Child labour on the Brazilian academic production of psychology: Stigma and ideology

In contemporary Western societies, the approach to child labour (or to child work) is exemplary for a better understanding of the relationship between children and adults, and between childhood and adulthood. Recognizing the academy as a privileged actor in the definition of social problems, the purpose of this essay is to offer an interpretation of the treatment given to the theme child labour on the Brazilian academic production of Psychology. The research analysed articles about child and adolescent labor elaborated by psychologists and published between 1985 and 2010. For such, it have counted on the contribution of the Sociology of Childhood, the studies regarding the construction of social problems and, as central theoretic referential, the John B. Thompson’s production about ideology. At the methodological level, it sought to link the hermeneutics of depths, as proposed by John B. Thompson, to the content analysis techniques. The results show the use of dramatic rhetoric on the Brazilian academic production of Psychology – rhetoric that stigmatizes working children and poor families. In this way, this production can be (re) interpreted as ideological, in the sense that it supports the relation of domination between ages and social classes.