Attachment to parents: the mediating role of inhibition of exploration and individuality on health behaviors

This study’s goal was to analyze whether the quality of university students’ relationship with their parents mediated the association between mental health and physical symptoms and health behavior. Participants were 250 university students (66% female and 34% male), aged between 17 and 29 years old (M = 20.88, SD = 2.03) that answered the Father/Mother Attachment Questionnaire (FMAQ), the Physical Symptoms Scale from the Rotterdam Symptom Checklist (RSCL), the Health Behavior Questionnaire (HBQ), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The results showed that the indirect effect of physical symptoms on health behavior was significantly mediated by the father’s and mother’s inhibition of exploration and individuality (IEI). Also the indirect effect of psychological distress on health behavior was significantly mediated by the father’s and mother’s IEI. These results suggest that young adults who had more restrictions to their individuality show worse health behaviors. Separation Anxiety and Dependence (SAD) and Quality of Emotional Bond (QEB), the other 2 attachment scales, were not mediators of the relationship between physical symptoms/ psychological distress and health behavior. This study shows the importance of promoting positive parenting practices that contribute to healthier behavior choices and less risky behaviors, as well as the need for more studies that clearly identify these practices in young adult populations.

The Portuguese programme ‘one laptop per child’ and its impact on families: a study on parents’ and children’s perspectives

This paper intends to present and reflect upon some of the findings emerging from a research project entitled “Navigating with ‘Magalhães’: Study on the Impact of Digital Media on Schoolchildren” that was conducted at the Communication and Society Research Centre at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. The project focused on the politics of the governmental programme “One Laptop per Child” part of the Portuguese Technological Plan for Education, and the uses of the “Magalhães” computer, and other media, by children aged 8-10 years. This paper analyses the impact of this particular public policy on digital literacy of young children based mostly on the perspectives of parents and their modes of mediation. It also debates parents’ and children’s perspectives on parental rules on computer and Internet usage. It ends by concluding that the impact of this programme occurred mainly at the level of access rather than the social and educational uses and practices. It also highlights the importance of family in the way children access and use ICT.

À descoberta do livro-brinquedo: objetos e práticas de promoção do gosto pelo livro e pela leitura em contexto de jardim de infância

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Quando ler se torna um prazer: contributo da promoção da leitura literária na infância

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Educação Pré-Escolar e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico

Educação para a sustentabilidade: O uso de Sistemas de Informação Geográfica Participativos como instrumento de participação de crianças e adolescentes na construção de sociedades mais sustentáveis

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências da Educação (Área de Conhecimento: Educação ambiental e para a Sustentabilidade)

Satisfaction with Life Scale among adolescents and young adults in Portugal: extending evidence of construct validity

The paper presents three empirical studies designed to extend the test of the construct validity of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) among Portuguese students. In the first study, the responses of 461 elementary and secondary education students were submitted to a principal component analysis. A solution of one single factor was chosen, accounting for 55.7 % of the total variance, with Cronbach alpha coefficient and inter-item correlation above .70 and .20, respectively. The second study used a sample of 317 undergraduate students and registered a similar factor solution for SWLS (/pq = 0.99), which accounted for 65.6 % of the total variance (Cronbach alpha .89 and inter-item correlation above .20). A test–retest analysis registered coefficients of .70 (T2) and .77 (T3) and no significant statistically differences between T2, T3 and T1. The third study used a sample of 107 foster care youths from elementary and secondary education. Confirmatory factor analysis results indicate adequate fit indexes for the one-factor solution (v2/df = 2.70, GFI = .96, CFI = .96), which showed convergent validity, reliability and homogeneity. In conclusion, there is psychometric evidence for the one-factor structure of the SWLS in Portugal.

Adolescent parents’ values: the role played by retrospective perceptions of the family-of-origin

Family-of-origin is an important system in individual’s lives, and its influence is extensive over the life cycle. The aim of this study was to investigate, in a sample of adolescents’ parents, whether their retrospective perceptions of parenting and relationship qualities within their families-of-origin during adolescence predicted their current collectivist and individualist values. Participants included 110 Portuguese adults with a mean age of 46.86 years old. The results of structural equation modeling supported that retrospective perceptions of parenting and relationship qualities in the family-of-origin predicted the adults’ collectivist values but not their individualist values. This study highlights the importance of retrospective perceptions of supporting and non-rejecting parenting for value acquisition. The results also suggest that values that preserve and protect family connections and collaborations are more likely to be socialized by families. Implications for practice and for the theories on parenting, values, family-of-origin influences and family intergenerational transmission are discussed.

Desenvolvimento de um Módulo Habitacional “embrionário” “Plug-in” de habitação unifamiliar

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Arquitectura

Clear cell adenocarcinoma of the cervix in a young woman: a diagnostic challenge

Clear cell adenocarcinoma of the cervix is a rare tumor, classically related with in utero diethylstilbestrol (DES) exposure. The authors report a rare case of clear cell adenocarcinoma of the cervix in a 21-yearold woman who had no history of in utero DES exposure, presenting with intermittent vaginal bleeding. It stresses the relevance to always clarify the etiology of abnormal genital bleeding and consider the possibility of cervicovaginal tumors.

Our place in history: young feminists at the margins

Feminisms in Portugal, as elsewhere, have been shaped historically. From the revolutions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which ended monarchy and established a republican system, women have taken a stand. In the late 1970s, after 48 years of dictatorship during which feminist issues were effectively silenced, feminist groups began to appear in Portugal. It was then, in 1976, that UMAR (Unia˜o de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta [‘Union of Women for Alternatives and Answers’]) began its fight against discrimination and violence against women.

Cyberbullying: caracterização do fenómeno em Portugal

Dissertação de mestrado em Crime, Diferença e Desigualdade

The internet in young people's everyday life: listening to portuguese teens' voices

[Excerto] Children and young people today go about their lives in an increasingly mediatized fashion. Their daily lives are inhabited by a variety of media, ranging from the so-called new media to the more traditional ones, which have an impact on how they perceive, get to kno,v and represent the world, how they interact with others, how they build their identity, and how they study, have fun and organize their daily lives. The media ecosystem, namely the digit.:tl environments, opened up opportunities to communicate, participate, create and produce information. Apparently, children and young people now have more means and opportunities at their disposal to express and share their ideas, interests and opinions, but are they actually taking advantage of such potential? \'(that uses are they making of these means? Does the Internet, in fact, enable the younger generations to create a new communication culture of expression and participation (...)?

First- and second-time parents’ couple relationship: from pregnancy to second year postpartum

First- and second-time parents’ couple relationships were studied from early pregnancy to the second year postpartum. The Relationship Questionnaire (RQ) was administered to Portuguese couples (N = 82), first- or second-time parents, at the first, second and third pregnancy trimester, childbirth, 3 and 18 months postpartum. Adverse changes in positive and negative partner relationship dimensions were reported from early pregnancy to the second year postpartum by all participants; in the same way by mothers and fathers and by first- and second-time parents. Second-time parents reported a worse couple relationship (lower RQ-positive scores) than first-time parents, but only during pregnancy. Results from the present study suggest a decline in partner relationship quality during the transition to parenthood both in mothers and fathers, as well as in first- and second-time parents.

Childhood history of abuse and child abuse potential: the role of parent’s gender and timing of childhood abuse

It has been suggested that being physically abused leads to someone becoming a perpetrator of abuse which could be associated to parents' gender, timing of the physical abuse and specific socio-demographic variables. This study aims to investigate the role the parents' gender, timing of childhood abuse and socio-demographic variables on the relationship between parents' history of childhood physical abuse and current risk for children. The sample consisted of 920 parents (414 fathers, 506 mothers) from the Portuguese National Representative Study of Psychosocial Context of Child Abuse and Neglect who completed the Childhood History Questionnaire and the Child Abuse Potential Inventory. The results showed that fathers had lower current potential risk of becoming physical abuse perpetrators with their children than mothers although they did not differed in their physical victimization history. Moreover, the risk was higher in parents (both genders) with continuous history of victimization than in parents without victimization. Prediction models showed that for fathers and mothers separately similar socio-demographic variables (family income, number of children at home, employment status and marital status) predicted the potential risk of becoming physical abuses perpetrators. Nevertheless, the timing of victimization was different for fathers (before 13 years old) and mothers (after 13 years old). Then our study targets specific variables (timing of physical abuse, parents' gender and specific socio-demographic variables), which may enable professionals to select groups of parents at greater need of participating in abuse prevention programs.

Parents' physical victimization in childhood and current risk of child maltreatment: the mediator role of psychosomatic symptoms

Objective: To test the potential mediation effect of psychosomatic symptoms on the relationship between parents' history of childhood physical victimization and current risk for child physical maltreatment. Methods: Data from the Portuguese National Representative Study of Psychosocial Context of Child Abuse and Neglect were used. Nine-hundred and twenty-four parents completed the Childhood History Questionnaire, the Psychosomatic Scale of the Brief Symptom Inventory, and the Child Abuse Potential Inventory. Results: Mediation analysis revealed that the total effect of the childhood physical victimization on child maltreatment risk was significant. The results showed that the direct effect from the parents' history of childhood physical victimization to their current maltreatment risk was still significant once parents' psychosomatic symptoms were added to the model, indicating that the increase in psychosomatic symptomatology mediated in part the increase of parents' current child maltreatment risk. Discussion: The mediation analysis showed parents' psychosomatic symptomatology as a causal pathway through which parents' childhood history of physical victimization exerts its effect on increased of child maltreatment risk. Somatization-related alterations in stress and emotional regulation are discussed as potential theoretical explanation of our findings. A cumulative risk perspective is also discussed in order to elucidate about the mechanisms that contribute for the intergenerational continuity of child physical maltreatment.