Representations of youngsters from upper secondary education on sociocultural diversity

Abstract

Our objective in this paper is to analyze the social representations of a group of youngsters who are in upper secondary education, regarding two vulnerable groups: indigenous people and people that self-identified as LGBTTTIQ+. The inquiry was based on the technique of natural semantic networks and the sample included 100 students, in upper secondary education, from two states: Estado de México and Oaxaca. We defined three dimensions to analyze the results: Field of representation, Information and Attitude. Regarding indigenous people, the defining words of the Field of representation had the highest semantic weight for the students, the second place was for Attitude and the last one was for Information. Concerning LGBTTTIQ+ people, Information had the highest semantic weight; the Attitude remained in the second place and Field of representation the third one. In both groups, Information played an important role in the youngsters’ representations, since they are constantly exposed to a greater quantity and quality of contents about ethnic and sexual diversity. These results are consistent with other research developed in Mexico, which have shown that some factors such as age, educational and socioeconomic level, as well as the place of residence make important differences in people’s ideas and attitudes towards these vulnerable groups.