Popular education, public action, and vulnerabilities: the young people in Red Ubuntu in M’Boi Mirim

This study finds the reasons for perseverance of young people living in M’Boi Mirim c southern São Paulo grown in preparing for the selection processes for higher education. By research and action in partnership with the Ubuntu Popular Education Network, we found that, despite the lack of engagement with the formal education system, young people find an experience of belonging and complicity among peers in it that can give new meanings to their own experience of study and learning, expanding their expectations for the future. Although their paths may fluctuate depending on their financial, family, and relational situation, an eventual interruption fails to represent an “evasion” of their training process (which would suggest the context of formal education). We propose that the Ubuntu Network experience be read as a public action that can produce relevant knowledge about teaching-learning practices with young people, contributing to policies in vulnerable situations.

Keywords:
youth; education; vulnerability; popular education; public action