Violência nas escolas: testando teorias de controle social

Abstract

School delinquency has become a preoccupying problem, starting from the moment in that it affects the social relationships among students, between students and schools and the entire community involved with that phenomenon. This study intended to contribute to the understanding of that problem under the optic of the theories of social control. Investigating the factors that contribute to the delinquent behavior in the schools was one of the central objectives of this work. The adopted theoretical frame points to the importance of the mechanisms of social control in the school atmosphere, mainly related to the students. The concepts of social control of Hirschi (1969) were tested - affection, commitment, belief and involvement. In addition, contextual factors as connection of the students to the school and social disorder perceived in that community were observed also. The study is based on data collected in Belo Horizonte and Metropolitan Area - Social Losses caused by the Violence in Schools / CRISP 2005. The students' self-reports about participation or not in school delinquency were the crucial information used for the development of an analytical model. The analysis, allowed by that model, points to the relevance of the school integration different levels (individual and contextual) in the explanation of the delinquency in the schools. Thus, we saw that the students' low association with the school is not explained by variables of a single nature. Nevertheless, that study demonstrates a strong influence of the social-demographic characteristics (sex and age) and the elements of the social relationships among students, such as: connection with the peers, faith in the school normative picture, aspirations and compromising with the academic future, in predicting school delinquency.