Orientador: Augusto Caccia-Bava Júnior. / Resumo: Este trabalho procurou investigar os aspectos preponderantes existentes nas representações dos jovens na elaboração da sua concepção de futuro a partir de sua trajetória pelo ensino médio. São jovens provenientes das classes subalternas e das frações mais baixas das camadas médias, que buscam no ensino médio público as credenciais para ingresso em cursos superiores e técnicos e, principalmente, a escolaridade que lhes permita ter acesso a melhores empregos. Para isso, foram analisados documentos elaborados pelo MEC para reforma do ensino médio, para compreender as ideologias e os interesses neles implícitos e como isso afeta a formação do jovem. Pelas entrevistas, foram ouvidos diretores de escolas, professores e pais de alunos. Já para os jovens aqui pesquisados, além das entrevistas, formam aplicados questionários e reunidos em grupos focais, que possibilitaram apreender suas concepções de futuro elaboradas partir de suas trajetórias pelo ensino. A realidade encontrada revelou-se complexa, o currículo do ensino médio ministrado nas escolas públicas não potencializa as oportunidades da construção do conhecimento, tornando-se um obstáculo para a concretização dos seus projetos de futuro. Por conseguinte, os jovens vão privilegiar o trabalho em detrimento da escola, compartilhando inseguranças e preocupações, construindo expectativas pouco significativas em relação ao futuro. Pelo que foi observado, estudo, trabalho e família são projetos comuns aos jovens, que desejam adquirir independência financeira e autonomia pessoal e buscam no estudo apesar dos obstáculos, a possibilidade de ascensão social. / Abstract: The aim of this research was to investigate the preponderant aspects in the youth's representation in the elaboration of their concept of the future through their high school trajectory. These young students generally come from subaltern social classes and lower middle classes. They try to find in the public high school the credentials to enter in superior and technique courses and, mainly, to obtain the knowledge that permits them to find better jobs. For this, it was analyzed some documents elaborated by MEC, concerning the renovation of the high school system, to comprehend the ideology and interests of high school as well as to know its effects on the young students' development. Interviews were done with school principals, teachers and students' parents. For the analyzed students, besides the interview, it was applied some questionnaires. The students were separated in focal groups what enable the understanding of their conception of the future elaborated through their trajectory in high school. A complex reality was found due to the fact that the curriculum appied in the public high school does not consider the opportunities of curriculum applied in the public high school does not consider the opportunities of knowledge construction and become, therefore, an obstacle to the concretization of the students, future projects. Because of this, the young students prefer working over studying. They share insecurities and worries, and construct non-significant expectations of the future. According to what was observed studying, working and having a family are common projects for the yong students that search for financial independence and personal autonomy. For them, studying despite its obstacles, can be a means of social ascension. / Doutor

The poverty is a very comprehensive and complicated concept and it is considered to be behind one of the most serious problems of the globalized world today. Poverty can be conceptualized as an expression of extreme disparity because it distances specific sections of the population not only from the rich, but also from the rest of the population. At present, world disparity and poverty continue to grow and the split between wealth and poverty grows both globally and on a national scale. This thesis is divided into two parts {--} theoretical and practical. The theoretical part limits itself to looking at basic terms e.g. poverty from a global perspective, types of poverty, its monitoring and measurement, disparity, unemployment, population groups at risk of poverty and social exclusion. The influence of social transfers in connection with poverty is also highlighted in the work. On the basis of the defined hypothesis other marginally mentioned key topics are included. These concern life values and the perceptions of young people, as well as the discrepancy between men and women in the biological, psychological and social fields. The thrust of the thesis was to ascertain the perception of poverty in the minds of young people. The research was carried out at selected schools through the use of anonymous questionnaires. Each questionnaire contained ten questions. The results of the research are presented in the chapter "Results" which forms the practical part of the thesis.

Background: Chlamydia screening is an international strategy used to reduce rates of infection in a target population. This thesis set out to explore the behaviour of young people against the principles of this government strategy for infection control and self-empowerment. The work was set in County Durham and Darlington where I led a service for improved awareness and screening for Chlamydia for young people aged 15 – 24 years. Aims: This research was based on interviews with Chlamydia screening service users in order to understand the factors that influenced their risk taking behaviours and to generate theory for public health practice. An analysis of outcomes from a large sample of over 20,000 subjects and observations of young people in settings where Chlamydia testing and advice was available gave context and background to this study. Findings Chlamydia screening was used as a strategy to offset risk taking that enabled young people to continue behaviours that they valued. This finding is a new and unexpected contribution to Chlamydia screening literature, and also supports the developing theory of edgework. Knowledge and awareness of Chlamydia did not change as a result of screening activities, and this did not have a major influence on preventative behaviour. The national messages that one in 10 young people are infected, and that infection is easily detected and managed, was interpreted by some that nine in 10 young people were not infected, and that this was not a significant health threat. Incentives were found to significantly increase screening uptake although this did not lead to a change in risk taking. There was an increased likelihood to have sex with the perception of knowing a partner, although this was not necessarily based upon factual information. Most participants demonstrated lethal patterns of alcohol consumption that commonly led to sexual encounters and all those who stated that they were aware of safe drinking limits demonstrated lethal patterns of alcohol consumption. All participants with a positive test result had a negative result within the previous year suggesting no change in risk taking following screening, and although all participants said that they would modify their behaviour in the future, when they were probed all stated that this would not happen giving reasons such failure to moderate alcohol use. Conclusion: These findings led me to conclude that risk taking in relation to health and potential disease is a normal process in the development of young people. Young people value risk taking activities for promoting self-identity and supporting emotional and social well-being. Public health interventions need to consider the developmental needs of young people using an asset based approach in order to provide interventions that address the causes of risk taking behaviours.

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This thesis explores the role and relevance of the concepts of participation and service user involvement for work with sexually exploited children and young people. The central research questions are: how do young people at risk of, or affected by sexual exploitation, experience their rights to involvement in decision-making processes about their care? What is the meaning and value of the concept of participation from service users’ own perspectives? And what are the gains of involving these young people in decision-making processes about their care? The research involved in-depth qualitative interviews with twenty young service users and ten practitioners. Three theoretical frameworks underpin the study; a constructivist approach to childhood; sociological approaches to agency, and discourses of children’s participation rights. The analysis of data was informed by both narrative and grounded theory approaches. The thesis argues that young people’s perspectives on professional welfare, though rarely recorded or allowed to inform policy and best practice, shed new insight onto the efficacy and limitations of existing child protection practice with adolescents at risk of sexual exploitation. Consideration is given to how young people experience and respond to services, including their decisions about disengaging from or circumventing professional support. The thesis concludes that these demonstrations of agency and power, though often interpreted as deviant, are essentially rational and often protective. Through this lens young people’s agency is recognised as a resource rather than a problem. The thesis concludes by arguing that the ability of support services to protect young people affected by sexual exploitation is contingent on the degree to which they involve young people in decision-making about their care. Rather than standing in opposition to paternalistic approaches to protection, the narratives suggest that participation and empowerment are necessary conditions of a protective service, especially for those considered most marginalized or vulnerable.

People with diagnoses of mental illness have been described as the last minority group against whom it is socially acceptable to discriminate. Challenging the stigma of mental illness is a major social issue and public health concern. Despite a range of anti-stigma efforts being conducted in recent years, the problem persists. It has been argued that a good place to start when changing social attitudes is with young people, whose attitudes are in a state of flux, making them more open to alternative ways of thinking. However, school based educational approaches designed to address this issue are in their infancy. To date, the mental health stigma reduction agenda has largely been drawn up by those who hold most power in the field – predominantly psychiatrists. This has led to anti-stigma initiatives drawing primarily on a biomedical model. There is a growing body of evidence that this approach is not only ineffective, but can actually increase stigma. There is therefore a need to investigate and test alternative approaches. Furthermore, previous research investigating young people’s knowledge of and attitudes about mental illness has been constrained by being conducted within the terms of the dominant discourse.This research set out to investigate how young people construct their positions in relation to mental illness. A primary aim was to understand how they negotiate the ambiguities of the mental health discourse. In addition, it has looked at the impact of engaging in ‘inclusive dialogue’ about mental illness on young people’s sense making. Mental illness is itself an essentially contested concept. Inclusive dialogue is an approach which takes seriously the variety of competing concerns which make up the ways in which mental illness is approached in day to day life, aiming to embrace the complexities and encourage people to grapple with them, bringing their own experiences and beliefs to bear. The underlying purpose of the inquiry was to consider whether there is potential for educational initiatives to help young people adopt non-discriminatory stances in relation to mental illness. The research was conducted qualitatively, and engaged a group of seven year 10 pupils in a series of discussions, which took place over the course of a half term. In addition, individual interviews and follow up group sessions were carried out later in the academic year.The results of this study indicate that engaging young people in inclusive dialogue is beneficial across a range of domains. The young people said that the discussions left them more comfortable in talking about mental illness and confident about their ability to respond to mental illness in people around them. The study revealed that context and the specific details of each situation are crucial in determining whether young people take up stigmatising or supportive positions towards people with a mental illness. Stepping outside the terms of the dominant discourse reveals that far from being the product of poor comprehension of biomedical psychiatry, ‘stigma’ may in fact be just one of a set of responses to people with mental illness. People who are mentally ill sometimes behave in ways that are disturbing and frightening, and it is vital that education accepts, rather than sidesteps, this reality. The findings of this investigation suggest that what is needed to improve social responses to mental illness is a reframing of the issues; a conceptual shift, wherein the notions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘attitude’ are not taken for granted and the aim of ‘reducing stigma’ is left behind in favour of the positively framed target of increasing solidarity.

It is clear that unmarried cohabitation is increasing in Chile. It is less clear what unmarried cohabitation is and why is it rising. In Latin America cohabitation is common among low income groups, and has been described as a surrogate marriage for the disadvantaged. Cohabitation in the region entails conventional gender roles and having children. It has been explained by colonial dominance, poverty, kinship, and machismo. The evidence amassed here indicates that although in practice cohabitation is similar to marriage, they are not the same. In fact, cohabitation has decreased social visibility. Cohabitation does not entail any social ceremony or rite. As it is not institutionalised it remains concealed from both social recognition and social scrutiny. Thus it tolerates partners who are dissimilar, or can be sustained despite a higher level of difficulties in a relationship. The findings validate previous research as cohabitation is sparked by pregnancy, parental tolerance - mainly through not enforcing marriage -, a close mother-son bond –which inhibits marriage-, and the material costs of marriage. The research follows a life course perspective. It is based on twenty four qualitative life histories of urban deprived young people, women and men, involved in a consensual union and with children. In Chile from the 1990s onwards cohabitation started to show a sharp increase. Prevalent views explain rising cohabitation as an outcome of processes of individualization, democratization of relationships, and female emancipation. This research suggests that rising cohabitation, among young people from low income groups in Chile, is linked to enhanced autonomy (i.e. declining patriarchy), and to social benefits targeted to single mothers. Young people are gaining autonomy as union formation is increasingly an outcome of romantic love and not of being forced into marriage. Furthermore cohabitation rose right at the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, at a time of enhanced freedom and autonomy. By contrast, rising cohabitation does not seem to be related to female emancipation. Interviewees themselves reproduce conventional gender roles, and social policies targeted to the single mother are based on conventional views on womanhood.

The repercussions associated with young people's exclusion from policing can be detrimental. The police will lack a basic understanding of young people s problems, needs and expectations. In these situations, young people will be less inclined to report crimes and their own victimisation to the police, provide intelligence, and participate in the criminal justice system. This study is intended to provide a critical appraisal of young people s perceptions of Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and community policing in Leicester, in an effort to delineate the implications of their exclusion from local policing and crime related issues. Community policing is a well-known policing philosophy, particularly for repairing police public relations through engagement and problem solving. The findings demonstrate that despite the fundamental benefits associated with community policing, conventional methods of engagement and problem solving have failed to reach out to young people who are, nevertheless, particularly enthusiastic about collaborating with the police. However, whilst the vast majority of young people are positive about getting involved in policing, there are important variations within young people in their perceptions and attitudes towards the police. Young ethnic minorities in general, blacks in particular, were passive and reluctant to collaborate with the police due to their experiences of stop and search and other repercussion associated with the law enforcement style of policing. A lot of these problems can be subsided by diverting police resources to community policing, but there are going to be strong financial, organisational and cultural challenges.

This thesis examines how drinking behaviours are associated with violent behaviour amongst young people in England and Wales. It is argued that in order to deconstruct the alcohol-violence relationship, it is necessary to critically examine drinking patterns and the development thereof as well as attitudes held towards alcohol consumption. The study comprises secondary statistical analyses of the Home Office’s Offending Crime and Justice Survey, a survey providing data on young people’s drinking and offending behaviour over four successive annual sweeps. Cross-sectional models are used to examine the predictors of violent offending and the role of alcohol consumption. These are subsequently extended into longitudinal models to examine change over time. Collectively, these models provide a detailed exploration of how alcohol consumption influences violent behaviour amongst young people and offer some insights into ways in which alcohol-related violence can be moderated. Whilst, on the whole, individual attitude items did not significantly predict violent behaviour amongst regular drinkers, findings did, however, suggest three distinct classifications based on attitudes held towards drinking: ‘social drinkers’, ‘positively motivated drinkers’ and ‘problem drinkers’, which were significantly associated with age, binge drinking frequency and violent offending. Findings also support existing evidence that the pattern of drinking (rather than the frequency of alcohol consumption) is associated with violent offending and the study identifies a contemporaneous (time-specific) association between levels of binge drinking and assault outcomes. That is, that high frequency binge drinking is a temporally proximal risk factor for the increased propensity of committing assault offences and that occurrences in assault outcomes over time are relatively dependent on levels of drinking over time. In turn, this suggests that the periods in which young people are drinking more, they also offend more. The thesis thus provides evidence that reducing alcohol consumption in late adolescence may, in turn, reduce the prevalence of violent assault offences in and immediately after drinking occasions.

In recent years there has been a move towards promoting the well-being and positive outcomes for children and young people who are at risk of or identified with emotional and behavioural difficulties. There has been interest from researchers as to why some young people are able to successfully manage very difficult situations, whilst others are not able cope and may as a result impact on their well-being and overall future outcomes in life. This study aimed to explore the role of executive functions and private speech in relation to resiliency as there has been little previous research exploring these areas together. Using the knowledge of previous research and literature, two research questions were devised; in what ways might executive functioning and young people’s resiliency relate to each other and in what ways does private speech provide insight into young people’s resiliency. This quantitative research made use of a correlation design to explore the relationships between Year 7 students’ perceptions of their resiliency and their neurocognitive executive functions. This exploratory study comprised 162 Year 7 students, who completed the Resiliency Scales for Children and Adolescents (Prince-Embury, 2007) to identify the students’ resiliency profiles. A cross section of students was selected for further investigation. 28 students completed a number of computerised tests to explore their executive functions and their private speech was captured using a video-recorder. The study revealed a number of relationships with particular aspects of executive functioning identified and particular areas of the students’ resiliency. However, the extent to which these skills are related or independent of each other is not known. The counter-intuitive findings suggest that there might be other factors which contributed to such findings, including the students’ perceptions of their competency and their sense of self-worth. There appeared to be differences in students’ use of private speech dependent on their perceived personal strengths and vulnerability. In addition, identification of the students’ non-verbal communication and paralanguage enabled greater access to students’ emotional reactions to the task situations. This helped to explore the way that the students appeared to be able to cope and manage these tasks and explore their emotional regulation further. These results are discussed in light of previous literature and research evidence and implications for practice and future research highlighted.