Youth and Adult Education as a field of research and epistemologies

Given the challenges and even the setbacks that our country has faced over research, especially those in the field of Education, this article aims to place the importance of research for the expansion and understanding of Youth and Adult Education (EJA) as an area of knowledge. Therefore, there is evidence that the current policies of the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education (CAPES) do not consider in their Table of Knowledge and Evaluation Area the EJA as an area of knowledge. Knowing this, we will defend the premise that the EJA, based on its research, has the purpose of providing to teaching, research and extension institutions a theoretical systematization of knowledge produced from categories, which can be classified as empirical, analytical and philosophical. It is concluded that the EJA is much more than a modality of Basic Education, it is an important field of research for Brazilian education, and, as such, it produces epistemologies.