Talking about the city: Focus group discussions about the city and the community as developmental grounds with children aged 5–17.

Due to its complexity, size, diversity (internal or external) and meanings, it is possible to analyse the city from various points of view, which are, ultimately, references for the construction of knowledge about the urban space, and the logic of apprehension and appropriation used by individuals and organizations in relation to the place they inhabit. The city is, increasingly, a context for isolation and exclusion, where individuals share fewer experiences, which therefore become less significant. The effective range of action each person or group has towards the city is clearly limited. This interferes with the process of producing practical and emotional meanings, since the message conveyed is that such a space is defined ‘in spite of people’ and not ‘because of people’. In this article, the author mobilizes the productions of children between the ages of 5 and 17 in an attempt to capture their perceptions (their discourse) about urban life and education, as well as their appropriations (their projects), either past, present or future. In the process, the author also discusses focus groups as platforms for participation in the community context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]