RISULTATI RICERCA

La novella che qui si presenta per la prima volta nella sua originale versione italiana viene considerata la prova letteraria d’autore cronologicamente più alta prodotta dall’interno dell’emigrazione di massa verso gli Stati Uniti. La storia narra il rapporto fra uno squattrinato giornalista italiano e un lustrascarpe «monello» suo connazionale, approdato dalla Basilicata a New York. Il testo, in italiano, francese e inglese, è la manifestazione di un’intelligenza consapevole di essere incamminata sulla strada non facile dell’incontro e del confronto fra varie lingue e culture.

Pequenos Grupos em São Paulo: Um Choque Cultural? - This paper describes our experience of organising small groups for all participants at the IAGP congress ‘Connecting People, Communities and Cultures’. Not much is said about the very necessary pre-congress organisation. Instead our focus is on the logistics of actually managing this ‘forgotten element’ in the group therapy culture of Brazil and IAGP. To enable us to make more sense of our experience, we researched both the participants’ and coordinators’ experiences through an email questionnaire afterwards. Although it might have been possible to arrive at a list of recommenda- tions for the future, we came to the conclusion that it was probably more important to try to describe the inevitable misunderstandings that occur when bridging across cultures so that others can learn from them. We hope that through this description, others willing to take on the task of organising small groups in a very large congress will feel supported by our experience. It appeared in English in the last edition of Forum.

The recent introduction by law of research assessment in the Italian academic system has triggered a wide debate especially focused on its weakness and paradoxes as well as its potential negative effects on disciplinary autonomy and freedom of research. Contrary to this vision, in this paper I argue that eva- luation mechanisms should be welcomed in those disciplinary fields - as sociology in Italy - which for historical, cultural and political causes have not been able to organize themselves as scientific communities, i.e. as communities of practice grounded on peer control and evaluation. The paper offers a brief sociological analysis of the social organization of Italian academic sociology, highlighting the deleterious effects on scientific communication and value recognition fostered by its segmentation in mutually exclusive, sometimes conflicting sometimes colluding, corporate groups (so called «component»). Far from being an assault on its freedom and autonomy, a state-backed system of evaluation may be instrumental to the creation and legitimation of a disciplinary culture of self evaluation and value assessment according to transparent, institutionalized and not provincial quality standards.

Nel tentativo di delineare possibili canoni interpretativi della società contempo-ranea, il discorso pedagogico suggerisce l’urgenza educativa di promuovere un rinnovato e armonico rapporto tra l’uomo e gli ambienti di vita in un generale ripensamento dei modi delle relazioni umane. Tra plurali prospettive euristiche nel solco della pedagogia dell’ambiente, far riscoprire lo stupore e la bellezza del vivere insieme nel mondo, mediante i diversi linguaggi storico-artistici nell’incontro con il patrimonio paesaggistico e culturale, dischiude significative occasioni di promozione umana e di sostenibilità, in cui l’imparare le posture della cura rappresenta la conquista più alta, sempre in divenire, mai definitiva.