Girls in school playground: from conflicts to learning to negotiate and to build consensus to participate socially

Abstract

The adult-centric view of children's conflicts during school recess, guided by negativity, has neglected its analysis from children, disregarding its process and the fact that they often end up without recourse to adult intervention. Using the contributions of Childhood Social Studies and Education Sciences, this article approaches children as social actors, producers of children cultures and organized as a social group, proposing to rethink conflicts as inherent to children's relationships and sociability, traversed by powers and emotions, and in which processes they also learn to negotiate and build essential consensus to social participation. The socio-educational analysis of conflicts between 10-year-old girls, observed during the recess of a 1st cycle school, private and urban, seeks to account for i) the gendered occupation of formal recreational spaces; ii) the conflict as a process and the understanding of the social conditions of its genesis, developments and outcomes; iii) its interpretation within the context of social relationships and its powers, traversed by statutes, prestige and elective affinities; iv) learning social skills relevant to social participation. Feminine conflicts that usually arose when they started playing showed in their development, usually in verbal and emotional escalation, practices in which statutes, prestige and elective affinities were used to (re)construct and/or reinforce alliances for the purpose of shutting/exclusion, affirming leadership, confirming principles and values. Its resolution, resulting from mediations, negotiations and construction of consensus is relevant for the development of social participation and political competences.