O processo de urbanização de Mossorò: dos processos históricos à estrutura urbana atual

The general objective of this academic work is to analyze the relationship between the territorial division and the urban expansion process of Mossoró city, understood here as the production and occupation of space. The urban expansion in Mossoró, since its formation as settlement in 1772 until current days, identifies with the Brazilian urbanization process whose growth is determined by the capitalist development. Thus, the expansion was determined by several economical specializations imposed by the territorial division of work which occurs at an interregional level, and, sometimes at an international level. Then, each specialization determined a moment of the urban expansion of the city, as follows: a) The cattle farmer specialization, between 1772 and 1857, when the urban expansion was shy, is summarized to a commercial square that received goods from Aracati aiming to cover a wide rural area; b) The commercial emporium specialization, between 1857 and 1930, when the urban expansion took an important impulse with the concentration of public and private capitals; c) The salt industry and the agricultural-industrial exporter specialization inside a state of development policy, between 1930 and 1970, when the urban expansion, joined to the settlement of the working class in the urban soil, developed along an important axis -the railway; d) The render of services specialization inside a state of intervention policy, between 1970 and 1990, when the urban expansion was characterized by the accelerated growth rhythm, by the reuse of some spaces, and by space segregation of demanding people; e) The render of services policy inside a neoliberal state policy, since 1990 until current days, when the urban expansion reduced its rhythm abruptly, when only small alterations occurred in the existing spaces. It focused on social policies and on several slums eradication programs. Finally, the territorial structure is deeply articulated with others, no territorial, but economical, social and political, which happens at a national, regional and local rate. Only within a historical and conceptual panorama, it was possible to explain the urban expansion in Mossoró from its formation in 1772 until current days. Therefore, this work is a several discipline analysis of the urbanization process existing in Mossoró

Habitabilidade na cidade sobre as águas: desafios da implantação de infra-estrutura de saneamento nas palafitas do Igarapé do Quarenta bairro Japiim Manaus/AM

The present research if inserts in the subject of the habitation of social interest and its relation with the sanitation infra-structure questions (sewer, water, draining and garbage). Having as study universe the narrow river of the Forty , situated one in the city of Manaus, capital of Amazon, approaches questions that if present between the necessities of housing and the especificidades of the natural environment, whose characteristics evidence limits for the implantation of adequate habitations. The objective is to analyze the possibilities and the limits of the urbanística regularization in the palafitas of the narrow rivers of Manaus, in view of the factors of habitability and ambient protection, expresses for the sanitation system - sanitary exhaustion, water supply, urban draining and garbage collection. The work approaches initially relative the conceptual aspects to the subject of social habitation in the country and its relation with the habitability factors, also focusing the question of the housing and the processes of urban informality in the city of Manaus. It deals with the process of constitution of the palafitas in the space of the city and its relation with the habitacionais politics, presenting the analysis of the implantation of the palafitas in relation to the sanitation infra-structure conditions (sewer, water, draining and garbage). As conclusion, it identifies to the possibilities and limits of urbanística regularization of the palafitas implanted to the long one of the narrow river of the Forty , taking in consideration the systems of the sanitation infrastructure

Estrutura genética populacional de Lutjanus analis cioba e Lutjanus jocu dentão (Lutjanidae) ao longo do litoral brasileiro

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior

Juventude e vulnerabilidade social :no contexto intra-urbano de Natal, RN

The use of the term social vulnerability in the study of the reproduction of the social inequalities in Brazil, still, is recent. The social vulnerability is linked to the indicators of social risk. The work approaches the youth's social vulnerability and your relationship with the education, considering the youth a, among other groups socially excluded, vulnerable, in the Brazilian metropolises. It is guided by the methodological theoretical formulations on this thematic one developed by the Rede Metrópoles in the ambit of the project, " Observatory of the Metropolises: territory, social cohesion and democratic governability ( Project Millennium CNPq) and your unfoldings in the Natal group. Empirically, forehead a methodological proposal - still in construction - and it accomplishes a " pilot " study for the city of Natal with base in the data of the Census of IBGE 2000, that proposes mensurar the importance of the social characteristics of the neighborhood on the considered youths' educational acting those that are in the strip from 15 to 24 years. It considers that the youths' educational " earnings as being influenced not only for the social context of the family, also, for your space location in the city - social context of the neighborhood. With base in the results can verify that the youths of the city of Natal present situations of social vulnerability so much in the ambit of the family as expresses in the social space of the neighborhood. Such vulnerability are verified in the low educational indexes, in the high unemployment rates and in the presented social conditions of the researched areas. The youths, residents of those neighborhoods, they are considered vulnerable socially because original of a precarious source of " assets " and opportunities. There is in Natal a low " structure of assets and opportunities " - accessible to the youth

Avanços e retrocessos na articulação de um pacto territorial: a experiência do PRONAF Infra-Estrutura

Since minetics The economics and political promotion along the necessity of flexibility in states actions admited actors partipction and social controlo on process of construction in local development. The Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento à Agricultura Familiar (PRONAF) by this framework consists suprass the specific points about contry world in order to embrace territorial dimension of development, focalizing actions that estimulate co-operative pratices among local agents. This work proposal intends to identify advances and regression of PRONAF Infra-estrutura (Framework) by one territorial pact organization considering its administration about mechamisms on advantage conmflicts between distinct actor and their ables to atimulates a construction of new relationships between governors and population. Undderstanding PRONAF action like a process that come from its instrumental proportion surpass looking for substantial elements constructionm on intervention of local development considering administration mechamisms in São Paulo do Potengi (RN) city-council-starting by Conselho Municipal de Desenvolvimento Rural as well changes of institutional arrangement with território da Borborema erection. Throngh documental studies, bibliography researches and interviews we indenttfy an articulante power of Territorial pact partnerships like one of these political process and its sector character as their limits

Estrutura econômica, mercado de trabalho e evolução sócio-ocupacional no Rio Grande do Norte 2001 a 2008: reflexo de uma condição mercantil e estruturalmente periférica

The aim of this thesis was to investigate the evolution of the socio-occupational status in Rio Grande do Norte from 2001 to 2008, based on the characterization of the socio-economic status of this State from the analysis of labor market norte-rio-grandense . The study, specifically, drew a comparison between the dynamics of the labor market in Rio Grande do Norte and the capital city, Natal. From this perspective, the purpose was to make a relationship between the social division of labor and its effects on the socio-spatial division, represented in the "macro scale" by the federal unit and the "micro level" for the capital; locus of economic and population concentration. The collection of data on the labor market had as a major source PNAD/IBGE, characterizing the labor market in many ways: people of working age, economically active population and employed and unemployed people, classified by age, sex, color, education, income and social protection condition. However, as for the socio-occupational division, we follow the methodology used by the research group on national television, based in IPPUR /UFRJ, called Monitoring of the Metropolis," which rallied twenty-four groups that aggregate the occupations found in the PNAD/IBGE, in eight groups of socio-occupational categories, according to the similarity between them. It was used in the socio-spatial cutting two relevant discussions, which are inter-related and were characterized as crucial points in developing the research problem: the former was related to the influence of the hegemony of merchant capital in the labor market in Rio Grande North and, the latter, it referred the socio-economic relations between the territory and the variable occupation. Lastly, the results all indicated that in Rio Grande do Norte, as a peripheral state, has suffered the devastating influence of the hegemony of capital purely commercial basis, where "wealth" of capitalism is generated through the sphere of mere movement of goods and services rather than a productive process due to the social relations of production more advanced. We have a little advanced economic structure, with a tertiary sector that has propagated under-employment or disguised unemployment. Similarly, the agricultural sector has been presented as an example of greater social degradation of working conditions in the state. The secondary sector, in turn, also was not behind this uncertainty; on the contrary, confirmed that condition, with poor levels of income, low education of the workforce and a high degree of social helplessness, even in the state capital, space full urban area, which although always appear with a favorable condition compared to Province, in practically most of the variables studied, was also reflected at the same time the author of a structurally underdeveloped condition

A função social do contrato como concretização de direitos fundamentais nas relações privadas

This dissertation deals with the social function of the contract, based on constitutional principles, especially those relating to fundamental rights. The social function of the contract (general clause) is described in the Civil Code so intentionally generic, no precise criteria to define it. Because of the fluidity of this principle, it is justified its closer study, seeking to assess its various meanings and looking away from the legal uncertainty that an unlimited conceptual vagueness can cause. The social function of the contract arises from a transformation experienced in private law from the inflows received from the Constitutional Law, the result of an evolutionary process by which it became the state structure, leaving the foundations of the classical liberal state and moving toward a vision guided by existential human values that give the keynote of the Welfare State. Arose, then the concern about the effectiveness of fundamental rights in relations between individuals, which is studied from the inapplicability of fundamental rights in private relations (U.S. doctrine of State action), passing to the analysis of the Theory of indirect horizontal effect of fundamental rights (of German creation and majority acceptance), reaching the right horizontal efficacy Theory of fundamental rights, prevailing Brazilian doctrine and jurisprudence. It has also been investigated the foundations of the social contract, pointing out that, apart from the provisions of the constitutional legislation, that base the principle on screen, there have also been noticed foundations in the Federal Constitution, in devices like the art. 1, III, the dignity of the human person is the north of the relationship between contractors. Also art. 3rd, I CF/88 bases the vision of social covenants, equipping it for the implementation of social solidarity, as one of the fundamental objectives of the Republic. Still on art. 170 of the Constitution it is seen as a locus of reasoning in the social function of the contract, the maintenance of the economic order. It is also studied the internal and external aspects of the social function of the contract, being the first part the one that considers the requirement of respect for contractual loyalty, through the objective good faith, as a result of the dignity of the hirer may not be offended by the other through the contract. On the other hand, the external facet of the social function of the contract, in line with the constitutional mandate of solidarity, indicates the need for contractors to respect the rights of society, namely the diffuse, collective and individual third party. In this external appearance, it is also pointed the notion of external credit protection, addressing the duty of society to respect the contract. There has been shown some notions of the social contract in comparative law. Then, there has been investigated the content of principle study, through their interrelationships with other provisions of private and constitutional law, namely equality, objective good faith, private autonomy and dignity of the human person. We study the application of the social contract in contractual networks as well as the guidance of conservation of contracts, especially those denominated long-term captive contracts, considering the theory of substantive due performance, concluding with an analysis of the social contract in code of Consumer Protection

Mercado de trabalho e estrutura sócio-ocupacional: estudo comparativo entre as regiões metropolitanas de Fortaleza, Recife e Salvador 2001-2008

The economic transformations in the world, the end of World War II, listing significant changes in production structures and labor market in the world. Initially developed countries realize these changes and subsequently developing countries. The changes in production patterns, especially with the crisis of Fordism, peripheral countries further accentuated the problems in the workplace. Flexible accumulation, in turn, was responsible for significant changes in the labor market at the periphery of global capitalism. This restructuring process, in Brazil, begun from the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, being more accentuated the impacts on the labor market in the poorest regions of the country, particularly the Northeast. In that sense, this thesis aims to evaluate the job market in the metropolitan areas of Fortaleza, Recife and Salvador in light of the transformation process in the production structures and labor market and its influences in the 2000s. The time frame are the years 2001-2008. Data are from the National Household Sample Survey - PNAD and were drawn from the study proposal developed by the Centre of the Metropolis. The study shows that the labor market of the three metropolitan areas continues to be affected by the restructuring process of the late twentieth century. It found high rates of unprotected busy at work is more precarious conditions of employment for non-whites, women, adolescents / young and old. We also highlight the high percentage of employed persons earning income up 1.00 minimum wage, and a large number of persons employed in the tertiary and tertiary non-specialist. With the picture observed in the three metropolitan areas you can see the major problems in the labor market that proliferate, especially in the metropolitan context of the Northeast, with characteristics similar to those observed in the literature that investigated the labor market in 1990

Habitus docente e representação social do ensinar Geografia na Educação Básica de Teresina - Piauí

The literature about the Geography teaching has shown that most male and female teachers of this subject go on guiding their teaching practice based on the traditional Geography fundamentals, whose main characteristic consist in the description of places. The incorporation of scientific standards that change the old principles and concepts have not been happening, unless in a punctual way. The overcoming of the traditional Geography, related to the aspects accepted by the scientific field have not happened in Brazil yet, not only because of certain obvious obstacles, as the literature has been pointed out but also by symbolic obstacles, which block the incorporation of the new, of the non habitual action. One of those obstacles that motivated the accomplishment of this study was the social representations that are theoretically studied here under the perspective developed by Serge Moscovici. Then, the focus of this doctorate study is concentrated in the apprehension of the content and structure of the social representation of teaching of Geography and its relation with the habitus that gives form and social visibility to the ones who are teachers of that subject in Teresina. The consecution of this work was especially based on the Pierre Bourdieu´s praxiology, mainly on the concepts of social field, habitus and capital, as well as the theory of social representations, specifically on the approach of central nucleus developed by Jean-Claude Abric and Jean-Claude Flament. The initial hypothesis pointed out the existence of a Geographer´s primary habitus built through the development process of the geographic science field in Brazil, as a basis of production of a social representation of teaching geography . That representation, however, would act as a symbolic obstacle to the incorporation of the new scientific contents and pedagogical practice, which require from the teacher investigative and questionable attitude in the presence of the reality and contents approached in the classroom. That initial hypothesis laid on the theoretical purpose that it has been developed by Domingos Sobrinho (1997), which states that there is a narrow relationship between the habitus and social representation. The study was developed with male and female teachers of Geography from public schools of Teresina. The methodology involved the use of a questionnaire, the free-word association technique and deep interviews. The achieved results showed the presence of a complex process of representational construction and its articulation with a habitus produced by the synthesis of several situational and cultural referents, from among of them we can point out an insertion in a social field of practice exclusively related to the teaching and the reproduction of a professoral teaching (SILVA, 2003), built through the school development process, which those male and female teachers were exposed. The initial hypothesis that considered the local reproduction of a primary habitus of the Geography was denied, therefore, it was verified that there is not in Teresina the production/reproduction of the structures, rules and practice of the national scientific field, in which this subject is inserted. Hence, the incorporation of the new patterns of the geographic scientific knowledge is difficult because of the inexistence of a scientific habitus, that is, mental schema systems that would let the teachers mentioned above connect themselves appropriately to the science and its practices. So, it has gotten a social representation of teaching geography based on contents strictly related to the reproduction of structures, mental schema from the educational field which attach themselves to the hegemonic pedagogical practices in the national scope

Representação social do ensinar: a dimensão pedagógica do habitus professoral

Teaching is an activity inherent to the human condition. Historically, from the institutionalization of education, the key role to pursue that activity has been attributed to the teacher, who is required to adapt to the demands of each historical conjuncture. Currently, according to the new paradigmatic requirements, the teacher must possess various skills in order to handle the complex and challenging act of teaching. Assuming the existence of a gap between what the State and the scientific discourse recommend the teacher act upon in the classroom, a decision was made to identify the configuration and structure of social representation in the act of teaching, put forth by elementary school teachers in the public schools of Natal, RN, Brazil. Therefore, the research relied on the theoretical model developed by Domingos Sobrinho (1998, 2000, 2003), which articulates the praxeology of Pierre Bourdieu with the theory of social representations of Serge Moscovici (1978). It was intended to demonstrate how teachers habitus, in its due historical context, directs the construction of social representations in the act of teaching which guides the actions of the teacher, particularly in the classroom context. At the methodological level, the following methods and techniques were used: bibliographic and documentary review in order to identify the scientific discourse on the subject matter and the official parameters of educational regulation and the act of teaching; the Procedure of Multiple Classifications PMC in order to capture the configuration and structure of the representational content in focus, the direct observation of the classroom to identify in actual terms the social representation as "guide to action" as the theory preaches. From the standpoint of the analysis, quantitative data were analysed through Multidimensional Scaling MDS, covering in this study the Multidimensional Scale Analysis MSA and Smallest Space Analysis SSA; and non-parametric statiscal techniques. Additional data of qualitative value had to undergo categorical content analysis. It was then concluded that the teachers investigated guided themselves by social representation, the product of collectively constructed and shared assumptions about the act of teaching, forming a synthesis of different sources of information and knowledge acquirement, involving elements of common sense, religious habitus, pedagogic models considered outdated, the agencies responsible for teacher training and the hegemonic discourse about education today

Praxiologia, representação social de menopausa e práticas educativas de enfermeiras na estratégia saúde da família

This research, whose theme is related to climacteric, aims to know the social representation of menopause developed by the nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa PB, as well as identifying its structure and verifying the way it interferes with the assistance and educational practices to the climacterial user. In the theoretical level, it is based on a model that articulates the social representations theory, the central nucleus complementary theory and the central concepts of Pierre Bourdieu s praxiology: habitus, cultural capital, social field and symbolic power. A hundred and forty-seven female nurses who work for Estratégia Saúde da Família (Family Health Strategy) in João Pessoa (PB) took part in this research, and the data collection period was from February 2008 to March 2009. As to the methods and techniques, we used the method to determine the central nucleus based on the free association of words, a questionnaire to identify certain regularities that constitute the nurses habitus, and the semi-structured interview to explore opinions and attitudes when facing assistance situations and educational practices and to collect other relevant information. The data analysis was developed, when referring to the free associations, with the help of the EVOC software, which is a group of articulated programs which carry out the statistical analysis of the evocations and the identification of the possible elements of both the central nucleus and the peripheral system of the social representation. As to the questionnaire, we used the descriptive statistical analysis and the analysis of correlation between the variables. The interviews were submitted to a categorical analysis of the content. The EVOC result indicated that the cognition hormone was the only element of the central nucleus of the social representation of menopause. Due to its symbolic value and structuring power, this central nucleus ensures the strict and, at the same time, flexible character of the representational content. The analysis of the social advancement, of some fundamental features of the group habitus, as well as the analysis of its insertion in the health field and of the attitudinal opinions and dispositions concerning the assistance given to the climacterial user, and the analysis of the pedagogical dimension of this assistance, all these analyses lead to the conclusion that the nurses who took part in this research share a social representation of the menopause resulting from the association of different technical and scientific knowledge. These derive from the biomedical pattern as well as from hegemonic values which disqualify old age and overvalue youth, from pedagogical conceptions arising from patterns that are presently regarded as authoritative and old-fashioned and from cultural references (responsible for the semantic variations concerning the central nucleus) which are specific to the subgroups the nurses belong to. This research enables the creation of opportunities for discussion between active nurses working for Estratégia Saúde da Família, and the nurses who are teachers at institutions of higher education, aiming at linking theory to practice, so that they can find ways of thinking about the climacteric and working, in a more comprehensive way, with users who are experiencing this stage of life

Praxiologia e representação social sobre formação de professores nas licenciaturas da UFPI

At this investigation it was analyzed the content and the organization of the social representation on the object teachers education, built by teachers of degree courses from Universidade Federal do Piauí(Ufpi), understanding such representation articulated to the teaching habitus of these educators of teachers, what takes under consideration the position that they hold in the structure of the national field and in the subfield of teachers education. For that, it is searched: a) to emphasize the properties of the place in which the trainers act Ufpi as the office of those field and subfield; b) to understand who are the trainers, that is, to grasp the teaching habitus of the trainers with a view of its origin, social trajectory and the specifics of their position in the analyzed field and the subfield and c) to know what they think about their work object, that is, identify and articulate the content and the organization of the social representation analyzed with their properties of field and subfield agents. The research includes the specific degree courses of the Campus Ministro Petrônio Portella , from Teresina(PI), and it was applied to 134 professors of degree courses from this Campus. The data collect joined to the participants happened on the second period of 2008 and on the first semester of 2009. The starting point of the study is the corroboration that the reform of Ufpi degree courses, determined by the legislation and stablished at this Institution in 2005, altered a little the previous situation. It is comprehended that Ufpi and its structures of teachers education as a trainer institution, is limited by the national academic field and by the subfield of teachers education. From this last one, it was listed some of its properties, to show that it is about an academic subfield in construction process. It is emphasized division of the subfield, that separates the trainers into two subgroups the ones who dedicate themselves to the specific education on the contents and those ones who are specialized on pedagogical education placed in antagonistic position and competing by the symbolic power of imposing the meaning and the sense of the teachers education in the degree courses. To understand the comprehension of the problem, it is searched for the models that are in the root of the construction of the University and its project of teachers education in the degree courses, to clarify the matrixes in which the social representation searched is stablished. The theoretical referential articulates the contributions of Moscovici, the theory of social representations, and of Bourdieu, with the concepts that compose its praxeology, as habitus, social field, capital, symbolic power and others, as well as their interpreters and continuators, as Domingos Sobrinho. From the literature about the university and teachers education, it was used Dermeval Saviani, Luiz Antônio Cunha, Maria Isabel da Cunha and Mirian Jorge Warde, besides others. Plurimethodological procedures were adopted, combining associative techniques adjusted to the access to the social representations, and a classic technique, a questionnaire about teaching habitus. The condition is that the teachers build different social representation of the object teachers education because of the distinct positions that they occupy in the structure of the academic field and the subfield of the teachers education. The reached positions in the field and subfield are due to the differences in the origin and social trajectory of these agents, who, therefore, have different teaching habitus from which they build their social representation about their work object. It is highlighted that the teaching habitus and the social representation of two subfields, identified by the belongings to different dimensions of the teachers education in the degree courses, they have similarities and, also, differences. These ones permit to support that the subjects are holders of distinct teaching habitus that conceive different practices, struggles, tensions and conflicts around the sense of teachers education

A dimensão social do desenho: um estudo sobre as interações no processo de (re) construção imagética da criança no Ensino Fundamental

In the historical-cultural perspective, the drawing is processed by means of a shared and complex way, under diverse relations with the other and with the immersed signs of the culture. That is, something constituted by the social interactions and that can modify the structure of the psychological functions, therefore as socialized sign, propitiates the incorporation of the functions socially. In this way, the figuration carrier sensitive and established meanings historically disclosing the shared experiences and the ways of the subject to think and perceive the world. Such reflections gave shape to the main problem of this research: how to think over about the drawing at the school to incide in the reconstruction of the childs imaginative language? Under such perspective, this work deals with the interactions in the production process of the drawing of the children in a context of teach-Iearning of the elementary school having as goal to analyze the interactions established in the cIassroom in the process of production of the drawings; to propose situations of learnings that favor the advance graphical expression of the students; and to identify in the interactive games some relations between body expression and drawing. For its accomplishment, it was opted for the construction process based in the collaborative investigation by the fact to propitiate negotiations, sharing and confrontation of ideas, becoming possible a joint construction of the knowledge. For this research, the researcher and the collaborating teacher, as well as the involved children, become themselves into co-authors of the context studied. As locus of the research, it was chosen a first cycle class, with 30 students, from Municipal School Profª. Emília Ramos (Natal/RN - Brazil), whose election took in account the fact of this school to constitute in a promotional space of reflections and professional development of teachers in service and, at the same time, for presentinglimitations theoretic- methodological in the field of teaching for Arts. In the process of the research, it was perceived that the children with the support of the verbal language formulates meanings on the seen and imagined object, printing lines and forms that if overlap to the physiological aspects of the visual perception. That is, the drawing discloses a reality appraised, enriched for the picked up vision of the image, but the meanings established for the author, or observer who becomes it perceivable and identified. In the systemizing situations, it was observed that the teaching-Iearning process of the drawing, implies a co-construction between teachers and learners. And, moreover, the necessity to interlace emotion and cognition by means of plastic-corporal interactions that foment drawing experiences, whose process concurs for the imagenative reconstruct of the apprentices

Infra-estrutura para avaliação e testes de protocolos sociais de comunicação em ambientes tridimencionais compartilhados

The advent of the Internet stimulated the appearance of several services. An example is the communication ones present in the users day-by-day. Services as chat and e-mail reach an increasing number of users. This fact is turning the Net a powerful communication medium. The following work explores the use of communication conventional services into the Net infrastructure. We introduce the concept of communication social protocols applied to a shared virtual environment. We argue that communication tools have to be adapted to the Internet potentialities. To do that, we approach some theories of the Communication area and its applicability in a virtual environment context. We define multi-agent architecture to support the offer of these services, as well as, a software and hardware platform to support the accomplishment of experiments using Mixed Reality. Finally, we present the obtained results, experiments and products

Os significados do tabagismo construídos na dinâmica social

The present study has the purpose of catching the significances of smoking in the social dinamics based on the Theory of Social Representations. It was developed among adults with ages from 20 to 59 years, low social and economic conditions, at Natal RN, Brazil. The Free-words Association Test was applied as the instrument of data collection and a semi-structured interview with the smokers and non-smokers, besides a structured interview with smokers, non-smokers and ex-smokers. All data was analyzed by the descriptive statistics using the Analysis of Content Technique of the thematic kind and by the softwares ALCESTE and EVOC 2000. Elaborations about smoking were marked by social, cultural and historical dimension, however they showed sensibility to changes and revealed positive and negative aspects of the habit. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews showed the following categories and under-categories respectively: Initiation of the habit (Friends and Family and Appreciation and Beauty); Psychosocial Implications of smoking (Personal relationship, Work and Financial); Behavior when facing smoking (Positive, Negative and Neutral); Smoking Effects (Smokers´ health and the other people health); Description about oral diseases ( Bad breath, Oral cancer and Dental problems); Smoking treatment (Physician and psychological, Supernatural and Difficulties). ALCESTE analysis presented 4 classes: Ambivalence between pleasure and get ill, Smoking as a trouble and danger to society, Social discrimination of smokers and Mouth as a place of reaffirmation of the discrimination. Those helped us to understand the psychosocial repercussion of the habit. On the social representation structure we identified as a probable central nucleus of the smoker group the categories Pleasure and Bad to the health and as peripheral elements Alcoholic Drink, Financial damage and Nervousness. For the non-smoker group the category Bad to the health comes first and Stop Smoking comes as a peripheral element. Finally, we hope that the knowledge of these representations can contribute to plan and/or to rethink over the professional practices and public policies related to smoking. Besides that, for an amplified comprehension of the study object the discussions over the identified representations should be deepen and amplified to other population and social groups