La violencia institucional desde una perspectiva crítica: implicaciones para un trabajo social transformador en el escenario escolar de Puerto Rico

Abstract

To examine the understandings and meanings of the school social work professional, elite people, teachers and directors about institutional violence and identify alternatives and strategies for the development of policies and actions of educational citizenship in response to institutional violence, a qualitative investigation was carried out with a case study design. Semi-structured interview techniques and document analysis were used. The conceptual framework was articulated starting from the constructional perspective and incorporating the theoretical postulates on institutional violence raised by Galtung (2003), Foucault’s (2002) notions of discipline, power, control and resistance and the approaches of Marshall (1950) on the concept of citizenship, weaving the same with the concept of educational citizenship. The findings reveal that educational policies maintain a paternalistic vision of the State, a vertical, unilateral, and hierarchical governance manifested in the surveillance, punishment, and control of the bodies through the functions established in the documents. There is an absence of recognition of the capacity of the components of the school community to contribute to the educational process and there is no real democratic participation. These practices have implied a cumulative institutional violence that has created, according to the interviews carried out, a deep malaise, an intense demoralization, and a sense of loss in helping to improve education in the country. This article analyzes the implications of social work in the uncompromising defense of human rights and educational citizenship; so that a transformative and emancipating social intervention is achieved as a response to institutional violence.