Maria Angela Mattar Yunes

The pre-cloak superhero: a tool for superhero play and intervention

Abstract Since the early 1940s, superheroes have been used by educators and clinicians to instill community and confidence; resiliency and courage; tolerance and sharing among children. Through superhero play, the early childhood classroom has become a laboratory filled with capes and costumes. In the therapist’s milieu, the empowered superhero provides a model for children to aspire to. But both of these environments – the classroom and the counselor’s office – use the fully powered superhero. While the literature attests to health benefits provided through use of the empowered superhero, this article draws attention to a resource often overlooked: the pre-empowered, pre-cloak superhero. As many popular superheroes (~86%) were orphaned or abandoned, prior to acquiring superpowers, the article focuses on the adversities they share with these two specific groups of vulnerable children. With orphaned and abandoned children as the treatment group of focus, the article proposes environments for pre-cloak interventions. In addition, the article proposes a dual-stage program, which would combine pre-cloak interventions with superhero play. For the educator and clinician, possibility awaits through this expansion of the superhero palette.

Childhood obesity in Brazil: lessons to be learned from the Northern Hemisphere

A obesidade infantil no Brasil aumentou 600% nos ultimos 40 anos e os estudos indicam que mais de 30% das criancas brasileiras estao acima do peso ou obesas. Esta epidemia representa uma ameaca substancial para estas criancas, bem como uma sobrecarga para o sistema de saude publico do pais. Este artigo apresenta reflexoes sobrexa0 paralelos entre o Brasil e os EUA em termos de historia, opcoes e respostas a estas ameacas. Abordagens individualistas e coletivistas sao sopesadas sugerindo uma politica de revisao dos ambientes brasileiros obesogenicos como um ponto inicial para salvaguardar o futuro das criancas do pais.

Intervenções psicoeducacionais positivas para promoção de resiliência: o profissional da educação como tutor de desenvolvimento

This article intends to contribute with reflections on the role of educators in initiatives of positive psychoeducational interventions in situations characterized by psychosocial risks. Thus, the concept of positive interventions will be presented, based on the assumptions of Positive Psychology and the phenomenon of resilience. It will be argued that the appreciative and optimistic view of the professional educator in contexts of vulnerability requires good practices and resilience mentoring that set up standards of respectful and supportive professional relationships. These can be preventive of socially toxic environments and help in protecting and preventing the innumerable threats to the human development of children, adolescents and their families. Two examples of positive intervention practices in the school context and their results will be presented.

BULLYING NO AMBIENTE ESCOLAR: O PAPEL DO PROFESSOR E DA ESCOLA COMO PROMOTORES DE RESILIÊNCIA

Este artigo tem como objetivo provocar reflexoes sobre o bullying escolar, definido como pratica violenta intencional praticada entre pares, com desigualdade de poder, que prejudica as relacoes humanas, com consequencias e mudancas nas caracteristicas biopsicologicas dos envolvidos. O relato de experiencia apresenta uma atividade desenvolvida por uma professora de uma escola publica do sul do Brasil, a qual solicitou aos seus alunos, no inicio do ano letivo, a producao de texto intitulada “Quem sou eu?”. O texto de um dos alunos sobre seu sofrimento de voltar para a escola por sofrer bullying motivou a docente a desenvolver um projeto de intervencao. Ao final do ano letivo, foi solicitada nova producao de texto, por meio do qual se constatou o desenvolvimento positivo do referido estudante. O relato dessa experiencia apresenta as duas producoes do aluno e o projeto de intervencao desenvolvido no ambiente escolar.

Children’s Perceptions of the Relational and Educational Practices at Shelter Institutions

This chapter aims to present a research grounded in the bioecology of human development that analyzed shelter institutions through the perceptions of children aged from 7 to 12 years. The methodology focused on documental research, ecological engagement, and reflexive interviews associated with simultaneous photographic records made by seven children of two governmental institutions located in the south of Brazil. The main purpose of data collection was to listen to children’s voices and develop a dialogue taking into account their life adversities and experiences while being apart from their families. These methodological strategies respect children’s integrity and social, moral, and cultural values. Data analysis was based on the principles of grounded theory with the support of Atlas.ti software. Results showed that children perceive institutions mainly as a place of discipline, the imposition of rules, and of being deprived of affection, reciprocity, and an inadequate power balance as well as a setting for ambivalence in respect of the workers’ educational practices.

Educação parental e pedagogia social: avaliação de uma proposta de intervenção

Parenting educational interventions are rare in Brazil and relate to the field of social pedagogy. This proposal presentsxa0the analysis of a proposal on a family educational program for the promotion of responsible parenting. Therefore, axa0parenting educational european program was conducted in a Brazilian context entitled “Growing as a Happy Family”.xa0It was investigated: the dynamics of operation, the role of the facilitators, the satisfaction/ effectiveness in the viewxa0of the team of educators and the participating families. The results indicated a need to guarantee the adherence/participation of families and some adjustments to the Brazilian context. The elements that mostly contributedxa0to the satisfaction/effectiveness of the parenting educational program in Brazil were the quality of pedagogicalxa0mediation of the educators with the families, the systemic approach to the educational proposal content and the use ofxa0methodologies of Social Pedagogy that are based on dialogue and respect to the individual and cultural differences.

Conceitos numéricos na educação infantil: uma pesquisa etnográfica

This paper describes a research that analyzed the early construction of number concepts in two to five year old children of Early Education. The qualitative ethnographic research was conducted in two schools: at the Nucleo de Desenvolvimento Infantil, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil and at the Scuola XXV Aprile, in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The aim was to describe the way that the spontaneous situations of number concepts were improved by teachers of these schools. In both schools the children demonstrated spontaneous opportunities of numerical constructions.The refore, those situations were not used by teachers to improve the children’s numerical knowledge.