This study aims to analyze the conceptions about childhood and adolescence that psychology professionals hold to be true. Vygotsky's cultural–historical psychology was used as theoretical support. The study included 11 psychology professionals (10 female, 1 male; age range: 25–55), who work at the social assistance public policies in the Cariri area in Ceará. Their work experience ranged from 3–32 years; eight of them were working in CRAS, two in CREAS, and one in the "Casa de Acolhimento." The qualitative and quantitative approach, used with semi-structured interviews for data collection and a questionnaire for identification of sociodemographic information. ALCESTE software was used for the analysis of the interviews, which resorted to the classical analysis by descending hierarchical analysis. Data analysis indicated four discursive classes: violation of rights, family dynamics of children and adolescents, performance of psychology professionals, and conception of childhood and adolescence. In general, psychology professionals have a naturalistic, universal, and decontextualized conception about childhood and adolescence. This results in compromising the actions performed by these professionals, because these views make them more distant from the concrete reality of these people. Consequently, this action happens more as a social control tool of poor children and adolescents rather than enforcing rights strategy.
Psychology, Child; Psychology, adolescent; Acting out; Public policies
