The article attempts to understand a twofold manifestation of violence: the one that destroys the bodies of the young kids in Brazil and the one that ruins their minds, as it does not enable them to face the problems of the contemporary world. It focuses on the violence in the school, distinguishing between physical and psychological violence, as a way of abstracting the concept of symbolic violence. It emphasizes the importance of researching and understanding the attitudes and representations that the underprivileged population undergoes concerning the school and education, as well as the evaluation that the participants of the school system make of it in terms of an instrument that forms a habitus. At the conclusion, it points out the need of rescuing the debate on moral education, especially moral autonomy when participating in the public life.
Physical, psychological and symbolic violence; Habitus; Moral autonomy; Citizenship; Public school
