A agressividade e os conflitos nas brincadeiras entre crianças em situação de risco social

Abstract

Children in social and personal risky conditions are exposed to a number of stressful factors that theoretically increase their predisposition to aggressive behavior. This study focused a group of such children, from five to eight years of age, in a daily care center located in the periphery of Goiânia, and was conducted between April and December of 2003. Sixteen subcategories of physical aggression, eight of threat, seven of submission, and one of stealing were identified during a pilot study. The all occurrences sampling method was used for the systematic data collection, conducted from September to November of 2003. For each episode of agonistic interaction it was noted the identity of parties, the first subcategory emitted by the initiator of the episode, and the last subcategory emitted by the receptor. Biometrics measurements and questionnaires about the socioeconomic situation of each subject were conducted in December of 2003. Four hundred and ninety nine agonistic interactions were registered during 38 sessions of systematic data collection (1740 minutes of sampling). Some patterns were similar to those found in previous studies with children living in better socioeconomic context, such as a higher frequency of occurrence and a larger proportion of physical aggression in episodes involving male subjects, and a larger proportion of verbal threat in episodes involving older female subjects. On the other hand, some data suggest specific strategies that result from stressful factors, such as the very high frequency of episodes involving physical aggression, and a high frequency of episodes on Monday. Subjects with additional problems at home (hunger, alcoholism, aggression) initiated more episodes than other subjects, although the proportion of physical aggression were not significantly higher. We discuss the importance of specific strategies to the preparation of children in social and personal risky conditions for their micro and macroculture.