Adolescence in the perception of primary school teachers

Abstract

This qualitative research was performed with 11 primary school teachers at a state school in the city of Curitiba/ Brazil, with the goal to identify how primary school teachers perceive adolescence. The information was collected by means of a Group Discussion strategy and organized in four theme-categories. The teachers' statements revealed the plurality of the adolescence process, stressing its uniqueness. Adolescence is a unique phenomenon, varying according to culture, social class, race, gender and age, configuring distinctive ways of experiencing it. All this diversity, however, enables to develop relations with teenagers, including attention, nurturing, comfort, patience and sensitiveness, besides getting across curricular contents.