Violence in the school environment: social inclusion through peace education

Abstract

The present article is the result of a research carried out in ten schools of the public system education network that were participants of an interdisciplinary and interinstitucional project which involved the State and Municipal Secretary of Education, the Municipal Secretary of Health, through NASCA, the Foundation of Social Welfare and Citizenship, through PEMSE and PUCRS, through the Faculty of Social Work. The research has a qualitative and participatory nature and has as its objective to evaluate the results of a training for teachers on peace education and how this training has contributed for the development of actions directed to prevention of violence. The methodological procedures were comprised of semi-structured interviews with school principals, teachers and support personnel, visits to schools, focus groups with students and reports from the meetings with the participants. The data was recorded and transcribed, and submitted to content analysis. The results indicate that peace education is a process that has to be strengthen since it has demonstrated positive results in the improvement of school’s sense of belonging and social inclusion.
Key words – Violence. Schools. Peace education. Human rights. Social inclusion.