Peace Culture in School Communities Besieged by Drug Dealing and Poverty: A Utopia?

Abstract

This paper elaborates a reflection on the possibility of promoting a culture of peace among the members of a school community that must deal with social conflicts such as drug dealing within the school premises, peer violence and extortion. The question that this paper aims to answer is: how to build a culture of peace in a school inserted in a community characterized by poverty and the daily presence of organized crime? Through a qualitative study it was possible to collect data documenting the intensity of direct violence carried out by criminal groups and the latent violence perceived by members of the school community. It is concluded that, in conditions in which personal integrity is at stake, perhaps the only thing that can be aspired to is to achieve negative peace, since the problems of poverty and organized crime have even exceeded local authorities.