Changes of violence representations in the school context: from experts' definition to pupils' definition

Abstract

We present a study on violence on school conducted in French-speaking part of Switzerland. The theoretical orientation is based on the transformation of the social representation of violence in expert and everyday analyses of aggression. Different definitions of violence are discussed in a developmental perspective of social identity, and the dynamics of school relations. Our results show that the representation of violence and the acts of aggression clearly differentiates pupils and teachers. Such distinctions are particularly important in evaluating everyday “low aggression acts”, and the legitimate and illegitimate use of force. Aggression from or on pupils depends to great extent on the positive standpoint regarding the use of force of the offenders. Our results allow us to sustain the hypothesis that violent relations are established within the more general framework of school relations. To the extent that pupils distance themselves from teachers, because of difficulties with school work, family or integration, they convey positions and actions which differ from, or are opposed to, models advocated by teachers or adults in general. In this sense, the representation of violence is becoming more complex, more polemic, in the society, in particular when children are taken into consideration as subjects or objects of aggression.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17575/rpsicol.v18i1.409