DO PRESENTE ESTENDIDO AO FUTURO INCERTO: UM ESTUDO FENOMENOLÓGICO-FORMISTA DOS IMAGINÁRIOS DE PROJETO DE VIDA NO ENSINO MÉDIO

Abstract

The present thesis investigated the future imaginaries and life projects of high school students from a public school located in the interior of Paraná, considering the dynamics of postmodern society. It also analyzed the normative documents of the Curricular Component “Projeto de Vida” (Life Project) of the state education network, seeking to understand its orientations, purposes, and implications in the formative process of young people. It begins with the observation that Brazilian high school education has historically faced learning gaps and high dropout and failure rates. In this context, reforms such as Law Nº. 13,415/2017 and Law Nº. 14,945/2024 reinforced Life Projects as a curricular axis, justifying their inclusion as a response to the demands for autonomy, resilience, and adaptability. The central research problem was to determine whether the curriculum did or did not engage with youth imaginaries, whether there were gaps between the temporalities prescribed by the school and those experienced by the students, and what the implications of this process were for the construction of their life projects. The overall objective was to understand how young people structured their projects and imagined the future, analyzing whether the curricular component contributed to this process or functioned primarily as a mechanism for shaping human capital. Specifically, the study sought to identify the content outlined in the Life Project syllabi, analyze its alignment with students’ expectations, and identify the existence of pedagogical practices that corresponded to students’ choices. The research was theoretically and methodologically grounded in the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the “formist phenomenology” of Michel Maffesoli. Qualitative data were collected through seven focus group sessions held between August and November 2023, involving twenty students from a state school. During these sessions, projective techniques of association, construction, and expression were applied as complementary instruments. In addition, official documents related to the Life Project curricular component for the 1st and 2nd years of high school from 2022 to 2023 were analyzed. The resulting corpus underwent two analytical stages: an ideographic analysis, identifying units of meaning, and a nomothetic analysis, articulating recurring convergences. The findings showed that students held dreams and expectations for the future related to academic achievement, professional stability, and social recognition, while also revealing uncertainty, hesitation, and a sense of urgency in the present. The study found that the Life Project curriculum did not engage with the fluid temporalities of youth and instead prioritized competencies oriented toward the labor market, emphasizing adaptability, creativity, and entrepreneurship. It uncovered a mismatch between the prescribed curriculum and the future imaginaries expressed by students. By emphasizing preparation for work and social productivity, the Life Project reproduced historical intentions of Brazilian education aimed at aligning youth with the demands of their time. The main contribution xii of this study was to show that, despite these prescriptions, young people build plural, fragmented, and evolving projects, revealing the creative power of their imaginaries and their resistance to linear models.