REPRESENTAÇÕES SOCIAIS DO MAL-ESTAR NO TRABALHO PARA PROFESSORES-GESTORES.

This paper aims to describe the content and structure of the social representations of work discontent to professors working as managers in a public university in north eastern Brazil. Twenty professors were engaged in the research. They were asked to answer an associative network, followed by an individualized and semi-structured interview. The associative network trigger-word was 'work discontent'. Evocation analysis was carried out with these networks, based on polarity indices, neutrality and stereotyping. The more evocated elements in the associate network were: lack of structure, people fighting over power, low financial contribution, stress, and people non-commitment. The results also indicate low stereotyping, negative polarity and low neutrality. These findings point out to the heterogeneity of the evocated content. Textual and lexicographic analysis of the interviews suggests that management function is described as the main source of work discontent, specially because this function changes the role of the professor, causing him to perform as a manager in a context of interpersonal conflicting situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]