Young people with paths of psychosocial risk and deviant behaviour: Portugal

In the scope of Work Package 6 of the PROMISE project, the Portuguese research team carried out an ethnographic case study on young people who presented life paths with psychosocial risk and deviant behaviour. This particular group of young people presented long paths of conflict with major normative social institutions like school, the law or the family, frequently leading to delinquent behaviour and/or school dropout. The case study involved 26 participants aged 15 to 24 (9 girls) who were recruited among youngsters serving non-custodial youth measures and youngsters enrolled in two second chance education (SCE) projects. Data were collected over a period of 7 months using semi-structured, voice-recorded interviews, group discussions and participant observation. This report presents the key findings of the case study emerging from the narratives of the participants. These address the major sites and agents of conflict experienced by young people with paths of psychosocial risk and deviant behaviour, with special relevance to school, family and the justice and protection systems; the ways by which these young people try to respond to and overcome their conflicts; the personal and social changes they recognise as resulting from these responses to conflict and the factors, mostly relational, that supported these changes; and, finally, how could these be transferred to other young people experiencing similar conflicts.