This study aims to identify the construction of three types of social representations pertaining to domestic violence: the violence itself, the aggressors, and adolescent victims of violence as seen by themselves. The study interviewed 90 adolescents in the city of Campinas, São Paulo, in order to identify underlying themes to base a proposal for prevention of domestic violence in that city. The point of departure was an analysis of the issues surrounding the domestic violence phenomenon and its relation to socially inadequate behaviors (rebelliousness and marginal or violent conduct) and their effect on adolescents' self-image. The data-gathering methodology included an initial interview and questionnaires and records from the Regional Center on Child Abuse (CRAMI) to identify reports of physical violence during childhood and to investigate the discourses employed by the various social actors, taking a dialogical perspective as the main source of information and oral and written expression. The analysis was both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative approach focused on discourse content from a semantic and lexical perspective. The quantitative approach used a factor correspondence analysis aimed at identifying the core social representations of domestic violence in the two groups of adolescents (the study and comparison groups).
Social Representations; Adolescence; Domestic Violence
