Participante Observation

Participative observation: a methodological approach to school psychology

by Joao Batista Martins

published in Semina: Cie. Sociais/Humanas, Londrina, v. 17, n. 3, p. 266-273, Sep. 1996.

The purpose of this paper is to take the participative observation into consideration as an appropriate methodology to... more The purpose of this paper is to take the participative observation into consideration as an appropriate methodology to the work of scholar psychologists. We consider the school as a social construction prescribed through the representations of the social agents who participate in its day by day Iife. The participative observation permits the psychologists to research the structures of social relations and to give alternative ways to solve the problems in order to achieve the school goals. Therefore, the job of psychologists should be to get the social representations of school social segments in the sense to discover the contradictions that come up in the school relation routine.