Natural ventilation and indoor air quality in educational buildings: experimental assessment and improvement strategies

Indoor environmental conditions in classrooms, in particular temperature and indoor air quality, influence students’ health, attitude and performance. In recent years, several studies regarding indoor environmental quality of classrooms were published and natural ventilation proved to have great potential, particularly in southern European climate. This research aimed to evaluate indoor environmental conditions in eight schools and to assess their improvement potential by simple natural ventilation strategies. Temperature, relative humidity and carbon dioxide concentration were measured in 32 classrooms. Ventilation performance of the classrooms was characterized using two techniques, first by fan pressurization measurements of the envelope airtightness and later by tracer gas measurements of the air change rate assuming different envelope conditions. A total of 110 tracer gas measurements were made and the results validated ventilation protocols that were tested afterward. The results of the ventilation protocol implementation were encouraging and, overall, a decrease on the CO2 concentration was observed without modifying the comfort conditions. Nevertheless, additional measurements must be performed for winter conditions.

Children at risk, attachment and institutionalization: contributions to the socio-educational intervention

Introduction: Institutionalized children exposed to early adverse experiences are a particularly vulnerable group with a high risk of developing health problems. Objectives: i) to know the representations of attachment in institutionalized children; ii) to understand if there are differences of attachment, according to some sociodemographic variables; iii) outline socio-educational intervention strategies in the children’s life’s contexts. Methods: This is an exploratory and cross-sectional study, using for this purpose, a non-probabilistic and convenience sample composed of 82 institutionalized children, aged between 8 and 17 years old. The gathering instruments were the Sociodemographic Questionnaire and the Inventory Attachment for Children and Adolescents. Results: The results show that most children have secure attachment representations, followed by the avoidant attachment representations. We also found signiicant differences in the results of attachment, according to the gender (in avoidant attachment and ambivalent attachment) and in the institutionalization time (in the ambivalent attachment). Conclusions: The results show promising lines of research, being our purpose to outline socio-educational intervention strategies for children in their pathways of life by promoting protective factors, especially the establishment of secure relationships, thus promoting better quality of life and well-being.

Resilience, perception of parental support and socio-educational intervention strategies

Introduction: Resilience is a core variable in the context of studies on the psychosocial adjustment and school children and teenagers, and should be considered in the context of strategies to promote their well- being and quality of life. Objectives: To know the relationship between resilience, parental support and some sociodemographic variables; outline socio-educational intervention strategies in contexts of children’s lives. Methods: This is a non-experimental, correlational and cross-sectional study, having used a non- probabilistic convenience sample consisting of 150 children, aged between 10 and 16 years old, attending the 2nd and 3rd cycles of Basic Education. The gathering instruments were the Sociodemographic Questionnaire, Inventory Measuring State and Child Resilience (Martins, 2005) and Perception Parental Support Scale (Veiga, 2011). Results: Results show that there are signiicant differences in the values of the current, past and overall resilience, between the age groups children, revealing that children aged between 10 and 11 years have higher results in resilience than young people aged between 14 and 16 years. We also observed signiicant differences in the current resilience, depending on the parents’ marital status (higher when parents are married). We also observed positive and signiicant correlations between resilience and perception of parental support. Conclusions: Results are in line with the scientiic literature in the ield that highlights the key role of resilience in school and psychosocial adjustment of children, and should be considered within the design of socio-educational intervention strategies. Keywords: Resilience. Parental support. Attachment