The Community Role of Schools in Jicamarca and Villa El Salvador (Peru): Crosscutting Behavior Settings in Personal Networks

The personal networks of 138 parents of children participating in a child labor prevention initiative in three schools in Lima (Peru) are d. First, relevant behavior settings in two informal population settlements in the periphery of the big city were detected. Second, the distribution of personal relationships in that small set of community contexts served to describe the everyday interaction in the neighborhood. Each interviewee provided information on the 45 persons with whom he/she interacts regularly, indicating in each case the context that relationship preferably takes place. They also reported on the involvement of families in school and citizen participation initiatives in their community. The clustered graphs technique showed that the school is the second most relevant space for the development of interpersonal relationships in the neighborhood. Relationships among different family households were the most powerful predictor of community integration in the neighborhood of residence. The highest rates of child labor coincide with the most recently d community environments, with more fragmented personal networks, and with a less structured community as a whole. School is a community hub that facilitates interaction between the families of the neighborhood and connect to value resources outside of their usual place of residence.