Violência na escola: discurso e governamento nas políticas educacionais sobre o bullying

Abstract

This research focuses on educational policies addressing bullying within the school context. Its objective is to analyze how these policies, particularly in the state of Santa Catarina, name, regulate, and produce the phenomenon of bullying. The investigation is grounded in a post-critical perspective and in the theoretical contributions of Michel Foucault, drawing on the conceptual tools of discourse and governmentality. It is a qualitative study, based on documentary analysis of legislation, programs, regulations, and official data. From a close reading of these documents, four main analytical focuses emerged to support the core of this investigation: (a) punishment and criminalization; (b) guidance and prevention; (c) partnerships and agreements; and (d) collective work. These focuses were not defined beforehand but were constructed throughout the reading process, based on the enunciative possibilities of the research materials. The guiding question of the study was addressed through an analysis of the discourses present in educational policies and the governmental strategies employed for the prevention and confrontation of bullying. The analysis revealed that the mechanisms established to combat violence activate a logic of holding schools accountable, supported by practices of surveillance, evidence production, and performance monitoring, thereby shifting responsibilities from the State to the school institution. Following the documentary analysis, it became possible to broaden the perspective on the discourses circulating in the educational field and to discuss the effects they produce on how the State structures its strategies for addressing violence in schools. The study concludes that educational policies addressing bullying function as strategies of governmentality, operating through the production of truths, classifications, and protocols that transform the phenomenon into an object of management and surveillance. The results also indicate that bullying is traversed by power relations, marks of patriarchy, gender discourses, and neoliberal rationality, which directly interfere with school dynamics.