However, gender-based differences still lack extensive description and explanation. This article starts by reviewing a number of influential contributions on social mobility, educational systems and employment change, as well as important critiques raised in feminist scholarship with regard to these topics of enquiry. We argue that class analysis should not only document asymmetry between men and women in greater detail, but also incorporate it as a piece of explanatory value in the understanding of social mobility at large. This is attempted by examining the data of the European Social Survey covering 22 countries. Drawing on this large-scale data set, we will demonstrate that the transformation of employment structures favours particular forms of upward mobility, which coexist with the resilience of gender inequality in accessing affluent classes. The impact of gender on the nexus between social background, educational attainment and class position is far from uniform in Europe, with significant variation across classes, countries and fields of study.

Growing Up in Europe’s Backyard: Researching on Education and Youth in Portuguese Poor Suburban Settings

Based on research in poor suburban settings during the last decade in Portugal this chapter explores some key trends, features and perspectives of Portuguese outcasts’ education. Firstly, the chapter describes the expansion and changes of poor suburban territories and their population, from its working-class and clandestine genesis to its multicultural, unemployed and publicly intervened current reality. Its relative closure due to a mix of multiple privations and stigmas is sketched. Secondly, the ambiguous relation of the Portuguese educational system with these territories and populations is analysed. Although, the considerable public investment during the last decades, based on the equal opportunities principle, has improved dramatically educational experiences and careers, a centralist, classist and selective educational culture was not abolished and it was actually reinforced during the last years, legitimized by economic shortage, neoliberal policies and conservative ideologies. With few exceptions, schools in these contexts combine a long-run lack of sensitivity to local contexts with new economic cuts and exclusion pressures, so many young people is still excluded, although they are now formally within the educational system. Thirdly, our chapter will reflect upon the new challenges for intervention when society is facing an economic and financial crisis. Fourthly, the chapter includes a discussion on how the public discourse is now focused on new excluded populations, eluding the traditional groups who remain immersed in poverty. Finally, the chapter emphasizes young people strategies to deal with processes of lowering expectations, trying to make sense of their precarious situation.

Learning how to work in the arts field in Portugal: a biographical approach to the migrant artists' trajectories

The article considers the key dimensions of the life trajectories of the immigrant artists living in the Lisbon metropolitan area focusing on those related to the socialization process both in formal institutions and in a broader setting of informal learning. The authors conducted a sociological analysis of 20 biographical interviews with a heterogeneous set of individuals, including musicians, dancers and plastic artists. These interviews were a part of the research project on the social trajectories of migrant artists from the non-European Union countries living in Portugal. The results of the analysis show that formal and informal learning together with the migrant experience are intertwined and constitute the key factor in the configuration of migrant trajectories. There is often a mobility pattern across art styles, which makes differences between formal and informal circumstances in the life trajectories of migrant artists evident. Migration has a strong impact on the artistic work; this impact affects different areas of biographical experience: contact with the Portuguese culture, development of ethnic references, and participation in transnational art movements. The condition of immigrant artists generally implies a long trajectory of artistic training, including significant experiences of formal and informal learning in multiple social contexts throughout the life course. For those dedicated to the new transnational urban cultures (hip hop, graffiti, etc.), informal learning is the most important element. For those engaged in the traditional arts, the attendance of lengthy artistic programs seems to be a fundamental prerequisite for training and recognition. Together with the long and significant artists’ investments in their education, the sociological study also revealed the great vulnerability (and precariousness) of their life trajectories, and the lack of structures supporting their access to the labor market.

De como escrevemos a vida e a vida se inscreve em nós: um estudo da socialização através da análise de autobiografias

O artigo desenvolve uma abordagem biografica dos processos de socializacao, equacionando teorias classicas e recentes das ciencias sociais, a luz da analise de 53 autobiografias de trabalhadores portugueses, produzidas no quadro de um programa inovador de educacao de adultos. Depois da discussao teorica e metodologica, em dialogo com avancos recentes no campo das neurociencias, defende-se uma nocao de socializacao em tres niveis distintos, ainda que articulados: emocional, pratico e reflexivo.

Mundos à parte? Os sentidos da escola em meios sociais contrastantes

A partir de duas pesquisas recentes, o artigo compara os sentidos atribuidos a escola em dois colegios privados de elite e em sete zonas socialmente desfavorecidas, abrangidas pelo programa Territorios Educativos de Intervencao Prioritaria. Atraves de estudos de caso, procura-se reconstituir as definicoes locais da situacao que resultam da negociacao entre as orientacoes dos estabelecimentos de ensino, as estrategias das familias, as praticas docentes e as culturas juvenis. Um enfoque particular e colocado nos modos diferenciais como se combinam experiencias quotidianas e projetos de futuro. A principal constatacao e que, apesar de integrada no mesmo sistema educativo e da sua centralidade comum na vida dos jovens, a escolaridade nestes contextos nao apenas e marcada pela desigualdade de resultados academicos, mas tambem de objetivos, processos e regimes de socializacao.