Percepção ambiental de crianças em ambientes naturais protegidos

This study aimed at exploring and describing children s perceptions in threatened natural settings, specifically, the Rain Forest in Brazil. Several studies point to the significance of perceptions for people s pro-environmental attitudes and actions. We try to understand the person-environment interaction from an ecological perspective, and we present theoretical references for the understanding of how crucial nature is for psychological development and well-being. The children s drawings, individual interviews, discussion groups, photographies and informal and indirect sources, as teachers, brought material for the analysis. Participated in our study, carried on through a multi-method strategy, 209 children from six to eleven years old, living in the neighborhood of the Biological Reserve of Una, State of Bahia, created to protect Rain Forest fragments. The Rain Forest landscape is well portrayed in children s drawings, the vegetal elements prevailing over artificial and human elements. The figured plants and trees, however, are pointed with no precision as to their species. Most of the defined species are eatable. The children seem to be aware of the environment degradation, and of the importance of its conservation, but they describe episodes of hunting and feeding wild threatened animals. Our results indicate a utilitarian trend in the perception of living beings, in terms of their immediate usefulness for people. The multimethod approach seems to be appropriate to the complexity of the theme; the methodological strategies were well accepted by the children, offering them opportunities to express themselves. We observed how children, in different life phases, organize natural elements and processes in their drawings, and how these images relate to the local landscape. We discuss the results in the light of theoretical references of personenvironment studies and from previous investigations about children s perceptions of natural environment

A escola enquanto espaço privilegiado de construção de "meninos de verdade" :concepções e valores atribuidos a essa instituição por crianças pobres

The intention of this study was to identify the school conception (conceptions) in the discourse of poor children. There were inquired two groups of subjects: the first was composed of children that inserted precociously themselves into the work market and must to go to school because they take part in one of the governmental programs, called, minimum income programs. The second will be composed of children that live in the poorest district in Natal/RN city. And don´t have obligatoriness to go to school. Thus, thematics like precocious work, minimum income program, capitalism, neoliberalism was aproached in our discussion. We also intended to make a illustrate with Pinochio Adventures fable, because its conception school is similar like real official discourse school from everybody. In cited narrative, the character Gepeto didn t know what s a truth child but knows that exist a place in city where his maledoll Pinochio would be one the school. Thus, this institution was destine by the justice and politics from Gepetos s city how children right. Pinochio, in the book s end, to be transformed himself in a truth child because learned in school responsible and goodness behaviors. To uphold our inquiry we used the Content Analysis and socio-historical perspectives. The result showed that the children know that exist differents schools: yours and other, to rich class. Their school is admited like good, it is a study place, it isn´t disorders place; and also make propotional to social ascencion. The children s discourses is similar to capitalism s discourse