Children’s social representations on vaccination: contributions to health education

Abstract

In recent years, the media has been reporting situations in which families have stopped vaccinating their children, a fact motivated by beliefs that consider immunization unsafe or dispensable. Regarding the educational process, science education in the early grades of elementary education plays a prominent role in promoting health education, particularly regarding the importance of vaccination and the dangers of lack of immunization. A way to understand what is happening and indicate how to improve this situation is to investigate individuals’ conceptions and social representations (SR) regarding vaccination. Therefore, this study presents the partial results of an investigation on the SR of children from the early grades of Brazilian Basic Education (grade 5) on vaccination, which data were obtained through the Free Word Evocation Technique to indicate contributions to educational proposals in science education. Data were collected with inducing terms “vaccination” and “the importance of being vaccinated”. It was identified that students associated vaccination essentially with fear and pain, indicating the need for discussion on the topic and its importance in the school context. On the other hand, the data showed that despite this, students understand the importance of immunization, associating it with health and disease prevention. There is a need to promote actions that enable a new school culture on the immunization process, which is so relevant, highlighting its benefits in individual and collective health.