O capital social sob a perspectiva de adolescentes, escolares de um município da Região Metropolitana de Belo Horizonte

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to analyze the adolescents social capital and verify the association of the domains: social cohesion in the school, friends network in the school, social cohesion in the neighborhood and trust in the school and in the neighborhood with factors of living conditions and participation in collective activities. METHODS: A transversal study was developed at Nova Lima city in Minas Gerais, Brazil. A validated questionnaire (PAIVA et al., 2014) was applied to measure the seventh grade students social capital of the public and private schools located in the city central region. The sample consisted of 335 adolescents. The students parents answered a self-administered questionnaire about the conditions of life and participation in collective activities. The social capital was considered a dependent variable and the analysis was performed by domain. The chi-square test was performed between each domain and the independent variables and multiple logistic regression was applied to confirm the association between the domains and the variables that presented a p0.20 value in the bivariate analysis. RESULTS: There was a higher frequency of school social cohesion among adolescents in private schools (OR = 4.08, 95% CI 1.39 to 11.96) and families with income between one and three minimum wages (OR = 2.45, 95% CI 1.39 - 4.28) and lower frequency of social cohesion among male adolescents (OR = 0.41, 95% CI 0.18 - 0.90) and who did not practice sports (OR = 0.43, 95% CI 0.20-0.94). The largest network of friends at school was found among adolescents who had parents living together (OR = 2.21; 95% CI 1.28 - 3.78). The highest frequency of confidence in school and neighborhood was verified among adolescents from private schools (OR = 2.71; 95% CI 1.16 - 6.32). The social cohesion domain in the neighborhood was not associated with any of the independent variables. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents' social capital may be related to their living conditions and participation in collective activities and it is a resource that deserves to be better explored during this phase of life.