Youth as a stigmatizing condition: relations between inequality, violence and experience in school

Abstract

Considering that, at their limit, stigmatization and exclusion become processes of self exclusion, through the strength of unconscious mechanisms of symbolic domination, it becomes imperious to evidence the points of view of youth. Today, one perceives a dual discourse about adolescents and youth: they are the promise of the future and, at the same time, violent criminals who threaten “social tranquility”. This paper, therefore, intends to contribute to enable an analytic change in the field of research about violence in schools, far removed from the hegemonic approaches characteristic to penal common sense and biologistic racism. The term “violence”, in socio educational research, takes on diverse meanings, including contradictory ones - several of which partly incorporate meanings which stem from common sense and supposed hegemonic paradigms. Changing the vision that tends to impose itself as a truth is treated in this article as a challenge and a utopia.