Carla Cardoso

Sofia Marques da Silva

Teresa Medina

English

Open Repository of the University of Porto

Youth catholic groups as communities of learning and social transformation

Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto

  61 Youth Catholic Groups as communities of learning and social transformation          Carla Cardosoa, Teresa Medinab, Sofia Marques Silvac   a University of Porto, Portugal carla.ma.cardoso@gmail.com b University of Porto, Portugal tmedina@fpce.up.pt c University of Porto, Portugal sofiamsilva@fpce.up.pt    Abstract  Youth catholic groups are constituted by young people and young adults (age 15 to +/-35 years old) that have a more a less continuous participation in groups of the catholic church, that might be seen as a form of social participation. Social and political youth participation have been central to policy and research agendas in recent years because of its influence on the promotion social cohesion and citizenship (Ferreira, 2016; Quintelier & van Deth, 2014; Rodrigues, Menezes, & Ferreira, 2015; UE, 2015). Social participation is linked with the involvement at distinct levels such as cultural, sporty, religious, environmental, solidarity, unions, etc. In what concerns to the religious dimension the data from Ferreira (2016) show that 11,8% of Portuguese youngsters are involved in religious groups. Youth catholic groups as spaces for social participation and consequently informal and non-formal education, are significant in the education and training of thousands of young people and adults and throw the initiatives that these groups develop have an important influence in their local communities, which can be a significant contribute to the achievement of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Thus, is it important to ask:  what leads thousands of young people to become involved and participate in Catholic groups? What youth cultures and forms of participation are produced in these contexts? What training processes take place in them? How are their experiences in these groups interpreted, appropriated and integrated in the education of these young people? What role do the leaders of the   62 groups play? These issues motivated the development of a doctoral research project focused on the participation of young people in Catholic groups and their effects. The doctoral project is a mixed methods research with a survey, participant observation, interviews and focus groups. In this paper we will present the results of the online survey that has been applied to 761 young people participating in youth catholic groups in the north of Portugal (dioceses of Aveiro, Braga, Bragança-Miranda and Porto), with focus on the effects of the participation in the leaders. The data collected is being analysed using the program IBM SPSS Statistics, version 24.  Despite the fact that this research is still ongoing, a preliminary analysis of this survey allows us to identify some trends: 1) independently of being a leader of the group or not, young people consider that participation in these groups differentiates them from other young people in dimensions of personal transformation such as of helping others, forgiveness and honesty, 2)  these groups are spaces for reflections and discussions on aspects that are significant for those young people; 3) there is a significant difference in the quality of participation of the leaders that show more learning opportunities compared with the other participants, 4) more than 80% of the respondents are involved (at different stages) in the development of various initiatives in the local communities several times per year (such as fundraising, cultural events, sports, evangelization and others);   Key words: informal education; youth; communities; catholic groups         ABOUT THE AUTHORS           Carla Cardoso is a PhD student of educational sciences, at the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, University of Porto (FPCEUP). She holds a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology to develop her PhD on youth cultures and participation in groups of young Catholics: experiences, trajectories and educational processes.  She has been working on topics as informal and non-formal education, youth and associative movement. Currently she is also co-developing a project named: «Associations and associative movement in the 30 years of Educational Sciences in the University of Porto».     63                                  Teresa Medina is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP), Portugal, and a full member of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE) of the University of Porto. She also acts as collaborator member of CEAUP (Centre of African Studies of University of Porto), IHC (Institute of Contemporary Story) and of the research group of education, work and society of Federal University of Uberlandia – Brazil.  Her research interests focused in adult education and training, school-to-work transitions, experiences and memories of the labour movement of Porto, educational dimension of social participation, development education, and peer mentoring.   Sofia Marques da Silva is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and a member of the Centre for Research and Intervention in Education (CIIE) of the University of Porto (FPCEUP), Portugal. She has been involved in several European and international projects related to vulnerable people and education, to ethnographic and life stories research on youth cultures, gender and education, and to children and young people from rural and border regions. She is consultant of the National Federation of Youth Associations and was recently appointed to coordinate the first of 5 pillars of Portuguese National Digital Competences Initiative e.2030. She is also a member of NESET II and served as Deputy President of the Portuguese Society of Education Sciences. She is Editor-in-chief of the journal Ethnography & Education.   

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Youth catholic groups as communities of learning and social transformation

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