Social Representations Of Violence In Educational Contexts.

The aim of this study was to understand the social representations of violence in two educational institutions in different contexts in north-eastern Colombia. It is theoretically based on Moscovici and Jodelet's theory of representations, under the epistemological assumptions of qualitative research. The population consisted of children from each participating educational institution. The semi-structured in-depth interview was used as a tool to collect the data, which were then analysed using Atlas Ti software, making use of open coding, which generated the creation of categories based on the similarity of the concept supported by the constant comparative method. The theoretical structure was constructed with Normalisation of school violence as a form of social interaction in school as a central category and conceptual categories such as: school violence as a form of normal interaction between peers in the school context, control mechanisms that normalise violent behaviour, behaviour of the perpetrator, behaviour of the victim, dehumanisation of the other. The review of the existing literature together with the current regulations was contrasted with the information obtained in the interviews, which allowed the realization of approximations of the causes of school violence at the individual, family and school level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]