Youth and adult education, popular education and awareness processes: intersections in daily life

This article presents relationships between popular education and Youth and Adult Education (YAE). It also names some possibilities of contribution from community social psychology to educators' practice, in his/her educational/literacy work at the present days. Common epistemological origins are identified since the sixties, when literacy works, awareness and social movements started. Gradually, some differentiation among those two areas happened, while the country entered in its redemocratization period. Similarities, differences and intersections are identified among those two areas, especially some 'reflections' direct to educators' practice, which are based on Paulo Freire's philosophy and popular emancipation practices and guided by community social psychology works. The text is followed by a psychosocial analysis of tensions and paradoxes that appear in educators' practice and analyses the psychosocial repercussions and impacts that can contribute to progresses or backwards in the awareness processes, both in relation to educators and students. At the end, some suggestions are presented to the educators' formation according to a perspective of awareness and participation in daily life.