“TRY TO MAKE ADOLESCENTS CHANGE LIFE”: SOCIO-EDUCATION SIGNIFICANCE PROCESSES IN THE FEMALE HOSPITAL CONTEXT
Socio-education; accountability; comprehensive protection; institucional practices; historical-cultural psychology.
According to the regulatory frameworks, socio-education must add accountability for the infraction and the promotion of comprehensive protection, with a view to reinserting the adolescent in compliance with a socio-educational internment measure. Although the regulatory frameworks present a set of principles, rules and criteria with a view to guiding the execution of the hospitalization measure, the knowledge about how this is expressed in the professional practices carried out in the socio-educational units is still incipient. Thus, the present study had the general objective of understanding the meanings constructed by adolescents deprived of their liberty and by professionals who work in a socio-educational measurement unit on socioeducation in the female context of hospitalization. For this, we consider as specific objectives to analyze the meanings constructed by adolescents and professionals, on socio-educational measures, in order to involve: a) Hospitalization, full protection and accountability; b) The reasons for the practice of infractions and for recidivism; c) The institutional trajectory of adolescents; d) Professional practices aimed at comprehensive protection, accountability and social reintegration. This study was based on Vygotsky's Historical-Cultural Psychology, considering that this perspective aggregates the individual and the social in a dialectical way. The methodological approach adopted was qualitative and the study consisted of two stages: the first of participant observation, in which professionals who perform the measure of detention and adolescents who were deprived of liberty participated; and the second, semistructured interview, carried out with three adolescents and six professionals who monitor the girls. The data were triangulated and analyzed based on the construction of categories, guided by the objectives of this study. We found that the measure of hospitalization was meant by the girls and the professionals as an “opportunity” for the teenager to break the infraction trajectory, through reflection on the infraction act, as well as re-signifying the life project. Comprehensive protection, therefore, emerged associated with the guarantee of rights, which is promoted in the inpatient unit, through the provision of a set of pedagogical actions, differently from the outside world, marked by the violation of rights; however, we were struck by the fact that comprehensive protection also emerged in institutional practices, for adolescents, related to punitive accountability. As for the meaning of accountability, it appeared reduced to individual accountability, focused on cognitive aspects, which was expressed in accountability practices, centered, above all, in punitive accountability. With regard to the reasons for committing the offense, we observed, among the adolescents, that they moved from individual to social aspects, however, when addressing recidivism, the social context is disregarded, given the focus on “change” individual; in relation to the professionals, we verified the predominance over the social context, both in terms of the reasons for the infraction and the recurrence; however, the institutional assessment of the adolescent is centered on behavior, especially in relation to the adolescent's adaptation to institutional norms. As for the infraction, it was noteworthy that the meanings did not include the damage caused to the other, but rather associated with the punitive consequences of the transgression, which indicates the predominance of punitive accountability practices, which involve the fear of punishment. Regarding social reintegration, we found, among institutional practices, few strategies that involve the family, as well as the low participation of society in the implementation of the measure, in addition to the weakening of the graduates' policy. Thus, although adolescents plan to “change” their life trajectory, the absence of full protection, in the outside world, can direct them to informal, subordinate and disqualified jobs, or even to remain on the offending trajectory.