Focusing on concepts of youth expressed in government policies for young people in Brazil, we concentrated our research in the Consórcio Social da Juventude - a national project developed by the Brazilian Government. From the Social Psychology perspective, we used the problematization as a methodological strategy and concepts of Michel Foucault as theoretical tools. We sought to comprehend how the discoursive practices installed in government policies define and establish portions of young people. Problematizing the tensions verified in the material analysed, we discussed four concepts of young people: volunteer, digitalized, worker and vulnerabilized. They turned into proficuous indicators of analysis for the proposed problematization. The analysis suggests how government policies are inserted in a discoursive net that designs and constitutes ways of living of young people - especially those of low income. We observed that discourses of education, citizenship, inclusion, among others, operate to offer credibility to programmes of government policies for young people.
young people; government policies; vulnerability; digital inclusion; work