Teenagers and socio-educational measures at open environments and at school

This text is part of a research that aimed to understand the propositions of the Child and TeenagerStatute (“Estatuto da Crian a e do Adolescente” – ECA) and the role of the school and their social agents in thesocio-educational measures applied to teenagers that committed offenses, using as example a city in the Stateof Sao Paulo that is considered a model in this field. The amount and identity of the teenagers that participatedof socio-educational measures in the open system in the beginning of 2006 was investigated in the studied city.The educational facilities where these teenagers were inserted were identified and, through the case study ofone of them, an effort was made to learn how they recognize “their” school. Different approaches were usedfor the quantitative and qualitative data collection. Among the conclusions of this study, the unawareness of theschool board and teachers regarding the ECA and these teenagers’ daily living was noteworthy. Although theprotection system in the studied city is considered a national example, the range of its actions in the network articulation of the social support to the teenager is questioned. Finally, the school is a fundamental referencefor most of teenagers and, particularly, for the popular groups, but these groups suffer negative discriminationby the school. If attending school is important and mandatory for teenagers in a socio-educational system, theschool must overcome its difficulties to better receive and educate these teenagers.