Violence in schools: what are the lessons for teacher education?

Considering that teachers play a fundamental role in overcoming violence in schools, this research identified adolescents’ perceptions of their teachers’ actions. The qualitative investigation involved immersion in a government-run lower secondary school in the urban outskirts of Brasilia (Brazilian capital), documental analysis, live observation, semi-structured individual interviews and focus group sessions. The results detected the use of classroom methodologies typified by excessive oral exposition and copies, scarcely compatible with adolescents’ aspirations to achieve autonomy and a protagonist role. Teachers’ impersonal relations with their students and difficulty in addressing classroom conflicts contribute to the occurrence and aggravation of episodes of violence and indiscipline. Proposals for changes in teacher education are based on that analysis.