VIOLÊNCIA FÍSICA INTRAFAMILIAR CONTRA CRIANÇAS: OS SENTIDOS ATRIBUÍDOS POR TRÊS GERAÇÕES

Abstract

This study aimed to apprehend the senses of intrafamilial physical violence against children attributed by three generations of popular class families. This work is part of the research named Educar/criar sem violência: prevenção da violência física familiar contra crianças, which dealt with families whose children participate, or participated at the time of the research, in Escola de Circo, in Goiânia (GO), one of the extension programs of the Instituto Dom Fernando (IDF) at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Goiás (PUC-Goiás). The present research is qualitative and all the process was based on the theoretical and methodological principles of Vigotski’s social-historical psychology, focusing on the historical and dialectical materialism perspective. Two families participated and members of three generations were interviewed: grandmother, mother, and child(ren). It is important to point out that one of the families participated with two children, totaling seven individuals. According to the core meanings of the participants, it was possible to apprehend the senses of intrafamilial physical violence against children attributed by each one of them. In a general perspective, physical violence against children was and continues being one of the main, if not the main, method used in the education of this three generations under study. Although it is a naturalized and banalized phenomenon for the interviewed grandmothers, mothers, and children, contradictorily, all these subjects expressed their suffering and/or affirmed their sorrow for having experienced such violence. In conclusion, each generation understands physical violence against children in a peculiar way: for the grandmothers, it is legitimated, although they reject the one that leaves physical marks in the body or the type they consider more severe; the mothers live a reflection about its use in their children’s education, although they find it difficult to interrupt the usage of this method of education; and finally, the children reported suffering when they are the victims, but it is difficult for them to imagine other models of education.