Violence at school: social conflictuality and civilizatory actions

Abstract

Recognizing violence within the school as an imprisonment of gesture and word - one of the new global social issues - seems a fruitful interpretative path. What is at risk is the school function of socializing the new generations, because the school body appears as a locus of explosion of social conflicts in at least twenty-three countries where violence at school was regarded as a social phenomenon. The understanding of the relationships between the school and violent practices depends on the reconstruction of the complexity of social relations at school. In the case under study - the violence within the schools in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre between 1996 and 2000 - the combination of class relationships and group relationships will afford an explanation: a social space characterized by a mismatch between the school and the cultural features of the poor people of big cities. The programs against violence implemented in some schools of Porto Alegre have carried out the methodology of conflict mediation as one of the proposals to pacify the school space. This is a practice of negotiation established within the school, especially within the groups of pupils - through, for instance, the idea of peer mediation - as a way of creating responsibilities and to meet the needs of youngsters via the establishment of a solidary, humanist and cooperative environment.