The Specter of the Abnormal Haunts the Child: A Historical Study of the “Problem-child” in Brazilian Educational Discourses

Abstract

When one looks at current Brazilian education discourses about behavioral problems in schools, it seems like most of the concerns with badly behaved children could be explained by the conditions of life in Western families in current times. If a child is aggressive, it is because his/her parents are divorcing; if a pupil lies, he is trying to get more attention from a workaholic mother; if another one seems frightened, it is the effect of too much time in front of television watching violent cartoons or playing videogames and so on. Discourses about the influence of the home’s emotional atmosphere on the child’s conduct, as well as claims that the teacher should investigate what is going on in the pupil’s life outside of school in order to understand them are taken to be new and progressive. However, statements that create a cause/effect relationship between children’s habits and relationships in the family and misbehavior at school are one of the products of a historically bounded system of reasoning through which ideas of emotional development and social adjustment are constructed. These discourses ignore that since the first half of the twentieth century specialists have explained behavioral problems as caused by psychological factors relating to family dynamics.