The article unfolds from a research enrolled in the fields of gender and cultural studies in conjunction with Foucauldian post-structuralism, which focused the relation between youths and schooling processes. The fieldwork included narrative interviews conducted with 19 youngsters, observations of the school space and group discussions with students of Youth and Adult Education (Educação de Jovens e Adultos - EJA) from a State School located in the outskirts of Porto Alegre/RS. We present here a cultural analysis of juvenile narratives, in which we problematize the concept of social moratorium in order to discuss relations between youth, social moratorium and gender. In this analysis, the schooling process emerged as a strong component of the moratorium and as the place where experiences that matter from the perspective of youngsters are anchored, concerning their future and their becoming. It was also evident that youth offers itself differently to young men and women and that they live the moratorium in diverse times and ways, especially when the dimension of class is articulated to gender.
gender studies; youth; social moratorium; post-structuralism; youth and adult Education