Personal meaning of the work category for high school students: a comparative study

Abstract

This research is focused on understanding and analyzing the process of assigning personal meaning in the category of work, for teenagers in the Vocational High School and the Movimento Sem Terra Schools (MST), in the reason-end relation of the activity. For Marx and Engels, work is a vital activity for man, because it was and it is through work that man develops himself as a human being, transforming nature to meet his survival needs and modifying himself at the same time. The activity category is a fundamental concept for the Historical-Cultural Psychology authors to understand the human development because it is the main activity, in each period of a lifetime, that promotes the qualitative leaps of the psyche. The activity has a complex structure with actions, operations and purposes, and it is in this dialectical relation with its components that the motives that can generate meaning for the activity are created. Based on the theoretical assumptions of Historical-Cultural Psychology, searching for a better understanding of the reality of the proposed objective, this qualitative research proposes a field investigation, characterized by following a certain class for a six months period of time, in each institution, observing them during several different moments of their daily school life. For the data collection, the research will use participant observation, semi-structured interviews and analysis of the political pedagogic project of an institution in the public Vocational High School and a school of the MST. (AU)