In Latin America, secondary students movement conformed by the mobilization of students and their organizations (students’ unions or “centro de estudiantes”)  has always been a social movement which acted as public spokesman of the defense of the public, secular and gratuitous education. The students in general, and particulary high school´s students, have been, in repeated opportunities along history, a key factor causing changes to happen in educative policies and educative institutions. Their bonds with State and educative policies have gone through different stages. Conflict, cooperation,  and different  regulations that has been established and had been changed, by the state  has  marked this history,  in each one of the countries. In the last few years, some authors have spoken about the “young people´s lack of interest in politics” in Latin America. However, the students protest in the conflict in Chile during 2006 and 2011 and the conflicts led by the students of Buenos Aires and Córdoba (Argentina) in 2010, showed that the secondary student movement is a political actor with strong presence in political and educational life.  Its scope of action is permeable and it is developed in diverse instances: within schools, in political parties, social movements; as well as in independent organizations, streets, and negotiation tables. The students' secondary movement is a social movement which study allows us to know the diverse and complex links between youth, politics, citizenship and school.

• Questions

What characteristics do young people who participate in politics in their schools have? In what ways have their identities, demands and forms of organization changed since the return of democracy? What forms of political and “non-political” participation do there exist in high schools? What traditions do they follow? In what ways do they intervene in the public sphere? What kind of relationship do they hold with political parties, social movements and the State? What actions they perform in their schools?

Thus, the overall objective of the research is: To investigate the relationship between young people, middle school and politics through the participation in secondary student movement both nowadays and in its recent history (1983-2012), on the grounds of a study in Province of Buenos Aires.

• Guidelines of the conceptual approach

Secondary Student Movement is considered as: field of political participation of the young people, conformed and historically situated and inserted in secondary school as an institution. In this sense, we will display the main issues involved in building the object of study, present in four lines of work: 1- Studies that relate to political participation of youth at secondary school today 2 - The history of student movement 3 – The research on youth cultures and subjectivities and political participation of young people and 4 – The issues related to secondary education as an institution .  Also, some brief reference will be made of the theoretical framework used, which takes the following problematizations: Distinctions between "politics" and "the political" ; the student movement as a social movement ; demands, frames of identity and organization.

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