Identity and Biographical Construction and Life Project: Perspectives according to High School Students in Brazil

Abstract

This paper is the result of a survey carried out in a public school in a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. We analyzed the Life Project module, a component of the high school curriculum in the Full Time Education Program (PEI). We concentrated on the analysis of the established principles, syllabuses, and students’ feelings regarding such content and the life project as a whole. This longitudinal research followed a group of ten students from their first to third years of high school at one school. Data were collected using discussion groups and analyzed based on critical discourse analysis. We found that the excessive focus on issues such as socio-emotional skills, social initiative, self-confidence, responsibility, empathy, determination, assertiveness, stress tolerance, confidence, and creative imagination placed too much responsibility on students and there was little reflection about the institutions responsible. Aspects such as public policies to support students in choosing a future profession by, for example, offering cultural and social experiences to help students expand their cultural and social capital or providing economic support to guarantee that students keep on studying, would constitute a real contribution for students to be able to build their life project, alongside identity and biographical construction.