The article presents the results of the research project, part of the research group “Sphere of the public and citizen participation”, in the research line “Training in Ethics and Politics”. There are presented the definitions of the basic categories of analysis, the methodological process of gathering information through analysis matrices and, finally, the results obtained. The focus of this article is to present the analysis and discussion of the results achieved, and therefore the approach to social representations that the students of the Fundación Universitaria Los Libertadores have developed about the public. The study was based on the selection and order made by students of provided images, which are related to certain elements of the public determined with the above categories, around hypothetical matrix raised for research: on which are the places where the public relations can be located preferentially; if this is the constituent (is built?) or is made (is learned?); and on the relational aspect of the public: is interaction, roles or codes? In two areas: languages (verbal, iconic, body) and values. It is found that the social representation that students have built about public consists of leaders clearly identifiable by their social roles and functions related to political activism as spatially located in places of gratuity and freedom, whose purpose is the common good, in which the expected sense is of safety and protection. Despite this positive view of the public, the attitude on occupy a political and active role is reluctant and negative, which is analyzed as detrimental to the role and status of the student as a political and critical actor in the development and construction of community and society.

This article presents the advances of a research on social representations of Human Rights protected by International Humanitarian Law in Students of the University Los Libertadores, in Bogotá. The technique used was the analysis of semantic differential (test and retest), which were built for categories of rights protected by IHL (life, liberty and integrity), acts that threaten or violate these rights and included a category concerning civil society. The application of this methodological instrument allowed us a first approach to the goal of the project. It is observed, that the participants recognize the proposed subjects and categories, although mostly in a negative value.