ENTREPRENEURSHIP, PROTAGONISM AND PEDAGOGY OF PROJECTS: A TRANSDISCIPLINARY SYMBIOSIS

This study presents an update of the results of a study that aimed to expand and consolidate the conceptual and methodological bases of pedagogical proposal called Entrepreneurship Education, showing the relationships between this domain and the theoretical frameworks of the Project Methodology and Youth Protagonism. The starting point is the research that has been developed on the theoretical foundations of entrepreneurship, the Project Methodology and Youth Protagonism. That research looked in the specialized literature after subjects to identify elements showing the convergences and divergences between the pedagogical concepts addressed. The next step was a field research in the social area, a case study type, approaching a special project called Showcase Project which involved a group of students (N = 55) of the second year of high school in a technical school management training. The instruments of data collection used were direct observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. The objective was to verify the existence of entrepreneurial attitudes in students during the project development work. Another questionnaire was completed by a group of school teachers (N = 25) for the purpose of assessing the level of their knowledge of the issues addressed in the research. The same questionnaire was administered to a group of students in a Master's degree who had no connection with the other two groups of respondents (N = 24) for the same purpose. The results showed significant convergences between thematic and indicated that the differences between them could be considered as complementary and not antagonistic factors. It was observed that the Entrepreneurship Education reinforces positively the protagonism of the students and the Project Methodology is suitable to execute the projects developed in Entrepreneurship Education. Studies in education show that the process of teaching and learning becomes more efficient if the students are seeing meaning in what they are studying and if content seen by the students makes sense for them, so they will engage in their studies The proposal, then, is that the Entrepreneurship Education be a discipline introduced in the curricula of technical courses in high school and uses the Project Methodology and Youth Protagonism as a way to give real meaning to the learning of students preparing them for both the world of work and to continue their studies.