Introduction

As stated in the abstract, the whole world lives in times of difficulties and unpredictability, that is why we need to seek answers and alternatives that are under scientific knowledge and the transformation of social practices. These times are especially marked by the sanitary and economic crisis that aggravated social and economic inequalities, resulting from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, with a high number of deaths in Brazil and the acceleration of social inequalities and the serious impacts on life and education of young, adult and elderly people. These impacts are linked to the absence and denial of policies to preserve life, health, social issues and economic issues and the very denial of science and the spread of fake news, in which prejudice, intolerance and intimidation of the democratic order are present. Such processes and impacts reveal themselves as

[....] evident marks of colonial and gender violence, ethnic-racial genocide, dissident sexualities, invisible bodies and unimportant lives that make up contemporary societies. The epidemic impacts, over time, have always been dependent on deep segmentation and historically structured relationships of exploitation-domination of population groups. Unequal societies in many ways, not only in broad geopolitics but also in their internal landscapes, in their modus operandi. COVID-19 connects with a long (re)formulated nation project that involves the capitulation of certain subjects, the imposition of regimes of morality and sexuality, of combating bodies (^{LOLE et al., 2020}, p. 9, our translation).

Additionally, the reflections referenced by ^{Lole et al. (2020}) alert to the population’s living conditions and the rejection of a society that claims to be democratic, but which denies human dignity and “survival”. This warning was already made by Paulo Freire when he stated that

[...] I don’t believe in a purely formal democracy that “washes its hands”" in the face of the relations between those who can and those who cannot because it has already been said that “everyone is equal before the law”. More than just saying or writing this, it has to be done. [...] It is essential that the State truly ensures that everyone is equal before the law and that it does so in such a way that the exercise of this right becomes an obvious fact. What seems impossible to accept is a democracy based on the market ethics, which is evil and is only excited by profit, makes democracy itself unfeasible (^{FREIRE, 2000}, p. 48-49, our translation).

Therefore, thinking about scientific productions with a view to young people and adults from critical perspectives that pay attention to intersectoral actions contributes to looking at education as an objective and human right and of pedagogical political positioning for a more democratic and dignified society, since

The analysis of productive practice opens up the possibility of serious study, which should gradually deepen, from a rich and plural theme. A study through which the mere opinion about facts is overcome by understanding their reason for being (^{FREIRE, 1977}, p. 162, our translation).

Thus, we are moving towards an oriented and conscious transformation of young and adult populations, based on available, mobilized resources, which can constitute a movement to reconcile the indispensable transformations and the guarantee of deepening the foundational dimensions of communities and a better planetary society. In this context, it is essential to invest in policies and practices for the Education of Young People and Adults that promote these necessary changes.

It is in this spirit that we are publishing the Thematic Dossier on Youth and Adult Education: democratic educational policies and processes, whose papers present investigations and reflections by researchers from universities in Brazil, Portugal, Cuba and Venezuela. The research works in Brazil come from different states, serving four regions of the country (North, Northeast, Southeast and South) and have their origins in six Brazilian university institutions and six foreign institutions.

A look at the papers in the dossier

It is important to point out that the nine scientific papers retain a thematic, methodological and/or theoretical articulation among themselves and bring important and innovative contributions to the field of Education, particularly that of Youth and Adult Education. They are presented in the order shown in the following chart, which indicates the researchers’ authorship and institution.

The dossier is organized, in a set of nine papers, in three interrelated axes: the first one debates processes of public and educational policies; the second one deals with teacher training; and the third one analyses subjects and pedagogical practices with young people, adults and elderly people.

From the nine papers, two of them bring results from an inter-institutional national research project with partnerships of Portuguese researchers, approved by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) Universal Edital (2016) entitled Fundamentals and recurring authors in the Field of Youth and Adult Education (YAE) in Brazil (2017-2021), coordinated by the first organizer (UFSC), whose objective was to raise and analyze the main thematic approaches located in papers that present scientific research published and registered on the platform of Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) journals that address YAE. The empirical field of research refers to a set of these publications that were inventoried through content analysis situating theoretical-methodological approaches, concepts, recurring authors, deepening of the main authors and the concepts that reference such investigations, which are state-of-knowledge researches². In this sense, it was taken as problematic to locate what are the main foundations present in the productions resulting from researches in the field of Youth and Adult Education in Brazil. Such results, socialized in this dossier, consist of critically presenting the themes, theoretical trends and methodological aspects of academic production in YAE, arranging some of the categories based on the national research’s initial survey.

In addition to the survey results, researchers were invited to broaden the debate on policies, educational processes and Youth and Adult Education in the Brazilian, Portuguese and Venezuelan contexts. From this context, we highlight the study on the evolution of youth and adult education in Venezuela, the planning and local development of education in Portugal and the public policies of adult education in Portugal in the last two decades of this century.

We here present the elements about these papers, which show the mapping, processes and democratic educational policies, particularly in the context of Youth and Adult Education, a field in expansion and resignification, often overlooked by educational policies, research and funding.

The first text, Public Policies for Adult Education in Portugal - innovations and challenges, by the researcher at the Instituto de Educação da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, Professor Carmen Cavaco, Ph.D., is the result of qualitative research that analyzes elements of innovation and challenges for adult education policies in Portugal in the last two decades, as it reveals innovations and the complexity of policy measures. Such innovations are characterized by the recognition of the adults’ experience and alternative modes of pedagogical work. It also highlights that this movement generates challenges for coordinators and adult educators, as well as for their professional training.

The second paper, by researcher Samuel Hilcías Carvajal Ruíz, Ph.D., from the Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez, Caracas, Venezuela, entitled Youth and Adult Education in Venezuela: notes on its foundations, current state and perspectives, presents a study that aimed at developing a reflective analysis on the course of Youth and Adult Education in Venezuela. For that, it presents aspects of the educational projects in that country and the political and legal bases of education, particularly of YAE. The results point to some programs under development today and their educational needs.

The third study, still amid educational public policies, is entitled Public Policies of/for Youth and Adult Education: a review of publications on the CAPES Journals Website, and was written by Professor Gilvanice Barbosa da Silva Musial, Ph.D., and Jurandir de Almeida Araújo, Ph.D. Student, both from the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia. The paper is part of the larger research entitled “Fundamentals and recurring authors in the field of Youth and Adult Education in Brazil”, and aims to present a balance of publications on Public Policies of/for Youth and Adult Education (YAE) in Brazil, based on the CAPES Journal Portal. The authors state that the study revealed “the complexity that involves the analysis of public policies of/for YAE, due to the nuances and multiplicities of categories and associated themes”.

There are three texts specifically aimed at political aspects in three different countries - Portugal, Venezuela and Brazil -, significantly contributing to the theme of the dossier Youth and Adult Education: democratic educational policies and processes.

It is noteworthy that the third paper presents a research of the state of knowledge type, which is also the case of the study about Youth and Adult Education and its interface with Rural Education: analysis of production in journals; it is the fourth text, by Professor Ivanilde Apoluceno de Oliveira, Ph.D., of the Universidade do Estado do Pará, Belém, Pará. The presented paper is characterized as a bibliographical study, of the state of knowledge type; its author aimed to analyze the survey of scientific papers from national journals that deal with the interface between Youth and Adult Education and Rural Education, based on techniques of Content Analysis. The empirical basis was raised in the CAPES Journals Platform, through the descriptor Youth and Adult Education and Rural Education, considering that there is an interface between the two fields of knowledge. The papers point to the need for interaction between youth and adult education and rural education, with the subjects of the countryside and their cultural context as the reference point of this education, overcoming the current urbancentric philosophical and curricular paradigm.

In the second axis - teacher training -, Training of Youth and Adult Educators in Brazil: analysis and perspectives from the National Seminars is the fifth paper, written by Professor Maria Victoria González Peña, Ph.D., professor at the Facultad de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad de Camagüey, in the city of Camagüey, Cuba, and Professor Leôncio Soares, Ph.D., from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. The presented paper is the partial result of broader research aimed at shaping the history of the Seminários Nacionais de Formação de Educadores de Jovens e Adultos [National Seminars for the Training of Youth and Adult Educators] (SNFEJA) developed in Brazil from 2006 to 2015, which focused on the analysis of policies around the formation of Youth and Adult Education (YAE) educators. The objective of the paper was to analyze some contributions presented in SNFEJA, especially the first three, which are taxed to create the necessary bases for the configuration of educational policies based on the training of the YAE educator. As a result, the authors point to the need to defend this theme and that the seminars have brought important contributions. They emphasize that teacher education has been considered in a dispersed and poorly systematized way, and warn that the qualitative and quantitative panorama is still challenging.

Also in the debate on teacher education, there is the sixth paper, written by Ana Maria Soek, Ph.D., and Professor Sonia Maria Chaves Haracemiv, Ph.D., both from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Paraná, and by Professor Joaquim Luís Medeiros Alcoforado, Ph.D., from the Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal, which is entitled Training memorials and (auto)biographical writing in the Supervised Internship at YAE. The paper locates elements of research that analyze the interactions established between the personal and professional dimensions in the initial teacher training, through the study of training memorials and (auto)biographical writing in the Supervised Internship in YAE, in the Pedagogy Course at UFPR. Methodologically, “biographical workshops” and “narrative research” were used in the construction of meaning cores, to unveil the contributions of the supervised internship in YAE in the meaning and re-signification of these training experiences. In this process, the paper turns its gaze to the following investigative fields: “identity and life trajectory in formation from the perspective of retrospection; the pedagogical practice and the experiences of initial teacher training lived in the supervised internship at YAE […]; and the constitution of teaching from the internship, as a constituent of becoming a teacher”.

In the last axis, there are three papers, on subjects and pedagogical practices with young people, adults and elderly people.

The first text of this axis, the seventh of the dossier, entitled The relationship between knowledge and empowerment of elderly people in schooling processes, was written by the researchers Cássia Cilene de Almeida Chalá Machado, Ph.D. Student, and Professor Maria Hermínia Lage Fernandes Laffin, Ph.D., both from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina. The paper seeks to highlight the relationship with the knowledge of elderly people enrolled in Youth and Adult Education classes and points out the dimensions of schooling for the lives of elderly people, especially when seeking to understand what the relations established with the learning can contribute to the process of emancipatory empowerment of these subjects. The main results point to the fact that schooling in the lives of elderly participants comes as a possibility of perceiving themselves as people with knowledge and culture, as well as showing a positive attitude towards old age, its recognition and appreciation in the family and social space.

The eighth paper in the dossier, entitled Proeja students: routes denied to other possibilities, was written by Maria de Fátima Feitosa Amorim Gomes, Ph.D., from the Universidade Federal de Alagoas, Maceió, Alagoas, by the researcher Marinaide Lima de Queiroz Freitas, Ph.D., from the same university, and Professor Paulo Marinho, Ph.D., from the Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal. The study aimed to know and understand the demographic, socioeconomic and educational profiles of students of the Programa Nacional de Integração da Educação Profissional com a Educação Básica na Modalidade de Educação de Jovens e Adultos [National Program for the Integration between Professional and Basic Education at the Youth and Adult Education Modality] (Proeja) of the Instituto Federal de Alagoas, specifically in the Technical courses in Cooking and Hospitality. This study was funded by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (2014-2015). It had 63 students from both courses and, among other dimensions, data reveal that the students are mostly from outside the capital city of the state, has contributed to the social construction of an urban sub-citizenship, and in the aforementioned Program, experienced new possibilities and perspectives for growth in their personal and professional lives, bringing a feeling of self-worth. The study aims to (re)think public policies of access and permanence for young people and adults in their training and schooling processes.

Finally, we present the ninth paper, The theater of the oppressed: mediation and construction of autonomy, produced by José Carlos dos Santos Debus, Ph.D., and Ângela Balça, Ph.D., from the Instituto de Investigação e Formação Avançada da Universidade de Évora, Évora, Portugal, as a result of the post-doctoral process of the former author at that university. The manuscript is an investigation that analyzes an experience of appropriation and use of the methodological principles of Theater of the Oppressed, based on Augusto Boal, in mediation strategies in the teaching of Arts in schools, with teachers of Arts in the network of teaching in São José, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The main results indicate the issue of autonomy and the student’s ability to interpret and compose the world from their relationships in the field of teaching/learning, developed through artistic dialogues and investigative workshops, committed to democratic and free perspectives. It is noteworthy that this paper does not specifically address adult education processes in their strict sense; however, it constitutes an important contribution on emancipatory formative processes for teachers and students, relevant to the composition of this thematic dossier.

Given the theoretical-methodological richness of the set of papers, it is possible to emphasize the political potential when articulating the socialization of investigations on different aspects regarding the social participation of different subjects regarding policies, pedagogical practices and educational processes, particularly in Education Youth and Adults, as a modality of Basic Education.

The articulating stitching of the texts points to the evident need for postures to build resistance and critical awareness so that a utopian view of reality and science can be assumed. In this sense, ^{Freire (2001}) emphasizes that

For me, the utopian is not the unrealizable; Utopia is not idealism, it is the dialectization of the acts of denouncing and announcing, the act of denouncing the dehumanizing structure and announcing the humanizing structure. For this reason, utopia is also a historic commitment. Utopia requires critical knowledge. It is an act of knowledge. I cannot denounce the dehumanizing structure if I don’t penetrate it to get to know it. I can’t advertise if I don’t know, but between the moment of the announcement and its realization, there is something that must be highlighted: it is that the announcement is not an announcement of a draft, because it is in historical praxis that the draft becomes a project (^{FREIRE, 2001}, p. 32, our translation).

In this context, the organization of this thematic dossier sought to contribute to the construction of a more fruitful and collective knowledge in this field, with the aim of building epistemologies, research networks and political-social militancy.