Patricia Melgar

Communicative Daily Life Stories and Focus Groups: Proposals for Overcoming Gender Violence Among Teenagers

The scientific literature has identified an attraction toward models of masculinity marked by abuse and domination in teenagers’ sexual and affective relationships. Given this reality, greater insight is needed on the mechanisms that lead young people to choose this type of relationship. In theory, different authors argue that as a result of the disassociation between goodness and attractiveness a profound crisis of meaning is found. A study conducted with the Critical Communicative Methodology, particularly, through the use of communicative data collection techniques has led to gather evidences of this crisis, particularly how it is interplayed by the opposition between a language of ethics versus a language of desire. The use of communicative daily life stories and communicative focus groups allowed not only to identify this separation but also those elements that contribute to overcome it.

Breaking the Silence at Spanish Universities Findings From the First Study of Violence Against Women on Campuses in Spain

The first research conducted on violence against women in the university context in Spain reveals that 62% of the students know of or have experienced situations of this kind within the university institutions, but only 13% identify these situations in the first place. Two main interrelated aspects arise from the data analysis: not identifying and acknowledging violent situations, and the lack of reporting them. Policies and actions developed by Spanish universities need to be grounded in two goals: intransigence toward any kind of violence against women, and bystander intervention, support, and solidarity with the victims and with the people supporting the victims.

Luis, From Ex-Prisoner to Neighborhood Representative and Interlocutor With Public Administrations

As an ex-prisoner from a ghetto in Albacete (Spain), Luis’s aspirations were constrained to either obtaining a seasonal job when possible or resigning to becoming a permanent user of social services. However, his participation in dialogic spaces such as Dialogic Literary Gatherings (DLG) made him dream that a different life was possible, not only for him but also for his children. In the DLG, he began a process of personal transformation that allowed him to become one of the most appreciated representatives of his neighborhood and a core interlocutor with several public administrations. The authors consider how dialogic spaces such as the DLG become sources of hope and sense-making to people such as Luis and note the elements that enable them to overcome social exclusion while inspiring them to fight for the achievement of social justice in their communities.