André Augusto Pereira Brandão

Semiotic Inspection of a Game for Children with Down Syndrome

There are not many initiatives in the area of gamedevelopment for children with special needs, specially childrenwith Down syndrome. The major purpose of our research isto promote cognitive development of disabled children in thecontext of inclusive education. In order to do so, we addressaspects of interaction, communication and game design instimulating selected cognitive abilities. By using a Human-Computer Interaction method based on the Inspection ofEvaluation, it was possible to study and understand userinteraction with the interface and thus examine the positiveaspects as well as the communicability problems found withthe JECRIPE game - a game developed specially for childrenwith Down syndrome in pre-scholar age.

JECRIPE: stimulating cognitive abilities of children with Down Syndrome in pre-scholar age using a game approach

Digital games are usually developed to provide fun for people of all ages. Although games have been mostly used for entertainment purposes, they have great potential as an intervention tool in health care. Digital games can be applied in health care helping users to learn or to experience something in a fun way. However, there are important issues to be considered to achieve this goal, specially in the development of applications for people with special needs. In this work, we are concerned specifically with Down syndrome needs, and we present an unhackneyed game for children with Down syndrome between 3 to 7 years old. Children in pre-scholar age need to be stimulated considering different cognitive areas. The stimulation of such cognitive areas can provide good results in the development over the years. Given the current demand and absence of games that fulfill Down syndrome special needs, we developed JECRIPE. JECRIPE is a digital game that stimulates the specific cognitive abilities: imitation, perception, fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and receptive and expressive verbal language. This paper describes how these cognitive areas are used to stimulate children with Down syndrome in pre-scholar age and some technical issues in the development of the game.

Quotas for blacks in higher education and forms of racial classification

This article presents and discusses data obtained with the application of a questionnaire focused on variables for racial classification and opinion about the policy of quotas for blacks; the questionnaire was applied to a sample of 476 pupils from the last year of secondary education of the public school system of a peripheral town in the Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro. We have tried to understand the elements that shape the classifications of color or race, as well as the stance these pupils were taking before a policy of quotas that could help them in their attempts to have access to a public university. It must be noted that the pupils interviewed would soon be facing the possibility of competing for a place in higher education via an entry exam with racial quotas to a public university that keeps a campus in the same town where they live and study. This problem and this kind of investigation seem to us fundamental nowadays, because quotas for blacks have been put in place since 2003 at several institutions of higher education, and have been subjected to criticism and undergone juridical dispute, as a result, among other things, of the forms of classification proposed. In the study conducted here it was possible to advance in the discussion of how the options of racial classification used so far in these policies are related with the forms of self-identification and identification of the other commonly present in the daily lives of the schools researched, and also to observe how the idea of a racial quota is evaluated by its potential beneficiaries.This article presents and discusses data obtained with the application of a questionnaire focused on variables for racial classification and opinion about the policy of quotas for blacks; the questionnaire was applied to a sample of 476 pupils from the last year of secondary education of the public school system of a peripheral town in the Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro. We have tried to understand the elements that shape the classifications of color or race, as well as the stance these pupils were taking before a policy of quotas that could help them in their attempts to have access to a public university. It must be noted that the pupils interviewed would soon be facing the possibility of competing for a place in higher education via an entry exam with racial quotas to a public university that keeps a campus in the same town where they live and study. This problem and this kind of investigation seem to us fundamental nowadays, because quotas for blacks have been put in place since 2003 at several institutions of higher education, and have been subjected to criticism and undergone juridical dispute, as a result, among other things, of the forms of classification proposed. In the study conducted here it was possible to advance in the discussion of how the options of racial classification used so far in these policies are related with the forms of self-identification and identification of the other commonly present in the daily lives of the schools researched, and also to observe how the idea of a racial quota is evaluated by its potential beneficiaries.

Nos Labirintos da Política de Cotas para Negros no Ensino Superior

foi publicado nos Estados Unidosem 1998, momento em que proliferavam acoes judiciais e debates mediaticoscontrarios ao uso da raca como criterio de selecao academica para o ensinosuperior. Em nosso caso, a publicacao em 2004 tambem se fez oportuna, poisestavamos iniciando, sob cerrado fogo critico, as primeiras e ainda timidasiniciativas nessa direcao.Tanto la no coracao da America do Norte, quanto aqui no Brasil, variosdiscursos contrarios ou favoraveis a tal forma de selecao academica sao veiculadossem, no entanto, passarem por qualquer teste empirico. O livro se propoe apreencher essa lacuna no que tange a realidade dos Estados Unidos. Trata-se deum estudo pioneiro no campo e que nao se resguarda em qualquer posicao deneutralidade. Ao contrario disto, posiciona-se claramente a favor de tais politicas,e o faz somente porque se funda sobre demonstracoes estatisticas precisas.Para tanto, os autores lancam mao do estudo quantitativo de um bancode dados de grandes proporcoes denominado “graduacao e experiencia poste-rior”, que cobre 28 faculdades e universidades norte-americanas com altaseletividade em suas politicas de admissao. Foram investigados aproximadamente80.000 alunos que haviam se matriculado nessas instituicoes nos outonos de1959, 1976 e 1989. As notas de graduacao de todos foram compiladas e grandeparte dos ex-alunos respondeu a um extenso questionario acerca de sua vidana graduacao e apos esta, cujas variaveis principais sao tratadas de formaexaustiva. Apesar de outras minorias (asiatico-americanos e latinos) seremcitadas no decorrer das muitas paginas do estudo, o livro se concentra nacomparacao entre brancos e negros dos sexos feminino e masculino.

Programa Bolsa Família e o acompanhamento das condicionalidades na área de saúde

This article consolidates results from a research carried out in ten Brazilian cities. The research analyzed the dynamic of the follow-up of the conditions related to the health field of the Family Allowance Program. The central idea was to approach the variables that could affect the City Hall performance in managing the program, such as: population size, magnitude of the population to be attended, the structure and both the technical and managing capacity of the each one of the City Halls analyzed, the offer and organization of the Primary Health Care and sector arrangements.

ACOMPANHANDO A CONSTRUÇÃO DO DESENHO DOS CENTROS COMUNITÁRIOS DE PRODUÇÃO DA ELETROBRAS: DA GERAÇÃO DE RENDA AO INCREMENTO DE CAPITAL SOCIAL

O presente trabalho pretende analisar alguns documentos utilizados para a consolidacao do Projeto dos Centros Comunitarios de Producao - CCPs da Eletrobras e identificar, especialmente, como o conceito de capital social foi incorporado no discurso e processos desenvolvidos na formatacao e formalizacao dos primeiros projetos. Partindo de uma concepcao mais ampla em que “documento” e considerado em termos de campos, de estruturas e de redes de acao, representando uma versao especifica de realidades construidas para objetivos especificos, foram analisados um conjunto de sete documentos. Como criterios para a escolha dos documentos foram considerados a autenticidade, credibilidade, representatividade e significacao. A analise e apresentada de forma cronologica a partir de documentos produzidos entre 2003 e 2007 tendo abrangencia interna e externa a Eletrobras. Observou-se que elementos propulsores de capital social sao introduzidos em quase todos os documentos analisados. Mesmo em materias informativas, de veiculacao interna da empresa, os CCPs foram apresentados como projetos que alem de gerar renda, transformam realidades sociais em direcao a formatos de protagonismo associativo local, impulsionando individuos e grupos a buscar mudanca atraves da confianca e da participacao.

Conservação ambiental e conflito social na Amazônia

This article summarizes results of research carried out with the traditional riverside communities in the municipality of Oriximina, in the western section of the state of Para. We aim to understand the relationship between traditional populations and environmental agencies in environmental conservation units located in non-specially protected areas protected in the Amazon. We develop research in quilombola communities that occupy forest areas on the Trombetas River, located in protected areas of the Federal Government (Trombetas River Biological Reserve and National Saraca-Taquera Forest) and lowland communities located on the river Nhamunda, which are not specially protected areas. The former endure constant conflicts with environmental agencies, while the latter has developed an important process of collective organization and cooperation with governmental agencies for joint inspection of its resource units. We discuss how the conceptualization of protection units can foster conflict and accentuate vulnerability to typical forms of social reproduction amongst traditional populations of the Brazilian Amazon.

Environmental conservation and social conflict in the Amazon

* Sociólogo, Doutor em Ciências Sociais. Professor do Programa de Estudos Pós-graduados em Política Social da UFF. E-mail: aapbuff@globo.com ** Socióloga, Mestre em Desenvolvimento Social. Doutoranda em Política Social pela Universidade Federal Fluminense. E-mail: amandalacerdajorge@hotmail.com Este artigo sintetiza resultados de pesquisas desenvolvidas junto a comunidades tradicionais ribeirinhas situadas no município de Oriximiná no oeste do estado do Pará. Objetivamos compreender a relação entre populações tradicionais e órgãos ambientais em unidades de conservação ambiental e em áreas não especialmente protegidas na Amazônia. Desenvolvemos a pesquisa em comunidades quilombolas que ocupam áreas de floresta às margens do Rio Trombetas, situadas em unidades de conservação do Governo Federal (a Reserva Biológica do Rio Trombetas e a Floresta Nacional SaracáTaquera) e comunidades de várzea situadas às margens do rio Nhamundá, que não se encontram em áreas especialmente protegidas. As primeiras vivem um difícil cotidiano de conflito com os órgãos ambientais, já as segundas produziram importante processo de organização coletiva e cooperação com esses órgãos para a fiscalização conjunta de suas unidades de recursos. Mostraremos como a forma de conceituar unidades de proteção pode promover conflitos e acentuar situações de vulnerabilidade frente à forma típica de reprodução social das populações tradicionais da Amazônia brasileira.

Trabalho escravo contemporâneo no Brasil na perspectiva da atuação dos movimentos sociais

This article presents an overview of five decades of struggle against contemporary slave labor in Brazil. It analyzes the action of social movements that fight to place this issue at the heart of national debate, making it a priority on the human rights agenda. The analysis indicates that recent public and private initiatives have made considerable advances, but due to conflicts of interests particular to the issue, slave labor is still far from being eradicated. The paper contributes to the knowledge of the context in which actions are taken against contemporary slave labor in Brazil and the current situation, highlighting impasses in the implementation of national plans and in the approval of a Proposed Constitutional Amendment (PEC) concerning Slave Labor.

Quilombola communities, recognition and social protection

Este artigo discute a insercao das comunidades remanescentes de quilombos no formato da protecao social que emerge da Constituicao de 1988. Tal formato caracteriza-se por um escopo mais amplo de cobertura ao se desvincular, parcialmente, do modelo contributivo vigente desde 1930. De forma especifica discutimos o caso da comunidade da Lapinha situada no Norte de Minas Gerais. Apoiados na chamada “Teoria do Reconhecimento”, concluimos o artigo apontando que o reconhecimento dos remanescentes de quilombos pressupoe, em primeiro lugar, que estes estabelecam pontes semânticas capazes de leva-los a identificar situacoes comuns de privacao e derivem dai agenciamentos que garantam a continuidade de suas lutas. Por outro lado, e importante analisar criticamente os processos, a partir dos quais as agencias publicas conseguem garantir espacos de paridade participativa, capazes de gerar reconhecimento no campo da justica que, para alem de valoracoes culturais positivas, possa viabilizar perspectivas de redistribuicao economica.