Vandalismo na escola e atitudes frente à aprendizagem

Abstract

Acts of vandalism have increasingly become frequent in schools from Brazil. However, to what extent do such actions influence on the teenagers' learning process? Therefore, this study aimed to verify the correlation between school vandalism and attitudes toward learning. Specifically, we aimed to analyze the relationship between vandalism and the negative dimension in relation to learning, and to evaluate students' perception of vandalism. A total of 200 teenagers from public schools in the city of João Pessoa - PB with mean age of 14.1 (SD = 1.43) years old, which 51.7% were female and 48, 3% were male, participated in this research study. They answered the Social Conduct Scale, the Questionnaire of Attitudes Toward School as well as sociodemographic questions. The results showed that school vandalism acts were positively correlated to the negative dimension towards learning (r = 0.24, p <0.01), negatively correlated to the expectation factors (r = -0.15; p <0.05) and openness (r = - 0.28, p <0.01) with statistical significance in all of them. It is concluded that teenagers who have aversion and rejection towards learning tend to have a greater frequency of vandalism acts, whereas those participants with greater openness and expectations towards learning tend to present a lower frequency of school vandalism acts. Discussions point to possible repercussions of these results on the learning process and on the role of Educational Psychology in the wake of this debate.