This article addresses the issue of the building of youth protagonism within the scope of the secondary school reform. Partial results of a broader research, focusing five schools in two brazilian states are discussed. The general objective of the research was to find out how schools interacted with the official guidelines stressing both students and parents to effectively take part in the school dynamics and to examine which mediations connect the institutional micro-processes to the more comprehensive political and social orientations. This text, however, focuses only the space youth protagonism occupies in school micropolicy. For that purpose, the concepts developed by Stephen J. Ball are used as an attempt to "read" the entangled network of relationships within the school, giving new meanings to what is prescribed by the central agencies.
MIDDLE EDUCATION; EDUCATIONAL REFORM; YOUTH; PUBLIC POLICIES