Abstract:

The personal network analysis is a methodology of approach to study the relationship between actors and the educational process in which there's this interpersonal communication within the school. Whereas the process of education of the students of basic education, it is assumed that these students develop their educational activity among the influences that are pursued through personal network formed by the various actors that are part of the relacioanal structure. In this sense it was used like theoretical reflections on social network analysis the Wasserman e Faust (1994), McCarty (2002). The goal of this article is to analyze the personal networks of third grade students of the high school of Ana Julia de Carvalho Mousinho School of the municipality of Natal in the State of Rio Grande do Norte/Brazil. The students analyzed were submitted to a questionnaire of relational nature, from which we collected the names of 45 people who made up the relational structure. The data were organized into an array and software Ucinet and NetDraw processed, which enabled the calculation of three indicators: density, number of clicks and geodesic distance, beyond the sociométrica representation of the relational structure of each student. The obtained results demonstrated that the system of personal networks of School students in study is characterized by a density or average 40% connectivity, an average number of groups or clusters of 32.3 clicks and with the geodesic distance between the actors of the personal networks of 1.4 people relative to adjacent nodes. Thus, it is concluded that the results, allow understanding the relational characteristics of structure (network) and its subjects (actors) through measures such as density, clicks and geodesic distance, useful for understanding topological network fine-feature.

Keywords:

Personal networks, Education, School.