RISULTATI RICERCA

Vocation to barrenness as the decay of the symbolic mother order - Cultural psychology has by now sanctioned also in the area of scientific research the importance and the value of the symbolic orders that underlie relationships. Family and couple relationships develop on the meanings that define the emotional bond, which represents the symbolic horizon of a woman that chooses motherhood. In the West, between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth century the feminist movement opened the way to what would eventually allow women to choose motherhood of their own free will, putting into play a number of factors that established a break with the patriarchal tradition. In parallel, the choice of infertility has been an increasing phenomenon becoming more and more worrying for all European societies, because of the sharply falling birth-rate. In this article this issue is addressed not so much to find a link between women’s social commitment and vocation to barrenness, but rather to discuss the relationship between body representations in the history of ontological thought and its current result. Key words: history of motherhood, episteme, God’s death, feminism.

Immigration in Italy: The case of family care - The article deals with the changes of family organisation in modern times and the impact that economic dynamics and migratory flows have had on it. The integration of women in the production world has created a different configuration of forces within the family and steered towards the recoding of a professional role typically assigned to women: the family carer. The article highlights specific problems and conflicts of this reality. Key Words: immigration, family, support, carers, women.

Care practices and changes in parental tasks -The contemporary changes underway in family relationships involve also parental duties. This paper focuses in particular on those changes that seem to give mothers and fathers a new educational duty involving recognition and improvement of child individuality. The trans-missive task does not lose importance; rather, it is increasingly accompanied by efforts to support and help children to reveal themselves, thus involving parents in an arduous ‘balancing act’ between promoting autonomy and exerting authority. The data presented come from an investigation carried out on mothers and fathers from the Veneto region (North-east Italy). These transformations are examined through the lens of care practices, that is to say the set of activities and relationships through which parents continually convey the norms, values, affection that accompany a child’s growth. Key words: parenthood, caring, child identity, adult authority, family work division.

Perception of family roles in the drawings of Italian, Indian and Albanian children - Starting from the many remarkable changes in family structure and in the roles within it, the present paper focuses on the child’s viewpoint by analysing on the one side how the child represents him/herself with regard to family members, and, on the other, whether perception of roles in the family differs between Italian children and children resident in Italy but belonging to different cultures. The test Drawing of the family] was administered to 60 children divided into three groups, one made up of 20 Italian children, one of 20 Indian children, and one of 20 Albanian children. Statistical elaboration has shown the presence of significant differences between the groups, especially as regards the importance of parental figures. Key words: family drawings, family roles, cultural differences.

Parenthood between couple crisis and attachment reorganization - This longitudinal research examined 30 couples expecting their first child with the aim of studying (1) the role of adult attachment representation as regards quality of couple relationship; and (2) the development of couple dyadic adjustment in transition to parenthood. The following instruments were administered: the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI, George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) at the seventh month of pregnancy; the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS, Spanier, 1976) at seventh month of pregnancy and at 4, 9 and 12 months of infant’s age. Results indicated no correlations between quailty of adult attachment representation in the couple. The quality of parents’ dyadic adjustment decreased significantly from time of pregnancy to when the child was 12 months old. Finally, two pathways were identified for women and three for men with significantly different trends as regards perception of quality of couple relationship. Key words: parenthood, attachment, couple relationship.

Children, parents and television: A qualitative and quantitative study - The aim of the present study is concerned with the relation between children and television (TV) and with the effect that parents have on it in terms of education and control. Semi-structured interviews were constructed and separately administered to a group of children and to their mothers and fathers in the South of Italy. Specific variables, characterized by response categories at nominal level, were taken into consideration for the analyses. The data collected were organized in contingency tables and then analyzed by means of a log-linear approach. Results describe a rather complex and, to some extent, worrying reality: children watch a lot of TV; girls watch more TV than boys. All children Rivista di studi familiari, 1/2008 prefer cartoons, although boys and girls choose to watch different types of cartoons. More often than not children watch TV by themselves and their parents generally ignore the programs their children prefer and are unaware of the contents of those programs. Moreover, the study statistically demonstrates that an interaction exists between the amount of time parents devote to watching TV and the amount of time their children spend in front of it: the longer parents watch TV, the longer their children will. Key words: children, parents, television, interviews, log-linear models.

Interdisciplinarity of family studies - Motivated by the needs of the editorial experience, this reflection defines the terms that substantiate the interdisciplinary perspective, expresses concepts at epistemological level, and illustrates the reasons that justify such a choice today, both as regards the contents to be learned and the subjects (researchers) engaged in learning. Subsequently, it applies the acquired distinctions to the ambit of family studies: it clarifies contents, indicates the disciplines possibly interested in family contents, reviews realization ways and expected results. Finally, it offers a range of possible alternatives for the editorial office of a scientific journal that chooses such a perspective. Key-words: family studies, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, trans-disciplinary.

Veronetta si-cura. Note di filosofia e metodologia della partecipazione ABSTRACT: The title Veronetta si-cura plays on words in the title from the Italian translation double meaning Takes Care of Itself and Safe. The first part of the article states (from the point of view of an analysis of formative and active processes) the principle questions found and faced in a workshop of active citizens. The path, finalized by the co-planning between the residents and the action institutes on the territory willing to enhance the sense of safety of the residents in a Verona neighbourhood, highlights the potential and the contradictions in which the processes of participation and the politics of safety could be stranded. In a second part, the findings of the narration are used theoretically and ask the following questions: What does it mean to generate security, promote participation, co-planning between institutions and residents, beyond rhetoric, in a real shared task.

Aree costiere del Mediterraneo a rischio tra conservazione e sviluppo. Il progetto euro-mediterraneo WADI: uno sforzo d’integrazione ABSTRACT: Mediterranean coastal areas are subject to ever increasing pressures by urbanization. They share environments of high natural and cultural values, a common heritage of the countries. The scarce fresh water reservoirs in these areas are often subject of conflicts for the use of the natural goods. Rarely a compromise is achieved that takes into account the needs of all the concerned actors, particularly the week components of the local populations and the natural ecosystems. The euro-Mediterranean project WADI (INCO-CT2005-015226, 6th framework programme of the European Commission) has analyzed some complex real cases of water bodies around the Mediterranean with scarce fresh water supply and subject to various pressures, both in the north (Italy and Spain) and south (Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco). We have adopted an integrative and participatory approach and conducted ecological and socioeconomic research, and present here the first results obtained.

Educazione ambientale e sviluppo sostenibile ABSTRACT: Sustainability as a complex, integrative and normative guiding principle, characterised by ecological, economic, social, cultural and political dimensions, stands outside the traditional structures in scientific life. Thus, academic education is challenged by the necessity to initiate learning processes which are characterised by open operating processes with a wide perspective. The paper focuses on the Institute for Environmental & Sustainability Communication. The Institute is part of the Faculty of Environment and Technology at the University of Lüneburg which has recently merged with the Lüneburg University of Applied Science. Research and education focus on the overall concept of Sustainability via three main working areas: Environmental and Sustainability Communication, Environmental Informatics and Participation and Sustainable Development This includes the utilisation of the internet/world wide web as global database. It includes furthermore a decentralised and conjoint completion of different subtasks in order to strengthen team work and student reflection. Communication among students is seen as an important element of the learning process. The internet platform offers a learning environment that enables the student to work independently from space and time and from any other persons. In addition, this platform creates space for selfdiscovering learning.

Per uno sviluppo sostenibile: interiorizzare i comportamenti responsabili. Il ruolo dell’educazione ambientale tra scuola e comunità adulta ABSTRACT: Sustainable development refers to a concept of development that does not compromise the possibility for present and future generations to meet their own needs, enjoying a healthy and balanced environment. The human inability to internalize the responsible behaviours, from an environmental point of view, is a barrier against the implementation of the principle of sustainable development. Environmental education plays a very important role, especially when the recipients of educational projects are able to transfer the learned lessons outwards, wearing the robes of educators in respect to community of adults. The promotion of sustainable behaviours, finally, seems to be favoured by the collaboration between public, private and collective movements.

Educazione e paradigmi del divenire a confronto: virtualità integrale del criterio di sostenibilità ABSTRACT: The aim of the article is to approach the idea of sustainable education from a philosophical point of view, looking at the anthropological meaning of an authentic concept of development. First of all it considers the critical hypothesis of the apparent contradiction of the notion of ‘sustainable development’; it follows by looking for a link between measured development and education, which could be the most adherent to the essential form of human becoming. Secondly, the concept of development is compared to the ideas of growth and progress as reductive senses of human change. Sustainable development seems to offer an anthropological wideness for education and for the comprehension of active change, only if it is intended as an integral unfolding of human powers in their relation to other people and nature. Finally, some main issues of sustainable education are shown to be convergent towards a non-unilateral form of development.

L’università nel contesto di una educazione sostenibile ABSTRACT: Taking the cue from a didactical trouble, an answer is sought to the appearance of some troubling mental representations about the anatomy of fishes arising from university students in the second year of the biology course; the gap between these mental representations and an accredited scientific perspective and their similarity with the images of the anatomy of fishes produced by children in kindergarten (5 years old), suggest to discuss about sustainability of formal and not formal science education experiences. Students emotional participation proves to be basic for knowledge construction processes; such involvement is achieved by participative democracy practice deeply rooted in the educational actions for sustainability (starting from the contents of Agenda XXI). The properties of an university sustainable education process are discussed.

The paradigm of complexity. A new way of approaching scientific education in the community ABSTRACT: One of the objectives of scientific education has been to offer training of the community to meet the challenges its environment presents. To provide an answer to these objectives different proposals have been developed which have shown potential and limitations to make the appropriate scientific training for the social changes. In this paper the paradigm of complexity is proposed as a new design, application and evaluation framework of school scientific activity. The paradigm of complexity consists of a continual journey between all the interests. It is a continual movement in the dialogue between antagonisms and between levels to suggest the vision of the facts of the world as transformation processes where the conceptual model, the ethical perspective and action on the world are all relevant. From the paradigm of complexity a new perspective is brought about which helps us reflect on the processes which have been made in the teaching and learning of experimental sciences. In some of the aspects of scientific school activity which are reinterpreted when in contact with the principles of the paradigm of complexity, there is the need to rethink the conceptual models, develop complex thought, and reconsider the relationship between the disciplines and the relevance of action and emotions within the processes of the teaching and learning of experimental sciences.

Recensione ABSTRACT: Mariuccia Salvati reviews the Storia della Shoah, Utet 2005-2006, edited by Marina Cattaruzza, Marcello Flores, Simon Levis Sullam and Enzo Traverso. After an overall description of the work, she identifies an interpretative red thread, originating in Hannah Arendt’s intuition of the Shoah as the product of the crisis of the nation-state and hence an event symbolizing the crisis of European civilization. Arendt’s thesis is reinterpreted and corrected in the light of what has emerged since the opening of the archives in eastern European countries since 1989. The issue ends with two groups of short reviews: the first on the national-socialist regime, edited by Enzo Collotti; the second on Giustizia e Libertà and azionismo, edited by Cesare Panizza.