Violência escolar e aprendizagem nas escolas de Fortaleza: a compreensão dos professores de sociologia

Abstract

The aim is to analyze high school sociology teachers' understanding of how the relationship between violence and school affects the learning process. The violence has been a focus of concern for contemporary society, especially violence at school. This research took place in ten regular high schools in the city of Fortaleza, northeast of Brazil. In all, eleven sociology teachers were interviewed. This qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory research was based on Max Weber's interpretive sociology's perspective and on Bardin's discourse analysis. The results derive from the way in which sociology teachers understand the experience of school violence in high school. It was possible to perceive that the phenomenon of violence is interpreted as being of a multi-causality order that presents family configurations and the role of a territorial context permeated with the presence of criminal factions as structuring elements for the occurrence of violence. This research found that sociology teachers develop their work without preparation to deal with problems related to violence at school. Although they possess the teaching materials to handle the theme of violence, teachers believe there should be a permanent training policy on that subject and fear the presence of criminal factions that influence the entire school environment, including educational activities. Teachers are part of a society overwhelmed with social problems that trigger situations of violence. The challenges arise from the possibility of creating collective actions involving school management, students, and the community. Therefore, the findings show us the need to turn to the school itself as a ground for confronting violence and to sociology teachers as one of the main social actors in this context