Abstract

GUIMARAES, Silvia Pereira  and  CAMPOS, Pedro Humberto Faria. Violent social norms: a study on the symbolic elaboration of violence in adolescents. Psicol. Reflex. Crit. [online]. 2007, vol.20, n.2, pp. 188-196. ISSN 0102-7972.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0102-79722007000200003.

The present work approaches teenage violence, exploring the consensual field of social representation and identifying some elements that act as guiders and justifiers of violent action. The notion of violence leads to an abuse or an excess that is verified in the relations of power. Currently this phenomenon is characterized by a certain "trend to banalize" and by an ample involvement of youngsters. The study was thus carried out with adolescent students from public schools in Goiânia by means of half-directive interviews that were submitted to an analysis using the software Analyse Lexicale par Contexte d'un Ensemble de Segments de Texte (ALCESTE). The data strengthens the hypothesis of the "trend to banalize" violence and presents a discourse in which this is recognized in situations of physical aggression. Violence is seen as something ordinary and even expected in certain contexts as part of a social norm.

Keywords : Violence; adolescents; social representations.