Cartografia com as juventudes do ensino médio: percursos e subjetivações em uma escola pública de Cuiabá - Mato Grosso,

Abstract

This thesis maps the experiences of high school youth in a public school in Cuiabá, Brazil, seeking to understand how their schooling intertwines with the production of subjectivities and the invention of ways of living, resisting, and claiming belonging. Rather than fixing identities or capturing essences, the research embraces movement, flows, and the traces that emerge from everyday crossings—particularly within the complex and contested terrain of public education. Drawing on the theoretical contributions of Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, and Suely Rolnik, the investigation unfolds as a rhizomatic composition in which sensitive and engaged listening functions both as method and ethical-political stance. The research is qualitative and processual, with data generated through conversation circles, artistic workshops, and visual narratives—understood not merely as data collection techniques but as shared spaces of affect, creation, and critical expression. Conducted at Escola Estadual André Avelino Ribeiro, the study involved collaborative encounters that allowed youth to articulate their experiences in multiple languages—words, silences, drawings, images—capturing tensions, critiques, and desires about school life. Thematic analysis reveals that youth simultaneously see school as a space of belonging and socialization and as a setting that restricts autonomy, silences voices, and resists participation. Their narratives call for a school that respects differences, values diversity, and fosters relationships of care, trust, and mutual recognition. School experience—when mediated by dialogue, listening, and openness—emerges as a crucial element for strengthening self-esteem, expanding participation, and enabling the creation of new life projects. This study argues for rethinking pedagogical practices beyond rigid frameworks, advancing an education that privileges encounters, active listening, and recognition of youth plurality. Listening, understood as a genuine openness to the other, is proposed as a key condition for democratic and emancipatory education, where students learn not only academic content but also ways of being and becoming. In conclusion, this thesis affirms that walking alongside youth means crossing boundaries, welcoming uncertainty, and challenging certainties. Schools that embrace this movement can become fertile ground for the production of autonomous and engaged subjectivities, turning education into a space of invention, plurality, and transformation.