College students and democracy: what does scientific production provide?

o que a produção científica evidencia?

Abstract

Despite important advances, Brazilian democracy is once again surrounded by dilemmas and impasses. The permanent attacks on the democratic system and the frequent questions about the reliability of electronic voting machines show that part of society does not fully trust the institutions responsible for the functioning of the Democratic Rule of Law. Recent political crises motivated the carrying out of a study on the role of educational institutions in the formation of democratic culture. As part of a broader study on the perception of young university students about the Brazilian democratic system, this article presents the results of a bibliographical research, type state of knowledge, on scientific productions on the topic published in four bibliometric indexes (SciELO, CAPES Periodical Portal, CAPES Theses and Dissertations Catalog and Brazilian Library of Theses and Dissertations). The process of qualitative data treatment and analysis was carried out using the content analysis technique. The study showed, among other results, that scientific production (i) grew significantly from 2015 onwards, a context marked by deep political instability in the country; (ii) it is concentrated in some areas of knowledge, such as Psychology and Social Sciences; (iii) prioritizes themes such as human rights and social movements and, (iv) reflects different conceptions and theoretical-methodological approaches. Unlike democratic consolidation, the bibliography indicates that there is a long way to go to strengthen Brazilian democracy, posing the challenge of resuming the topic on its agenda to the educational field.