Group as a socio-educational device: research-intervention with adolescents who were sentenced to community service

Abstract

This article presents some discussions from a doctoral thesis, which thought about specifics, principles and strategies for the use of group methodologies as devices to act in the care of eleven adolescents sentenced to measures in freedom. The study is the result of an intervention research, with adolescents, sentenced to community services, linked to a institution in the Distrito Federal. The article presents a summary of the results of the thesis, evidencing analyzes related to the meanings produced with adolescents on the concept of work, inherent in the obligation to provide community services. Under the prism of Historical-Cultural Psychology (LS Vygotsky), from the perspective of dialogism (M. Bakthin) and the problematization of the concept of group-device (RB Barros), the negotiation processes for the accomplishment of a collaborative and community activity with adolescents are analyzed. Subsequently, aspects related to the movements of the group, permeated by transformations and resignifications, are approached. Finally, we discuss the concept of a group as a socio-educational device that can be taken in the execution of socio-educational measures, in order to broaden the tools of care for adolescents and contribute to the deepening of the theoretical-methodological basis of practices in socioeducation.