Antonio Marcos Chaves

Semiotic Regulation through Inhibitor Signs: Creating a Cycle of Rigid Meanings

This study aims to analyze the process of semiotic regulation in youth transition to adulthood from the perspectives of cultural developmental psychology and dialogical self theory. The focus is on the transformations that occur in youth’s self-system configurations during a critical developmental period. In this paper, we will advance the idea that semiotic regulation may lead to the construction of strong signs (i.e. those signs that bring rigidity to personal meaning systems)—and more specifically, of strong inhibitor signs—that block the emergence of alternative meanings, leading to rigidity in the self-system. We present a longitudinal case study of a young man who participated in a social project in Salvador, Bahia to illustrate the process. Data was collected through two rounds of in-depth interviews at ages 18 (1st round) and 21 (2nd round) years. Analysis followed a mapping of positions and counter-positions, as well as emerging tensions and their resolution over time and in different spheres of life (i.e. work, school, and family life). The idea is to show how negotiations of self-positions evolve and activate a mechanism of inhibition of hierarchical integration and construction of alternative future meanings, in which rigid meanings are created and do not allow for emergence of alternative life trajectories.

Trabalho e escola: é possível conciliar? A perspectiva de jovens aprendizes baianos

The transition to work and the conclusion of high school are considered fundamental markers of entrance into the social world of adult life for a significant number of young people in our country, especially for those who need to work to support themselves and their families. This article reports part of a study that investigated the experience of transition to work among adolescent apprentices in Bahia. The purpose was to understand the meanings constructed by the youngsters about the relationship between school and work. The study participants were ten adolescents, male and female, aged 17 to 19 years old, who concluded an apprenticeship program. Data collection included interviews, document review and participant observation in the context. Content analysis revealed that school and work are perceived as two worlds apart. Results highlight the active involvement of the youngsters to overcome their difficulties and negotiate opportunities, showing that, for them, work and school are concomitant projects.The transition to work and the conclusion of high school are considered fundamental markers of entrance into the social world of adult life for a significant number of young people in our country, especially for those who need to work to support themselves and their families. This article reports part of a study that investigated the experience of transition to work among adolescent apprentices in Bahia. The purpose was to understand the meanings constructed by the youngsters about the relationship between school and work. The study participants were ten adolescents, male and female, aged 17 to 19 years old, who concluded an apprenticeship program. Data collection included interviews, document review and participant observation in the context. Content analysis revealed that school and work are perceived as two worlds apart. Results highlight the active involvement of the youngsters to overcome their difficulties and negotiate opportunities, showing that, for them, work and school are concomitant projects.

Ser quilombola: representações sociais de habitantes de uma comunidade negra

This study intended to acknowledge the social representations of black community inhabitants about their own community, located in the north of Bahia. Twenty members of Tijuacus black community took part in it, both men and women. The age range was from 12 to 41 years old. In order to do so, a Completing Phrases List was used, containing eleven incomplete phrases, focusing on the following themes: the place, the inhabitants, the supposed way others see it, the women, the men, the elders, the young, the children, being a black community inhabitant, the blackness, the future. The phrases were analyzed theme by theme, had being grouped according to the meaning similarity. The results indicated that through oral tradition, a historical commitment toward black community resistance has been established. They also indicated that the elder ones are responsible for spreading and maintaining the more ancient and stable representations, on which new knowledge is based. The results emerged the understanding that the black community inhabitant faces life adverse conditions assuming a double task (individual and collective): both assuring his own survival (concerning his family too) and strengthening black community fight against prejudice and discrimination. The results also suggested new research possibilities on researching and reflections about diversity within black population.

Análise documental e contexto de desenvolvimento: estatutos de uma instituição de proteção à infância de Salvador, Bahia

This research attempts to evidence an interface between psychology and history, through the analysis of documents from a nineteenth-century child care institution for abandoned children in Salvador, Bahia - Asilo dos Expostos of the Holy House of Mercy - as a way of interpretation of the developmental context of the time. This institution was devised to provide shelter, protection, education, and a social upbringing to abandoned children. The analysis of two statutes of the institution in case (dated 1863 and 1914) - as products constructed by a specific society in order to ascertain socially accepted values - allows for a comprehension about the meaning of the abandoned child and the developmental context in which s/he was involved at the time in question. This analysis elucidates a gradual change of social concern for the abandoned child, from one of providing an immediate means of survival to one of assuring professional education and social reintegration, based on philanthropic and hygienic concepts.

Representações sociais de crianças acerca da sua realidade escolar

Taking into account the social representations that children have about their school environment, interviews were done with 19 children ofelementary schoollevel, with age from 8 to 14 years old, in the city ofSalvador, Bahia, Brazil. The hypothesis were that the standards of assessment of one individual about the environment interfere in the ways of interaction with the environment. The interviewer asked each child to report what thought was important about school environment and activities. Content analysis of the child reports, showed 7 significant categories of analysis. The results showed that children, arising from poor group, valorize the school, because display a perfect integration to the scholar space and to the schooling reality.

O fenômeno psicológico como objeto de estudo transdisciplinar

Based on the theoretical assumption that the individual subjectivity process takes place in a restricted cultural context in a given society, we discuss the cross-complementarity of the knowledge from Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology. However, the cultures and the types of social relationships have a history that illuminates the developmental conditions of the meanings of the types of social, economic, and political relationships. Thus, to understand the whole cultural, political, social, and economic context in which the individual subjectivity is built, its historical reconstruction is required.

“Becoming Professionals”: Exploring Young People’s Construction of Alternative Futures

This study aims to analyze the process of the construction of alternative futures among disadvantaged youths. We draw from two conceptual analytical frameworks of cultural psychology and dialogical self theory, to explore and discuss transformations that occur during a critical developmental period when youth start to participate in the world of work and begin to actively imagine what they are going to become in the future. In this chapter, we advance the idea that the construction of alternative future perspectives emerges through semiotic processes conceptualized as cycles of production of innovation (Valsiner 2006) in the self-system. In the case of disadvantaged youths, we argue that these cycles may produce a new sense of “becoming professional.” We present a longitudinal study of three cases of young people who participated in a social project in Salvador, Bahia, to illustrate this process. Data was collected through two rounds of in-depth interviews at ages 18 (first round) and 21 (second round) years. Analysis followed a mapping of positions and counterpositions, as well as emerging tensions and their resolution over time and in different spheres of life (i.e. work and family life). The idea is to show how negotiations of new identities evolve, through a mechanism of integration and differentiation of meanings in the self-system, in which new flexible meanings are created that allow for the emergence of alternative life trajectories.

Evidence of Medicalization in Medical Discourse From the Inaugural Theses About School Hygiene in Brazil During the First Republic

This chapter discusses the signs of medicalization present in the inaugural theses on school hygiene in the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia during a portion of the ninetieth and twentieth centuries (1889–1930). The idea was to form a better understanding of the historical development of social practices aimed at children, particularly those practices related to scholarly health, leading to what we today refer to as the medicalization of problems in the schooling process. Seven inaugural theses on the subject of school hygiene were selected. Information was organized into themes related to childhood, school hygiene, education, and signs of medicalization; later, these themes were submitted for content analysis. It was assumed that the medical discourse expressed in the prescriptions regarding child care and upbringing revealed the signs of medicalization that those professionals endorsed at the time. The results show that signs of medicalization arose in 1905 related to the meanings of “student” and “education.” There was a classification of students into the categories of “normal” or “abnormal”; there also occurred a process by which “normal” students were selected for education in regular schools. Moreover, from 1921 on, it was considered necessary to apply medical knowledge to explain students’ behaviors—the source of which might have been a disease hidden in the body. These results confirm that the medicalization of problems in the schooling process had its origins among the first encounters between medical knowledge and education and clearly indicates a change in focus from the institution to the individual, which characterizes medicalization today.

Reconhecimento de direitos e significados de infância entre crianças

This study intended to investigate whether children acknowledge some of their rights, which knowledge about their rights are shared among them and what are the meanings of childhood these sharings indicate. It is a comparative study guided by the social-historical psychological approach of which data were analyzed qualitatively. The participants consisted of 21 children, aging from 9 to 11 years old. Seven children were students in a private urban school, seven studied in a public urban school, and seven studied in a public school located in the countryside. The individual semi-structured interview technique was used, based on the presentation of printed images. Rights referring food and nourishment, education and playing were the most acknowledged by children. Concerning to the interdicted childish working or the right referring inviolability of the physical integrity, they demonstrated different ways of sharing.This study intended to investigate whether children acknowledge some of their rights, which knowledge about their rights are shared among them and what are the meanings of childhood these sharings indicate. It is a comparative study guided by the social-historical psychological approach of which data were analyzed qualitatively. The participants consisted of 21 children, aging from 9 to 11 years old. Seven children were students in a private urban school, seven studied in a public urban school, and seven studied in a public school located in the countryside. The individual semi-structured interview technique was used, based on the presentation of printed images. Rights referring food and nourishment, education and playing were the most acknowledged by children. Concerning to the interdicted childish working or the right referring inviolability of the physical integrity, they demonstrated different ways of sharing.

Exploring the Role of Catalyzing Agents in the Transition to Adulthood: A Longitudinal Case Study with Brazilian Youth

In this chapter I expect to contribute to the current theoretical discussions about the process of semiotic catalysis—a new way of understanding systemic causality in psychology—by exploring the role of catalytic agents in young people’s transitions to adulthood. Although semiotic catalysis can be generally regarded as a set of conditions or an atmosphere that indirectly aids, supports and enables other psychological mechanisms and functions to operate, I will advance the idea that significant others may temporarily act directly as catalytic agents in the life of youth—facilitating new synthesis in their self-configurations. They can be regarded as temporary embodiments of the catalytic function that take on the catalytic function and enable a specific direction for change. To explore this idea, I will present a longitudinal case study focusing on the narrative of a young woman who lives in a disadvantaged neighborhood in a large city in the northeast of Brazil, showing the role played by different catalytic agents in different dimensions of her life. The study emphasizes her narratives from 17 to 23 years of age, elaborating on changes in the dimensions of education/work and family/relationships. This analysis illustrates how catalytic agents operate in between the micro- as well as mesogenetic levels of development, fostering the emergence of promoter self-positions, helping create meaning bridges between past and future (projected) positions, and validating these new meanings in a broader context, giving a social framework to personal events. Further discussions advance the notion that catalytic agents might play a significant role in transition to adulthood, especially when youth undergo processes of rupture transition in their developmental pathways, affording social recognition of young people’s new emergent meanings, and helping youth become resources in their communities. In this light of reasoning I will argue that catalytic agents might help establish links between microgenetic change and ontogenesis, by facilitating continuity in the self-system over time at the mesogenetic level of development.