School Vandalism: Proposal for a model to evaluate the state of environmental conservation

Abstract

As a starting point for the study of the human-environmental relationships involved in the behavior of school vandalism, it has been proposed a method to evaluate the state of environmental conservation through the observation of physical traces. We have built three score scales to evaluate the integrity of three physical dimensions of the building: coatings, accessories and essentials elements. The observations carried out in a public school in Florianópolis (Brazil) revealed a worse state of conservation of the coatings. The comparative analysis between evaluations made before and after the painting of the walls have indicated the same relationship of conservation among sectors, suggesting that determined places act as facilitators of depredation by their physical and psychosocial features. Moreover, the use of score scales to evaluate the state of environmental conservation has been showed to be useful as it allows the comparison of different environments, even at different periods of time, giving also the possibility of relational analysis involving parameters of interest to study the behavior of environmental care.