Abstract

SAMPAIO, Juliana; SANTOS, Maria de Fátima de Souza  and  SILVA, Maria Rejane Ferreira da. The social representation of motherhood in school-age children. Psicol. cienc. prof. [online]. 2008, vol.28, n.1, pp. 174-185. ISSN 1414-9893.

The social representations are social articulated knowledge that bring about significance to reality. As the child understands reality, he/she shares meanings and gives sense to the maternal figure and consequently to his or her own social role as son or daughter. This work investigates the content and the structure of the social representation of motherhood of school-age children from upper-middle social classes. Semi-structured interviews were applied, a drawing about motherhood was requested, the children were asked to tell a story and the Abric tri-hierarchic test of items (1994) was applied to 16 children of both sexes, between 8 to 10 years old, from a private school in Recife. The study showed that children share a representation of mother based on unconditional love and self-denial on behalf of her child, what legitimates tasks as setting limits, educating, taking for a walk, giving affection etc. The results showed that love is the core of motherhood representation, what affects directly the identity of women and children.

Keywords : Social representation; Motherhood; School age children; Identity.

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