A STUDY ON SCHOOL CHILDREN'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS FIRESAFETY AND EVACUATION BEHAVIOUR IN BRAZIL AND THE COMPARISON WITH DATA FROM JAPANESE CHILDREN

摘要

This study aims at presenting results of a research on children's attitude concerning fire safety in schools and its objective is the analysis of the influential factors related mainly to the behavior during evacuation. Among the considered factors, the intellectual capability, the recognition of fire risks and the way finding are included. Studies about schools and children from the viewpoint of education, psychology and several other specialized areas are very well developed and school architecture is also a very known research theme. However, fire safety in the school environment, considering the unique situation that is found in this particular type of building occupancy, presents few developments. In this paper, discussions are concentrated on the results of surveys carried out at four Brazilians public schools located in the City of Sao Paulo, focusing preadolescent students who are enrolled in the 5th to 8th grades (age 11 to 14 in average) of the basic education in Brazil, which consists of 8 grades. The analysis of the results of those surveys can contribute to the promotion and improvement of fire safety education policies for schools, through recommendations about particular situations found in different ranges of age. In addition, the results are compared to those from the Japanese surveys carried out by the Aichi Institute of Technology in order to analyze differences due to general and fire safety education system and also due to culture. Some differences should be obvious such as the influence of practicing fire drills or not, as these were not practiced in the surveyed Brazilian schools.