In recent years the complaints of teachers in relation to situations of disrespect and aggression in Brazilian schools have become recurrent. In this essay, the vicissitudes of contemporary classroom are explored aiming at formulating interpretations of the determinants of relational conflicts currently experienced between teachers and students in basic education. From extensive theoretical debate on Joel Birman's and Jurandir Freire Costa's psychoanalytic perspectives, and on the conceptual notes of the philosopher Francisco Ortega, the author proposes that, in the hegemonic cultural scenario, the teenagers' aggression towards their teachers responds to the demands of a society that discredits the other and the public life as important criteria for the construction of sociability, while it weakens the affective investments for those in need of parental care in childhood and adolescence.
basic education; adolescence; narcissism; biosociability; aggressiveness