Processo de socialização e factores que condicionam comportamentos de risco no contexto de HIV e SIDA: o caso de grupo dos iguais, dos 15 aos 19 anos, da Escola Secundária Josina Machel (2006)

Abstract

This work seeks to understand the social factors that influence the sexual behavior of young adolescents aged 15 to 19 years old so that they have risk behaviors in the context of HIV and AIDS. To better define the research, they were placed in the groups of peers from the Josina Machel secondary school, in Maputo city. In this dissertation, the term risk is seen in the sense of not using condoms in sexual relations through a tacit knowledge about the importance of condom use in the context of HIV and AIDS. Data from the National Institute of Statistics indicate that the HIV prevalence rate has grown in recent years and that the trend will continue to grow. Alongside this growth, several actions have been taken to reverse the scenario, but the results are below expectations. Young people are the age group that is most infected with the disease. The concern is to know what drives young adolescents to adopt risky behaviors, conducting a study that distances itself from the quantitative way, as most studies developed so far, and exploring the qualitative way. For this purpose, we raise two hypotheses. The first asserts that risky behavior in the context of HIV and AIDS derives from the socialization that takes place in the environment in which one is inserted; and the second, that this behavior or knowledge is a social construction of the environment in which individuals, that is, groups of equals, interact. The objective is to describe and explain the process of socialization in peer groups in order to identify the social factors that lead young adolescents to sexual risk behaviors in the context of using or not using condoms. The research was guided by Berger and Luckmann's theory of social construction of reality, which sees the individual in a dialectical relationship with his environment. Through semi-directive interviews, centered which included the discussion of focus groups, and observation through social interaction with the groups, it was possible to understand that the social environment influences the adoption of risk behavior by individuals, but it it is confronted with the knowledge that each individual takes with them from other social spaces and with the way in which all this knowledge is internally managed. This conclusion partially rejects the second hypothesis that sees knowledge as a social construction. It is a social construction, yes, but it is not produced only in the group of equals, as all socialization agents that act in the society in which individuals are inserted exert their influence on the behavior of individuals.