Consumo de extensões e violência simbólica no seio das alunas da Escola Secundária de Laulane

Abstract

This study analyzes the relationship between the consumption of human hair extensions by some students and the symbolic violence resulting from this practice, which is generated within the students at the Secondary School of Laulane. A qualitative research was carried out using semi-structured interviews as a data collection technique, for a target group of 26 students. It was found that they want extensions because they are subject to symbolic schemes of perception of ideal beauty, fashion, elegance, seduction, etc., which are offered in the media, such as soap operas, advertisements, video clips, which they reify themselves in the students' daily speeches and practices. In this way, the consumption of extensions ends up acting as an element of honorific differentiation among the students, as it enables them to obtain “social benefits”, such as admiration, prestige and popularity. Constituting itself as a practice that generates symbolic violence, which manifests itself through acts and feelings such as envy, admiration, isolation, disqualification and shame, denouncing inequalities behind the school uniform. Finally, it was found that the non-consumption of extensions by some students is justified by economic forum reasons, that is, their purchasing power and social forum reasons, ie, the symbolic meaning they have to the extent that the possession or not of extensions leads some students to be categorized with negative stereotypes such as "slut", "whore", "góia", among others