A gramática emocional acerca do comportamento suicida no ambiente escolar

Abstract

The suicidal behavior is a public health problem that occurs in Brazil and in other countries worldwide. It refers to a set of actions that include suicidal ideation, planning, attempts, and suicide proper (WHO, 2014). It is a complex, multifactorial, multicausal, and multidimensional phenomenon, and so it is important to observe the various dimensions involved in the process: “individual, family, community, and social” (Brito et al., 2020, p. 2). Sometimes other concurrent concepts arise, such as self-harm and self-inflicted violence. The research shown here was conducted at a Federal Institute, namely Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica – CEFET, Curvelo Campus, one of the newest of the 11 campuses within the institution, which opened in 2010. The main question of this study is: “What emotions and thoughts does the suicidal behavior of youth mobilize in staff members (technical-administrative staff and teachers) and students at the Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica – CEFET-MG, and how do they deal with the emotional grammar of students exhibiting suicidal behavior?”. In other words, it investigated how these actors view suicidal behavior and how these two groups deal with suicidal acts at the institute, taking into account the specific characteristics of each one. The main goal of the research was: “To identify the emotional grammar and the micropolitics of emotions involved in suicidal behavior and the institute’s intervention strategies regarding it.” This qualitative study involved field research consisting in focus groups (Backes et al., 2011) and semi-structured interviews, which were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Bardin’s Content Analysis (2015) from May 2024 to March 2025. Each focus group lasted an estimated 1 hour and 30 minutes with staff members and 45 minutes with students, while the interviews lasted around 30 minutes with staff members and 10 minutes with students. Each session focused on specific themes (thoughts, feelings/emotions, and intervention strategies). There were a total of 21 participants, including 12 staff members and 9 students. The interviews were conducted with 16 participants, including 11 staff members and 5 students. The Chapter 1 of this thesis, titled “Research on Suicidal Behavior in the Social Sciences,” presents the motivation for choosing the topic, the author’s personal relationship to it, definitions of suicidal behavior (Abreu et al., 2010), its conflicting concepts, as well as classic and contemporary studies of the subject. The Chapter 2, titled “Methodological Aspects of the Research,” discusses the methodological aspects of the study: the choice of the category “youth,” the selection of CEFET as the research’s locus, and the Anthropology of Emotions as the analytical framework. The Chapter 3, titled “Researching Emotions and Feelings with School Staff,” and the fourth one, titled “Researching Emotions and Feelings with Students,” the results of the research are presented, along with analysis and discussion. The main outcomes include categories reflecting on the pain associated with suicidal behavior, the need to talk, the presence of suicidal behavior within the family, the existence of multiple conceptions of suicide, the influence of religion/spirituality on suicidal acts, the possibilities for action by schools in response to suicidal behavior, the invisibility of the suicidal act, suicide as synonymous with self-harm, and suicide in relation to depression, among others. It was possible to conclude that this technical institute, within its own relational dynamics, is a space that produces suicidal behavior, as well as promotes actions aimed at overcoming it; therefore, it is important to listen to the agents who are part of it, in order to qualify the ways of speaking, problematizing, and welcoming the youths who are part of it.