Alessio Nencini

Youth participation in environmental issues: A study with Italian adolescents

The present paper aims to stress the role that young people play as ‘actual citizens’, actively engaged in constructing the meaning-and-actions that define their own participation in the community. The case examined is the Chiampo Valley, in the North-East of Italy. This area is the most important tannery district in Europe and has serious problems concerning industrial waste management. By means of a questionnaire, we focus on the way 229 secondary school students perceive themselves as members of the local community, on what they see as being priorities in their own context, and on the contributions that they may make to addressing environmental issues. The results suggest that it is important for local institutions to give a voice to young people-as they themselves require-by developing participatory processes in institutional decision-making regarding environmental policies and-in general-the life of the community.

How to Foster Commitment Among Volunteers: A Social Constructionist Study in Italian Nonprofit Organizations

ABSTRACT This study explored the perspectives of Italian volunteers: the meanings they attribute to their role as volunteer and to the various facets of the experience of volunteering. The aim was to identify and foster those outlooks that help maintain commitment in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Two intertwined studies were carried out. In the first, twenty-seven semistructured interviews were conducted with highly committed volunteers belonging to four NPOs in order to explore the prevailing perspectives. A thematic analysis was then conducted. The results show that the participants emphasized the importance of maintaining a personal space being careful to keep their role as a volunteer separate from their day-to-day life. Moreover, they considered their own NPO as “special” and had a “cynical approach” that helped them to offset any negative aspect related to their work. In the second study, four focus group discussions were organized involving three managers from every NPO with the aim of finding practical suggestions regarding how to increase and develop those perspectives that enhance a sense of commitment. Similar methodology may be used in the future to investigate the strategies that improve commitment among volunteers in other types of NPOs or in other social and cultural contexts.

The influence of social expectations on strategies for coping with moral transgressions

Abstract Guilt has been found to accomplish important relational functions, thus promoting reparative behaviours through other- directed strategies. However, when ones self-image is at risk, self-directed strategies may be adaptively preferred. We thus wondered whether social expectations towards morally relevant roles would affect the emotional response to moral transgressions and, consequently, the choice of coping strategies to restore the original emotional status. In two studies, two groups of participants were asked to imagine themselves in guilt-evoking situations and to think of ways of reducing their negative feelings. In study 1, social expectations regarding the transgressor were manipulated by comparing a group of Catholic priests and of lay people. In study 2, we repeated the same design adding a manipulation of perspective (first/third person). Overall, results showed that the priests reported more feelings of shame when in the first person condition, and were more likely to cope with their negative feelings by means of self-directed strategies than the lay people. In these cases, self- directed coping strategies may be adaptively chosen in order to restore a positive self-image.