Caracterización de las representaciones sociales de contaminación atmosférica presentes en estudiantes de octavo grado del Colegio Agustiniano Ciudad Salitre

Abstract

The theory of social representations was proposed by Moscovici in 1979, who established the three dimensions of social representation: the field of information, the field of representation and the field of attitude. In the present research, the social representations of atmospheric contamination held by eighth grade students of Colegio Agustiniano Ciudad Salitre were characterized from a methodology framed within the interpretative paradigm and the qualitative approach. The three data collection instruments were designed and validated: questionnaire (dimension of the information field), associative chart (dimension of the representation field) and Likert scale (dimension of the attitude field), based on the approaches developed by María Luisa Eschenhagen (2007), which allow classifying the social representations of atmospheric pollution in three categories: as an object, as part of a system or as complexity. The data obtained were systematized, coded and analyzed with the help of the NVivo 12 program. In the analysis of the data, the categories (object-system-complexity) and internal parameters (cause-problem-solution) were taken into account in order to triangulate the results. Among the findings obtained in this research, it is concluded that students have a social representation of air pollution from the system category based on the parameters of causes and problem, since the answers show an integrative view where the relationships between natural, economic and social systems are mainly evidenced. As for the parameter of solutions, the results show different behaviors in the three dimensions of social representation.