Entre o discurso empreendedor e a consciência política: estudo exploratório do Movimento Empresa Júnior em uma universidade pública no sudeste do Brasil

Abstract

This article aims to understand the dynamics of political awareness in the Movimento Empresa Júnior (MEJ), examining its role in fostering citizen education and collective identification of junior entrepreneurs, on one of the campuses of a federal public university in southeastern Brazil. The discussion is based on the Political Consciousness Analysis Model for understanding the participation in collective actions by Sandoval (2001). It is a qualitative research, whose data were collected through participant observation, questionnaires, focus groups and semi-structured interviews, submitted to content analysis. It is concluded that the MEJ presents the structure of a “movement”, because it is closer to the ideas of a business organization, which values entrepreneurial discourse. In addition, the absence of a more solid collective identity weakens the notion of political awareness among junior entrepreneurs. Thus, the MEJ’s role as a promoter of political awareness and the participation of managers, which would bring complementarity between professional and citizen training, appears limited.