Representações sociais da violência – bullying no contexto escolar do ensino médio

Abstract

Guided by the Theory of Social Representations, this study aimed to apprehend the social representations of violence bullying elaborated by 343 high school students from two public schools in Cuiabá, in the state of Mato Grosso. The research instruments were bio-socio-demographic questionnaire and the free words association technique incited by the stimuli: (i) school, (ii) violence-bullying, (iii) myself. The softwares Statistical Package for Social Science and Tri-deux were used for processing the data. The results revealed a female predominance (53.6%), aged between 12 to 17 years (M = 15.94, SD = 1.17). The findings showed that students from the first investigated school objectified the stimulus school, in the elements: friends, tiredness, notes, uniform, books, teachers, tests and tasks, and anchored it in the pedagogical and affective dimensions. Regarding the stimulus violence-bullying, it was objectified by these students as: exclusion, prejudice, violence, pain, depression and idiocy and anchored it in the psychosocial and psycho-affective dimensions. The stimulus, myself, was objectified by the same group of the students as lazy and anchored it in negative self-perception. The students from the second school objectified the stimulus school as: learning, education, respect and mess and anchored it in the pedagogical sphere. The stimulus violence-bullying was objectified by the elements fight, curse and death and anchored it in the relational, historical and factual spheres. Regarding the stimulus myself, the students objectified it by cheerful, studious, polite and friendly and anchored it in a positive perception. Concerning the anchors of the stimuli school and violence-bullying the students from the both investigated schools anchored them in similar spheres. The results indicated the magnitude of the problem experienced by the students. In this sense the social representations revealed the construct bringing out its multifaceted and plural nature, requiring the construction of strategies and implementation of united and effective actions in the school community. It is hoped that these results may extend the literature on violence bullying contributing for minimizing the adverse effects from such violence.