O "espetáculo do cabra macho" : um estudo sobre os vaqueiros nas vaquejada no Rio Grande do Norte

This body of work discusses the gender meanings associated with cowboys while endorsing contemporary rodeos in Rio Grande do Norte as a recreational sport and a form of ludic expression. As a result, this research has focused on rodeo practices, aiming to understand the different aspects emphasizing masculinity: these associations being constructed through relationships, contexts and the competitiveness between participants. These gender meanings hinge on the desire for a wining performance and on the behaviour exhibited among cowboys outside the competitive ring in specific social settings such as parties and recreational time. The latter were the focus of the ethnographic research; direct observation and semistructured interviews with cowboys in rodeo stadiums were also used. Through qualitative analysis of the collected data, it was revealed that historically and socially different trajectories do not immediately cause a gender crisis in cowboys, but the assignment of new significance by the social acts in each historical context. However, the presence of cowboys leads to other models of masculinity configured by expressions and the insertion of new personas, not coming directly from field activities, but imbued by the symbolic elements of the cowboy persona, constructed throughout history

Luz e sombra: uma interpretação de suas significações imaginárias nas imagens do cinema expressionista alemão e do cinema noir americano

The present investigation proposes an approach of light and shadow and their imaginary significations in the images of both German expressionist movie and the American noir movie, whose aesthetic experience is expressed through a contrasting bright/dark photography, loaded with symbolism. The interpretation of the imaginary significations of this imagistic material is based on Gilbert Durand´s imaginary anthropological theories that deal with a myriad of symbols gathered according to their semantic isomorphism and linked to more general structures named as Daily and nightly Image Regime . There come to gravitate, around such regimes, symbols attached to division and purification, ascensional and spectacular, with imaginary significations homological to Light and Good, and symbols associated to night, fall and animalism, isomorphic of Shadow and Evil

Representações sociais de professor partilhadas por licenciados a partir de imagens de professor

This investigation had the teacher as object of study, whose objective was to know and analyze the teacher‟s Social Representations (SR) shared by undergraduates, as from images of this professional (teachers´ photos of several levels and school systems). It was searched out the process of depreciation or estimation, in which the teaching profession has been passing, trying to catch, specifically, possible existing correlations among such SR and the reflections in the attitudes developed by these students about their own development and professional practice. The data collection was carried out at the Federal University of Piauí Teresina with 165 undergraduates (15 from each course). It was applied a semi-structured interview, mediated by iconographic grouping (SALES, 2000, 2007), outlining a methodological widening of the studies fulfilled by (ROAZZI, 1995). It was used the function Factor Analysis, available in the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for the analysis of the quantitative data, and it was proceeded a content analysis through the categorical analysis technique (BARDIN, 1977) for the analytical procedures of the qualitative data. It was resorted to the SR theory (MOSCOVICI, 1978) for the data interpretation and the Theory of Signs (PEIRCE. 1995) in the understanding of the decodification processes of signs that were present in the photos worked. It became evident that the undergraduates perceived the teaching profession inserted in a hierarchical scale of values (positive/negative), directly related to the school system and the teaching level, in which the teacher works. Most undergraduates share teacher‟s SR of negative content, consolidating the hegemonic SR about the teacher‟s social depreciation, although some of them imagine themselves, in the future, inserted among the teachers more appraised, showing that the SR orientate the positive and negative attitudes about the teacher. The presence of SR that mobilize the interviewers‟ attitudes in opposite senses related to the teacher, offer evidence of the necessity of future studies that can use a methodology more focused to understand other motivation factors that the undergraduates give evidence of having to the course they have chosen, besides the ones inferred by the SR caught in this investigation, as well as to establish a correlation between the teacher‟s SR (positive and negative) and the social economic level of the interviewers that share them. Such data revealed itself necessary since the literature signalizes for a relation between the course chosen and the applicant‟s social-economic level, and that the applicants‟ objective conditions to the licenciature courses are related to the subjective hopes that their group supplies

Dimensões e universo das representações sociais de educação ambiental por discentes em Garanhuns-PE

The research aimed at investigating the dimensions and the universe of social representations of environmental education, as well as identifying the senses and meanings Environmental Education. This study admitted as presumption the education and environment dimensions. In this investigation was adopted as reference the dimension or representation scope of Moscovici. One hundred and twenty (120) students from Public Schools of Basic Education participated of this study and moreover three hundred and twenty-three (323) from Higher Education in the area of the UPE-FACETEG. The following questions were admitted: 1) What are the dimensions/categories that exist in the semantic scope of social representations of the environmental education? 2) What are the senses and meanings of environmental education? 3) The student s representations of Basic Education are similar or different from the Higher Education? The software EVOC helped in the organization of semantic scope for construction of the categories, with support of the contents analysis. The justifications are sorted on lexical classes using the software ALCESTE, through of the speech analyses. The free association of words answered the question dimension/categories and its semantic scope, being: a) Nature/Environment; b) values; c) Attitudes; d) Actions; e) Implications; f) Mediation. Six lexical classes were found with its meanings enumerated in this way: 1.Awareness, as a factor of belief for the preservation of nature and society. The students are clamoring for environmental education in the school, emphasizing the importance of awareness in the development of the respect to the environment linking the education and family; 2. The consciousness-knowledge relationship for the environment-nature preservation. 3. The environment and human interventions, in search of indicators of solutions. 4. Nature /background/ environment and its constituting elements, a thinking of values and an acting for mediation. 5. The human-nature interaction in social representations of environmental education and the symbolic-life size. 6. Nature / environment /, values, attitudes, actions, implications, and mediation in nature-man relationships. The groups more representatives according to these lexical classes were, the Basic Education in the class-4, represented exclusively by the Primary and Secondary Education and the class-6 represented by both two the Basic Education (47,37%) and the Higher Education (52,63%) - History, Pedagogy, Psychology, Mathematics, Language and Literature. The classes 4 and 6 are related to the class-3 which in turn is formed by students of Higher Education (Mathematics, Biology, Pedagogy, Psychology, Language and Literature) and Basic Education (Primary and Secondary Education). The Higher Education is most represented by the lexical classes (1, 2 and 5). The class 2 corresponded to 80% of the researched groups. In the class-1 the biggest representation was concerning to the Psychology, Geography, Biology and Language and Literature courses, whereas the class-5 was best represented by Psychology, Biology, Pedagogy, Language and Literature, Geography and History. From the results, one may conclude that the imagery is nature/environment; that life is the symbolic dimension that permeates the whole imaginary, and that preservation, awareness and respect are inserted in the speech that circulate to protect life

Representações sociais de discentes sobre universidade: um estudo psicossocial entre ingressantes do vestibular e da seleção ProUni

Demand for access to higher education to put in test the education Brazilian system in view of the surplus of selective processes of public universities, people without option to pay their studies at this education level. In this context, it has arisen the University for All(Universidade para Todos)Program, the ProUni, from Ministry of Education - MEC, created by the Federal Government in 2004, and that it aims the granting of full and partial scholarships in private higher education institutions, graduate courses in sequential specific training, low-income Brazilians students who do not have higher-level degree. Created by the Provisional Measure No 213/2004 and institutionalized by Law No. 11096 of January 13, 2005, the ProUni offers, however, the exemption of some taxes to those institutions that join the program. This is one of the privileged time for the study of Social Representations by offering the researcher, a living laboratory, natural environment, the confrontation between the established and new. In time like this people are challenged to incorporate the new system to the pre-existing one, aiming it through a strangeness of what was so familiar. It is through this game of social forces that we developed the present study with 196 entering higher education, of these are 116 of selective vestibular system and 80 of the ProUni selective system. We opt by the procedures for data collection in order to have access to the circulating senses, in addition to the streamlined responses. With foundation in Abric, we perform the test the Free Association of Words, then analysed by the software and by EVOC Content of the type theme as Bardin. Besides, we require of the subjects, a writing on the study object university later analysed by the software ALCESTE. The results point out to a representation strongly rooted in social factors such as more traditional socio-cultural elements: the beliefs, values, the symbols. It is unique in both groups of subjects: among those entering by the selective ProUni system, there was a stronger anchor in that it does not make inquiries about the program. At the same time, there is a stronger presence of objectivation, entering the selective vestibular system in order that they explained with a value judgement on the programme. It is suggested further studies considering the embryonic state of social representation, as recent as the social purpose that triggered. It would be relevant even the replication of the same research with other people in order to strengthen the power of the theorising of empiria available

Tramas do impedimento: os sentidos da desistência entre Alfabetizandos da EJA

For young people and adults that have not yet conquered reading and writing, being literate is the most important thing in life , a dream . Scholarly learning for them is like hegemonic knowledge in contemporary literate society. Thus, for them to get into school is to be able to have such knowledge and, through it, feel inserted into this society. However, along this process of learning, they start to drop out, little by little, statistically increasing the number of people who give up on young people and adult education Eja, as well as slowly reducing the contingent of illiteracy in the country. With this reality as a starting point, we question the concrete and symbolic reasons or motives that lead to a dropping out of the literacy classes at Eja. To do so, we have established, as the object of our study, the feelings of giving up among those involved in young people and adult literacy training. To understand such feelings is our purpose in this investigation. The theory of Social Representations (MOSCOVICI, 1978, 2004) was the theoretical-methodological option for subsidizing data search, analyses and interpretation, making us perceive the significance of the object of this study for these individuals. The gathering of such symbolic content involved the use of semi-structured interviews with eleven drop-outs and ten students who had repeated this modality of teaching in public schools in Natal, RN, during the 2006 school year. From the thematic and categorical analyses (BARDIN, 1977), we identified elements that gave support to some themes. Later, these themes led to three categories, suggesting that feelings associated with dropping out were based on the following: learning difficulties because they did not understand the contents; having their lack of knowledge exposed, thus bringing forth feelings of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment for not knowing how to read and write at a mature age; work, tiredness and sickness. The students who manage to remain in school are those who force themselves to live with the feelings of maladaptation and those who develop a sense of adaptation the other way round to the institution, that is, acceptance of institutional failures and omissions

Como vão se formando os professores em física e química: embates entre o ser, o ter e o fazer na formação de licenciandos da UFRN sob a perspectiva da teoria das representações sociais

The purpose of this work is to approach and understand the Social Representations (SR) (MOSCOVICI, 2003) about Physics and Chemistry from people who are major in these courses, as well as their Social Representations about teaching . We took as principle that approaching these representations it would be possible to relate their symbolic contents, in order to show how people who are following the first segments of bachelor degree courses in Physics and Chemistry become teachers, taking into account a psychosocial view. Two source of data was used during this research: Free-association Technique FA (ABRIC, 1994); and Multiple Classification Procedure (MCP) (ROAZZI, 1995). The analytical treatment of the collected data from FA was done according to the proposition of Grize, Vergés and Silem (1987 apud ABRIC, 1994, p. 66). MCP data were analyzed through MSA (Multidimensional Scalogram Analysis) and SSA (Singular Spectrum Analysis) methods associated with the Facet Theory (BILSKY, 2003). The discourses of MCP discussing groups at the moment of explanations were studied by Content Analysis as it was proposed by Bardin (1977) and Franco (2005). Indicative of an approach to the relations with knowledge (CHARLOT, 2000), the connections which aroused from the analyses showed that the group of future majors in Physics thought that this scientific field was based on a rationalist conception, influencing the idealization sense of the phenomena to be explained by Physics. Thus, Physics as school content started to require the student of the fundamental and high school to think abstractly as a cognitive skill of learning. The identifying elements observed in the relations between SR about Physics and Teaching aroused from the antagonism between future majors and their teacher, as well as from the speculation between their fundamental and high school students and themselves, mainly when they had to face the act of teaching due to the obstacles imposed by the own educational system, and by the weakness of the initial preparation. The group of future majors in Chemistry, through its discourses, showed these relations when they conceived empiricist Chemistry and said that teaching was the way of transmission of this knowledge, and didactics of Chemistry teaching was the direction to learning through pedagogic methods in order to lead the students to discoveries. The psychosocial contents which were built and showed from the symbolic relations in the studied SR achieved the relation of identity. This relation revealed identifying elements for these people, resulting from the traffic between their condition as students of Chemistry, and as teachers regarding their work, what placed the current relational contents in the teaching space, named as Knowledge changing and Adaptability . In order to study emerging questions in the discussing environment about formation and teaching professionalization, we focused the psychosocial view on this traffic and managed to observe epistemological practical and pedagogic obstacles that limited a configuration of the teaching work as a professional activity, especially from the particular conditions which led the relations of senses to Physics , Chemistry and Teaching ; and Chemistry and Physics as it was seen in this research. Generally speaking, we noted that these obstacles can denounce such obstacles concerning to the pedagogic doings which mainly impair the learning process of fundamental and high school students

O Programa Pró-Letramento e a formação de alfabetizadores: repercussões nas concepções e práticas de professores cursistas

This paper intents to investigate the repercussions of the Pró-Letramento - Alphabetization and Language Course Program in the practices and conceptions of alphabetization of learning teachers, according to their own perspectives. The program, part of the National Formation Network of the Education Ministry, in partnership with public universities since 2006, is destined to aid the formation of teachers acting in the first three years of public basic education, with the goal of qualifying them to work with alphabetization and improve quality of learning processes and results. This investigation adopted the qualitative research paradigm as well as the Case Study methodology, being our empirical field a Belém do Brejo do Cruz/PB public school. The subjects are five Program graduation female teachers, including the tutor-trainer and four graduated teachers that already teach in the first three years of basic education. The data, gathered with documental analysis, individual and collective semi-structured interview, and non-participant observation, were analyzed according with Speech Analysis principals. Based on those principals, we intersected teachers enunciations, observation sessions registries and the Program s propositions and built interpretations based on theorization taken as fundaments of the investigation, among which we highlight: studies on a criticalreflexive perspective of a teacher s formation; continued formation as a permanent development process; the principals of historical-cultural approach on alphabetization processes and development with the centrality of language; alphabetization in a interactionist approach. The analysis focused on the Program s repercussions: 1) in the teachers conceptions about: 1.1) learning; 1.2) Alphabetization and literacy; and in the practices and conceptions related to: 1.3) alphabetization in a literacy perspective and 1.4) appropriation of the writing system. The corpus analysis evidenced relations of continuity and discontinuity, approach and distancing between the teachers conceptions and the Program s propositions, as well as conceptions/significance of their speeches and related or observed practices. Observing teachers elaborations evidences the repercussion of the Program s formation, whilst also showing gaps and mismatches in their appropriation process in concepts/assumptions as well as teaching propositions. These mismatches involve interaction relationships between teachers and students, with their possibilities and limitations surrounding the Program s knowledge objects complexity, also linking to the social, economical, political, and cultural conditions that involve both the implementation of the Program in each context and the conditions in which alphabetization in public schools are developed, demanding permanent and accompanied formation processes, investments to improve work conditions and valuing teaching

O estágio supervisionado como contexto de formação docente específica para educação infantil: o que dizem os formandos sobre suas aprendizagens?

Kindergarten teachers training gains the spotlight with the passing of Law number 9.394/96 (Guidelines and Basis Law) that defines this segment as the initial step of basic education, with pedagogical function. In this spectrum, the discussion about teacher training unravels to ensure social quality to education as well as the teacher s specificities towards child singularities. Adding to that, the growing propagation of Pedagogy in an undergraduate level, given that such course has been continually transformed by the National Curriculum Guidelines for Pedagogy (2006), highlighting the addition of curriculum components that are specific to upbringing. The complex debate circa kindergarten teachers training has advancements and hardships that need to be unveiled in order to improve both formation and social quality of education in the 0- 5 years old range. This investigation inserts itself in said context and aims to analyze which knowledge, specific to kindergarten teaching are constructed, according to undergraduate trainees, in Pedagogy s supervised internship. The study was conducted alongside the discipline: Supervised Internship in Child Education ministered by the Advanced Campus of Rio Grande do Norte s State University s in the municipality of Patu-RN (CAP-UERN-Patu) and was conducted through 2012 by accompanying four undergraduate interns. We first assumed that the development of teaching knowledge is a complex process of appropriation of cultural-social practices and is symbolically mediated by interactions that occur in the formation context, and the supervised internship can be understood as a space for the articulation and enlargement of theoretical and practical knowledge, directly related to the specificities of child education. The theoretical-methodological foundation was based upon the historiccultural approach of L. S. Vygotsky and M. Bakhtin s dialogism on human sciences research, as well as his postulates on learning and developmental processes, conceived as both essentially social and discursive. The investigation approached the principles of the qualitative perspective and to the construction and analysis of data, involved documental analysis and, specially, semi-structured interviews, both individual and collective, whose fundamental premise was the production-comprehension of meanings in a dialogical perspective. The participants texts/speeches produced a synthesis that points to the occurrence, within the supervised internship at CAP/UERN, of internalization/appropriation processes and, as such, of formulation of meanings that are pertinent to child education: child, childhood, kindergarten and teacher signification and this stage s specific teaching knowledge. It stood out that the internship, alongside other curriculum components, is, in fact, one of the primeval formation environment for the teachers, in which the interns interact with their colleagues, supervisor professor, collaborator professor, and of course, the children to construct their erudition. Such interactions allow the undergraduate interns to develop attitudes and procedures to reflect on what they know, what they ve done and what they can achieve. We have concluded that the undergraduate internship can constitute itself as an articulatorconsolidator environment in the future teacher s formation process and, since well oriented, can provide the effective initiation, not only to the practice, but to the praxis as a movement of non dissociability between theory and practice

A Tessitura de sentidos: representação social de licenciados do curso deletras da UFRN sobre o ensinar

En esta investigación, se busca comprender los procesos de formación de pregrado del Curso de Cartas da UFRN, de estas representaciones sociales acerca de los estudiantes de enseñanza. Por lo tanto, el objetivo fue conocer y analizar las representaciones sociales de curso de pregrado UFRN Cartas sobre la enseñanza. Por lo tanto, se aplica la Técnica de Libre de Palabras Asociación (TALP) con 20 participantes, después de haber sido probados individualmente, utilizando como estímulo palabra "enseñar" y limitar el número de invocaciones a 03 palabras por participante. Esta técnica fue elegida porque es una técnica proyectiva que permite la reducción y racionalización permite acceder al campo semántico de las representaciones sociales, en nuestro caso, en la enseñanza del de pregrado do Curso de Cartas da UFRN. Por lo tanto, llegamos a total de 60 llamadas, análisis de frecuencia después de 41 y 24 después de un análisis del significado que se utilizaron en otro procedimiento aplicado en esta investigación, las calificaciones de Procedimiento de Múltiples Calificaciones (PCM). Estas palabras, sobre la base de las justificaciones de las evocaciones y significados que atribuyen participantes en la investigación, se dividieron en 4 campos semánticos: Campo 1: Aspectos técnicos de la enseñanza, Campo 2: aspectos volitivos, Campo 3: aspectos relacionales de la enseñanza y de Campo 4: Elementos del campo. El PCM se aplicó de forma individual, con 50 estudiantes. Para el análisis de los datos generados, utilizamos Análisis Multidimensional (MDS) para la Escala Multidimensional de Evaluación Análisis gratuito (MSA: Multidimensional Scalogram Analysis) y el análisis de clasificación selectiva de los espacios menores (SSA: Smallest Space Analysis). El mapa generado por el análisis de MSA fue dividido en tres regiones: Aspectos de los aspectos de enseñanza, capacitación y asistencia técnica de los promotores de la profesionalización, la primera región que tiene una sub-regionalización llamada dimensión negativa. El mapa de la SSA análisis se dividió en dos partes y un subfaceta, llamado el aspecto faceta técnica de la enseñanza y la formación, la segunda faceta llamado Vínculo entre el campo y la enseñanza específica y su nombre subfaceta aspecto relacional. Del análisis del contenido de las justificaciones de la PCM, llegó a 5 categorías, a saber: Hacer la enseñanza, la faceta negativa, Escuela, Formación y faceta afectiva del profesor. El TALP aporta pruebas de que algunos de estos estudiantes ve la oportunidad de adquirir unos conocimientos en esta área, la formación en un nivel superior, como quieran, simplemente tienen un título universitario para realizar licitación abierta. El PCM nos ha hecho comprender que el contenido representacional en cuestión se configura desde el universo consensual conectado a la profesión y la formación. Por lo tanto, podemos decir que los titulares de licencias con respecto al tema estudiado anclar la representación social de "enseñar" a la imagen de ser un maestro y objetivar la imagen de la profesión

Representações sociais do comportamento agressivo do homem sob a ótica da mulher em situação de violência

We aim to understand the social representations of man's aggressive behavior from the perspective of women in situations of domestic violence. This is a descriptive, exploratory and representational study, whose methodological approach falls into the qualitative category. We chose as a scenario for research, by the Reference Center for Citizen Women (CRMC), Natal / RN. The criteria for selection of participants were women who lived/live in situations of domestic violence, with affective or relationship bonding with the assailant, in psychological and emotional positions appropriated to the reality; that are being protected or assisted by the service listed above; whose aggressor is male. We adopted as data collection instruments: questionnaire, Drawing-Story (DE) and a field diary. For analysis of textual data, we decided to use the ALCESTE software conjugated to editing analyze and initial reading. Were investigated 20 women victims of domestic violence, whose author of the attacks was the husband/partner. We identified, from the respondents, that 70% (n = 14) of men with aggressive behavior also had a family history of violence and fragile family relationships. About the physical and emotional condition of the assailant at the time of violence, 50% (n = 10) of these men, regardless the use of alcohol, had often quarrelsome and/or nervous behavior, impatient and unpredictable humor facing a setback, worry or annoyance. Regarding the nature of violence, we observed that women were victims of all types of violence, however, the psychological prevailed in 100% of cases. The corpus "Men" has three classes, whose focuses are, respectively: resignation, denounce and violence/aggression, being possible categorizing them as well: Category 1: The imprisonment of women; Category 2: Violence and its meanings; Category 3: Breaking the violent cycle. We show that the social representations of man s aggressive behavior, from the women in situations of violence, are anchored in the social roles of men in family and society, becoming a dominant model of masculinity. It is aimed, on one hand, from the reproduction of what is already known and/or experienced by male aggressors in the family, as repetitions of behavior. And on the other, present themselves as a state of illness, addiction or psychopathy

Casal nacional: significações do corpo e do figurino no telejornalismo

The main objective of this study is to investigate the meanings of body and costume as essential components of television journalists aesthetic discourse, as exemplified by the presenters of Jornal Nacional, from Rede Globo. The study is inspired on the paths proposed by semiotics, and combines this approach with other techniques of scientific investigation to identify the meanings of this non-verbal communication form. For that, this work uses the concept of communication proposed by the Palo Alto School s authors, more specifically the concept of Watzlawick et al. (2005), which understands communication like relation and inherent of human beings. The precepts of complex thought and the hologramatic principle of Morin (1990), which value the union and the need to connect the knowledge of elements or parts to that of the systems these parts constitute, is also present in the thinking that guides the work. Throughout the chapters, we elucidate our understanding of body and television as media, and fashion and television journalism as languages. This work approaches a televisual history of Jornal Nacional in order to better understand the aesthetic proposed by television news over time, its presenters and costumes. The elements that are part of the televisual language s expression and content are addressed so that we can better understand the importance of body and presenters costume in this context. Finally, we conduct an analysis of the meanings of television journalism presenters body and costume through their stereotypes, their integration into the fashion cycle and also into the televisual analysis of the most important costume elements of Jornal Nacional s presenter couple: colors, models and accessories. We thus seek to strengthen the understanding of the wardrobe inseparable from the body as communication and detail some of their production understanding processes. The women historical role in brazilian television journalism, as well as masculinization of TV journalism environment are important elements to contextualize televisual language thinking in contemporary society. The investigation covers the origins, concepts, proposals, stereotypes, prejudices, reproductions, naturalizations and reinterpretation of the body and the costume of the presenters through time and the relationship between body, fashion and communication

Sentidos e perspectivas atribuídos por crianças à sua condição de estar para adoção

Considering the Brazilian current context, where many children are in institutional shelter waiting for adoption, the aim of this study was to know the meaning that sheltered children (whose families had already lost their custody or were in the process of losing it, at the moment of the field work) gave to their adoption condition. The research was carried out with three children in the shelter where they lived, in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The field work took six months approximately. In order to meet the objective of this research, individual procedures were structuralized using figures and drawing material. With these procedures the children could speak directly or indirectly about the application of the legal measure of institutional shelter, about their lives before the application of this legal measure and what happened since then, and their original families and future perspectives. The content of the procedures was tape recorded and registered in the field work diary. The analysis of the corpus occurred with the Thematic Content Analysis, considering the theoretical methodological perspective of the Net of Meanings approach. The analysis of the corpus showed the ambiguity of the children, who consider good to live in the institution where they are, recognizing the responsibility of the original caregivers for their sheltered condition and, at the same time, they miss their relatives and wish to be with them. The subjects recognize the perspective of adoption and imagine it in a positive way. However, when the children were questioned about what could happen to them in the future, they said that they did not know, expressing uncertainty concerning their destinations

Histórias de vida de mulheres idosas :um estudo sobre o bem-estar subjetivo na velhice

The elderly population growth in Brazil and in the world is an incontestable reality, arising from a significant declining rate in mortality and fertility, resulting from the remarkable improvements in the quality of life of the people. Associated with the introduction of new technologies in the medical area, these issues have been highly contributing for the increase of the population longevity. The numbers of the elderly in Brazil and in the world show female population predominance within the aging segment, a phenomenon known as the feminisation of the old-age . Aging, therefore, is nowadays one of the primary issues and that has been mobilizing the Brazilian s society, since the development raised from this new reality brought with it enormous challenges and complex social implications which are already felt in the daily lives of the societies. My work experience among some age groups has shown that aging is a much differentiated process which has instigated my interest in understanding why aging has to face an overwhelming and painful experience for some people and enriched and full of signification for others. Overviewing, this research aimed to understand the aging development through the analysis of the processes of signification and production of meaning that permeate the aging and the subjective well-being of three aged women participants of the Project Health and Citizenship on Third Age /CEFET-RN, that evidenced attitudes and behaviors concerning the integration and the activity toward the elderly population. The methodological strategy used was History of Life, starting from collecting data based on deep interviews. The analysis of data evidenced that the elderly well-being is a unique and distinct meaningful experience for each person, concerning each story of their lives within differentiated social, cultural, economic context, from this perspective one can demystify the concept of that aging occurs in a homogeneous way for everyone, everywhere and with the same rhythm. The narratives presented in this research showed the human development as being a dialectic, discursive and interactionist process which extends throughout the adult life and continues to the aging life. The guarantee that development and aging are a parallel phenomenon always in interdependence on the preceding phases of live, are corroborated within the studies. This present study confirms that the elderly population can be a phase of growth, personal realization and continued development, without disrespecting the heterogeneous and the subjectivity of the person who ages. Notifying those healthy and well-succeeded aging experiences, this issue has the intention to contribute to demystify the concept of aging as a social problem, illness needed to be treated, and the stereotypy of the elderly being dependent and unproductive

Os sentidos de compreensão nas teorias de Weber e Habermas

Partindo do pressuposto de que a teoria social elaborada por Habermas em muito se assemelha àquela construída por M. Weber, procedeu-se a um estudo comparativo com a intenção de identificar as formas pelas quais Weber e Habermas elaboraram o conceito de compreensão, ao mesmo tempo em que e o elegeram, cada um a seu modo, como instrumento metodológico adequado às dificuldades da produção de conhecimento científico nas Ciências Sociais. Tanto para Weber, como para Habermas, o conhecimento nas Ciências Sociais não consegue escapar das influências diretas da subjetividade do cientista, como também não é capaz de se proteger das contingências histórico-culturais aos quais inevitavelmente toda ação humana está vinculada. Por isso, fundamentados em suas próprias razões, tanto Weber quanto Habermas apontam a compreensão como a forma possível de conhecimento, o que implica a renúncia às pretensões explicativas e à produção de teorias gerais de fundamentação última, que são típicas das ciências convencionais.