Giannino Melotti

Children's Rights in Educational Relationships.

The aim of this study is that of reaching a better comprehension of the topic of children’s rights within educational relationships. In a first stage, we analysed the representational field of children’s rights produced through free associations by the two partners who are in conflict in everyday life, namely adults (n=267) and adolescents (n=143). In a second stage, we chose a sample of 690 adult subjects that were all parents, half of whom were also teachers; through a structured questionnaire we investigated the role of several aspects (responsibility, respect, values, conditions influencing children’s growth and sense of justice) in the organisation of social representations of children’s rights. The results outlined different contrasts in the organisation of the representational scenario. The first opposes adults and adolescents, in the sense that adults emphasise their duties of offering protection and care, while the youngsters describe rights in terms of autonomous field of experience. Within the group of adults, several differences emerged between teachers and parents: the first seem more doubtful about the positive outcomes of personal involvement, while parents are moved by a general feeling of optimism, anchored in the faith in the family’s strength and integrity.RésuméL’objectif de cette recherche est de vérifier l’enjeu de la problématique des droits de l’enfant dans les relations éducatives. Dans une première phase, nous avons étudié le champ représentationnel de ces droits à travers les libres associations produites par un groupe d’adultes (n=267) et par un groupe d’adolescents (n=143). En raison du caractère inéluctable et asymétrique de la relation qui les unis, les deux groupes sont, en effet, amenés quotidiennement à se confronter sur la question de l’application des droits.Dans une deuxième phase, nous avons soumis un questionnaire à un échantillon de 690 adultes dont la moitié d’entre eux a des enfants. Il s’agissait dans ce cas d’étudier le rôle de l’attribution de responsabilité, de l’évaluation de respect des droits, des conceptions concernant le développement de l’enfant et du sens de la justice dans l’organisation des représentations sociales des droits de l’enfant. Les résultats mettent en évidence différents contrastes dans le scénario représentationnel. Le premier oppose les adultes et les adolescents: les adultes expriment avec emphase leurs devoirs de protection et de soin, tandis que les jeunes décrivent leurs droits en termes d’autonomie et d’expérience. Parmi le groupe des adultes, plusieurs différences distinguent les parents des enseignants; ceux-ci expriment plusieurs doutes en ce qui concerne l’efficacité de leur implication personnelle dans la promotion et l’application des droits, tandis que les parents expriment à ce sujet un certain optimisme soutenu par une idée traditionnelle de famille qui doit être unie et intègre.

Princípios Organizadores das Representações de Rural e Cidade

From the analysis of the anchorage process, the study was designed to assess the principles that organize the positions taken by members of a rural group faced with rural/city representations. 200 representatives of four generations of a brazilian rural community took part in the study. The script for the interview was made up of questions which focused on: (1) socio-demographic data relating to sex, age, generation groups and previous experience of living in urban areas; (2) contact with prejudice, life expectancy in the city for non-migrants and recommendations on life in the city from participants who have already lived in urban areas; (3) rural social values; and (4) free evocations associated with objects of rural-urban representation. The results, synthesized using Content Analysis and SPAD-T software, indicated the presence of three organizing principles of the meaning of rural vs. city objects: natural world vs. artificial world, happy life vs. bad live and almost self-sufficient vs. resource centred. The function of the process of social identity, which aims to preserve the rural community way of life and guarantees the survival of its sociability through new generations, is discussed.

Adolescents at Risk of Delinquency. The Role of Parental Control, Trust, and Disclosure

ABSTRACT This study investigates the role of parental control, trust, and disclosure as protective factors on individual and peer-group delinquency in a sample of 1420 Italian high school students aged from 14 to18 (Mage = 15.59, SDage = 1.17), representative of the adolescent student population in Rimini (57.3% males and 42.7% females). A cluster analysis identified different patterns of parental monitoring, associated with different levels of involvement in individual and group delinquency during adolescence. The results showed parental trust, control, and adolescent disclosure to be inversely associated with violent behaviors. Our results challenge the assumption that greater parental control can reduce preadolescents’ antisocial behavior.

Drug Use and Violence Among Adolescents: The Mediation Effect of Attitudes Supporting Violence

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to study the impact of violent attitudes on the drug use/violent delinquency relationship. A total of 1,420 adolescents from the province of Rimini (Italy) completed a questionnaire concerning drug use, violent behaviors, and attitudes toward violence. In general, the results seem to confirm that part of the literature that suggests that people who make frequent use of drugs are also those subjects who are more frequently involved in violent behaviors. However, mediation analyses show that both soft and hard drug use have an indirect effect—mediated by attitudes of violence—on violent behaviors. The results suggest the influence of sociopsychological variables (i.e., attitudes and culture of violence) on the relationship between drug abuse and violent behavior. In planning policies to prevent violent behavior, educational and political institutions should encourage interventions addressed to the promotion of a nonviolent culture.