Instituições de acolhimento e adolescentes institucionalizados: imagens sociais de profissionais da educação

Abstract

Social images correspond to a form of classification of individuals based on the construction of theories about them or about their way of behavior. It is observed in the literature that social images tend to be more negative when associated with adolescents living in shelters, marked by social stigma. Therefore, this dissertation aimed to investigate the social images attributed to residential care institutions and adolescents institutionalized by education professionals, based on the understanding of the culture of institutionalization of children and adolescents in Brazil. For data collection, an open form was used, which aims to investigate the images of children, adolescents and families with children in institutional care, particularly those with low and medium socioeconomic status. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the collection was carried out virtually through an online version of this instrument accessed by the Survey Monkey platform. Data analysis was processed by the IRaMuTeQ software, opting for the prototypical analysis for this study. It is one of the most widespread techniques for the structural characterization of a social representation. 81 education professionals (youth and adult) aged between 24 and 55 years old, working in schools and other public educational units in the metropolitan region of Belém and other cities, participated in this research, most of them female (60%), with higher education (91%), teachers (74%), and reported having had contact with adolescents in institutional care (74%). Among the results, when the inducing stimulus was “hosted adolescent”, the most frequently answered characteristics were: sad (34), needy (23), angry (17), abandoned (9), thus pointing to the predominance of social images of negative valence. It is noteworthy that, even with low frequency, positive valence characteristics were also pointed out by the participants: hopeful (09) and affectionate (03). At another time, when the inducing stimulus used was “reception institutions for adolescents”, the characteristics most frequently were: welcoming (24), structured (11), safe (08), these characteristics suggest that, when associated with health care institutions. host, social images are significantly more positive. This study allowed reaching the objective of this dissertation, as well as made it possible to understand the relationship established between the school and the host institutions under a systemic perspective, supported by constructs of the Bioecological Theory of Human Development. In this sense, it becomes necessary to strengthen the mesosystemic relationship between the school and the host institution, so that it is possible to refine the extent and nature of knowledge; and the attitudes existing in the environments, in relation to each other. In this way, it will be possible to develop efficient actions to deconstruct negative social images about adolescents in institutional care. Therefore, it is assumed that the changes in social images reproduced by education professionals, inside and outside school environments, will occur after understanding and knowing what an institutional care service for adolescents really is, as this institution does. characterizes and positions itself in the face of the ills of our society, and with the personal appreciation and empowerment of different experiences and plural life stories of institutionalized children and adolescents