Jovens pentecostais e escola noturna: significados atribuídos às experiências escolares

Abstract

Certain young students belonging to the Pentecostal Church who attend evening classes make use of break every day to sing, pray and to attempt to convert their fellow students. Besides this, as a rule, they question those elements of the school curriculum and those school activities which differ from their principles. The bechaviour of these young people has concerned their teachers who, in staff meetings, define the young Pentecostal students in na ambiguous manner. On the one hand, these students are characterized as examples of stuent behaviour to be followed by others since they generally remai silent during the teachers explanations and attempt to complete the proposed exercises withoutargument. On the other hand, in order to explain the student reactions with relation to proposed activities, the teachers frequently use such expressions as they are blin-folded, they are alienated or they have been brain-washed by their churches. How, therefore, do these students interpret their social relations within the school? What leads thesestudents to use to certain spaces and school time to carry out activities of strictly religious nature? Why do these young people feel they have the right or the obligation to disagree with activities proposed by the institution school? In other words, what meanings do the young Pentecostal students attribute to school practices? The present study seeks to address these questions. To that end, I observed the students in different situations within the school during the year 1999. In my attempt to uderstand why the students redefine certain spaces and times, I took part in their services during the school break at least twice a week duing the period from April to December. In addition, in order to undestand to what extent the young Pentecostal students involved themselves in extra-class activities proposed by the school which they attended, I accompanied the following events: a football championhip,the June festivities and a gymkhana.