“Being beautiful to be accepted”: The influences and motivations of adolescents on the care of the body in the contemporary world

Abstract

The article analyzes the subjective demands that the adolescents of a public school present in relation to the subjects related to the body, considering the motivations and influences that they experience in adolescence. The investigation takes place around the discourses that pervade the construction of the bodies (present in the school), from the care in them employed. The methodology used consisted of fieldwork in five high school classes at a public school in Cuiabá-MT and 20 in-depth interviews with students aged 14 to 16 years. The interviews followed a semi-structured script with the following subjects: how they dealt with the body; the types of bodies they had as a reference; the products and brands they used; how boys and girls thought about body care and aging issues. It was observed that despite all efforts in theoretical, methodological and political terms of studies of gender and sexuality in education, the school still presents itself as a structure ruled, normalized by a heteronormative matrix, neutralizing the debate on the importance of this demand linked to the study of the body in the human and social sciences.