Ação política e a perspetiva social : Freguesia de São Domingos de Benfica : Relatório Profissional

O presente relatório caracteriza a ação política e a perspetiva social da Junta de Freguesia de São Domingos de Benfica, categorizando-o em cinco eixos de intervenção, analisando a sua eficácia e abrangência no período entre 2005 e 2011. No primeiro eixo, focado na ação na infância e juventude, inclui-se o Programa de Promoção de Competências Pessoais e Sociais, o Gabinete de Apoio à Criança e ao Jovem, os Encontros para Pais, a Comissão de Proteção de Crianças e Jovens, as Atividades de OTL do Espaço Jovem e os Programas de Férias. Das respostas para os adultos, no segundo eixo, fazem parte dois gabinetes de apoio aos munícipes1 com perturbações de comportamento aditivo e vítimas de violência doméstica, incluindo-se ações de prevenção e sensibilização. Para a população idosa temos o terceiro eixo e salienta-se o Programa de Envelhecimento Ativo e Saudável, as Atividades de OTL, nomeadamente o Programa de Férias para a população Sénior e as visitas e passeios histórico-culturais. A família e a qualidade das relações familiares são um aspeto de grande importância, por isso temos o quarto eixo que tem o acompanhamento psicossocial, apoio a famílias carenciadas e o projeto de apoio às famílias junto de bairros isolados da freguesia. Finalmente, o quinto e último eixo refere-se a um movimento de integração das várias entidades da freguesia designado por Comissão Social de Freguesia que pretende desenvolver projetos orientados para o apoio à comunidade. Este relatório terminará com uma reflexão crítica relativamente à evolução do trabalho desenvolvido na ação social desde 2005 até 2011.

Gaming and social interactions in the rehabilitation of brain injuries: a pilot study

Physical rehabilitation of brain injuries and strokes is a time consuming and costly process. Over the past decade several studies have emerged looking at the use of highly sophisticated technologies, such as robotics and virtual reality to tap into the needs of clinicians and patients. While such technologies can be a valuable tool to facilitate intensive movement practice in a motivating and engaging environment, success of therapy also depends on self-administered therapy beyond hospital stay. With the emergence of low-cost gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, new opportunities arise for home-therapy paradigms centred on social interactions and values, which could reduce the sense of isolation and other depression related complications. In this paper we examine the potential, user acceptance and usability of an unmodified Nintendo Wii gaming console as a low-cost treatment alternative to complement current rehabilitation programmes.

The perception of emotion from body movement in point-light displays of interpersonal dialogue

We examined whether it is possible to identify the emotional content of behaviour from point-light displays where pairs of actors are engaged in interpersonal communication. These actors displayed a series of emotions, which included sadness, anger, joy, disgust, fear, and romantic love. In experiment 1, subjects viewed brief clips of these point-light displays presented the right way up and upside down. In experiment 2, the importance of the interaction between the two figures in the recognition of emotion was examined. Subjects were shown upright versions of (i) the original pairs (dyads), (ii) a single actor (monad), and (iii) a dyad comprising a single actor and his/her mirror image (reflected dyad). In each experiment, the subjects rated the emotional content of the displays by moving a slider along a horizontal scale. All of the emotions received a rating for every clip. In experiment 1, when the displays were upright, the correct emotions were identified in each case except disgust; but, when the displays were inverted, performance was significantly diminished for some ernotions. In experiment 2, the recognition of love and joy was impaired by the absence of the acting partner, and the recognition of sadness, joy, and fear was impaired in the non-veridical (mirror image) displays. These findings both support and extend previous research by showing that biological motion is sufficient for the perception of emotion, although inversion affects performance. Moreover, emotion perception from biological motion can be affected by the veridical or non-veridical social context within the displays.

State and society in the English countryside: the rural community movement 1918-1939

This paper assesses the relationship between state and society in interwar rural England, focusing on the hitherto neglected role of the Rural Community Councils (RCCs). The rise of statutory social provision in the early twentieth century created new challenges and opportunities for voluntaryism, and the rural community movement was in part a response. The paper examines the early development of the movement, arguing that a crucial role was played by a close-knit group of academics and local government officials. While largely eschewing party politics, they shared a commitment to citizenship, democracy and the promotion of rural culture; many of them had been close associates of Sir Horace Plunkett. The RCCs engaged in a wide range of activities, including advisory work, adult education, local history, village hall provision, support for rural industries and an ambivalent engagement with parish councils. The paper concludes with an assessment of the achievements of the rural community movement, arguing that it was constrained by its financial dependence on voluntary contributions.

Social networks, migration, and care in Tanzania

This paper explores the impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on children and families in northern Tanzania using the concept of social resilience.1 The study is based on the findings of childfocused research with street children and children and families from HIV/AIDS-affected households. The paper illustrates the coping strategies that children and young people, and parents and caregivers adopt at the household level. In particular, it examines how the burden of care affects different generations of women and highlights their resilience, together with the importance of social networks and the fluidity of movement between rural and urban areas. The research suggests that migrating to urban areas to seek a living in the informal sector represents a survival strategy adopted by some children and young people orphaned by AIDS when their families and communities are unable or unwilling to support them. The paper concludes by exploring parents’, caregivers’, children’s, and young people’s views on the forms of social support that would promote their resilience and thereby help to mitigate the impacts of the epidemic at the household level.

Communication and social regulation. the criminalization of work-related death

This paper addresses the movement towards criminalization as a tool for the regulation of work-related deaths in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the last 20 years. This can be seen as reflecting dissatisfaction with the relevant law, although it is best understood in symbolic terms as a response to a disjunction between the instrumental nature and communicative aspirations of regulatory law. This paper uses empirical data gathered from interviews with members of the public to explore the role that such an offence might play. The findings demonstrate that the failures of regulatory law give rise to a desire for criminalization as a means of framing work-related safety events in normative terms.

Steering without Circe : attending to reinforcing loops in social systems

Relating system dynamics to the broad systems movement, the key notion is that reinforcing loops deserve no less attention than balancing loops. Three specific propositions follow. First, since reinforcing loops arise in surprising places, investigations of complex systems must consider their possible existence and potential impact. Second, because the strength of reinforcing loops can be misinferred - we include an example from the field of servomechanisms - computer simulation can be essential. Be it project management, corporate growth or inventory oscillation, simulation helps to assess consequences of reinforcing loops and options for interventions. Third, in social systems the consequences of reinforcing loops are not inevitable. Examples concerning globalization illustrate how difficult it might be to challenge such assumptions. However, system dynamics and ideas from contemporary social theory help to show that even the most complex social systems are, in principle, subject to human influence. In conclusion, by employing these ideas, by attending to reinforcing as well as balancing loops, system dynamics work can improve the understanding of social systems and illuminate our choices when attempting to steer them.

Autistic traits modulate mimicry of social but not nonsocial rewards

Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) are associated with diminished responsiveness to social stimuli, and especially to social rewards such as smiles. Atypical responsiveness to social rewards, which reinforce socially appropriate behavior in children, can potentially lead to a cascade of deficits in social behavior. Individuals with ASC often show diminished spontaneous mimicry of social stimuli in a natural setting. In the general population, mimicry is modulated both by the reward value and the sociality of the stimulus (i.e., whether the stimulus is perceived to belong to a conspecific or an inanimate object). Since empathy and autistic traits are distributed continuously in the general population, this study aimed to test if and how these traits modulated automatic mimicry of rewarded social and nonsocial stimuli. High and low rewards were associated with human and robot hands using a conditioned learning paradigm. Thirty-six participants from the general population then completed a mimicry task involving performing a prespecified hand movement which was either compatible or incompatible with a hand movement presented to the participant. High autistic traits (measured using the Autism Spectrum Quotient, AQ) predicted lesser mimicry of high-reward than low-reward conditioned human hands, whereas trait empathy showed an opposite pattern of correlations. No such relations were observed for high-reward vs. low-reward conditioned robot hands. These results demonstrate how autistic traits and empathy modulate the effects of reward on mimicry of social compared to nonsocial stimuli. This evidence suggests a potential role for the reward system in underlying the atypical social behavior in individuals with ASC, who constitute the extreme end of the spectrum of autistic traits.

Success and failure of grassroots innovations for addressing climate change: the case of the Transition Movement

Grassroots innovations emerge as networks generating innovative solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. However, it is unclear if grassroots innovations can be successful in responding to climate change. Little evidence exists on replication, international comparisons are rare, and research tends to overlook discontinued responses in favour of successful ones. We take the Transition Movement as a case study of a rapidly spreading transnational grassroots network, and include both active and non-active local transition initiatives. We investigate the replication of grassroots innovations in different contexts with the aim to uncover general patterns of success and failure, and identify questions for future research. An online survey was carried out in 23 countries (N=276). The data analysis entailed testing the effect of internal and contextual factors of success as drawn from the existing literature, and the identification of clusters of transition initiatives with similar internal and contextual factor configurations. Most transition initiatives consider themselves successful. Success is defined along the lines of social connectivity and empowerment, and external environmental impact. We find that less successful transition initiatives might underestimate the importance of contextual factors and material resources in influencing success. We also find that their diffusion is linked to the combination of local-global learning processes, and that there is an incubation period during which a transition initiative is consolidated. Transition initiatives seem capable of generalising organisational principles derived from unique local experiences that seem to be effective in other local contexts. However, the geographical locations matter with regard to where transition initiatives take root and the extent of their success, and ‘place attachment’ may have a role in the diffusion of successful initatives. We suggest that longitudinal comparative studies can advance our understanding in this regard, as well as inform the changing nature of the definition of success at different stages of grassroots innovation development, and the dynamic nature of local and global linkages.

Past mobilities: archaeological approaches to movement and mobility

The new mobilities paradigm has yet to have the same impact on archaeology as it has in other disciplines in the social sciences – on geography, sociology and anthropology in particular – yet mobility is fundamental to archaeology: all people move. Moving away from archaeology’s traditional focus upon place or location, this volume treats mobility as a central theme in archaeology. The chapters are wide-ranging and methodological as well as theoretical, focusing on the flows of people, ideas, objects and information in the past; it also focuses on archaeology’s distinctiveness. Drawing on a wealth of archaeological evidence for movement, from paths, monuments, rock art and boats, to skeletal and DNA evidence, Past Mobilities presents research from a range of examples from around the world to explore the relationship between archaeology and movement, thus adding an archaeological voice to the broader mobilities discussion. As such, they will be of interest not only to archaeologists and historians, but also to sociologists, geographers and anthropologists.

Librarians as Advocates for Social Media Privacy

Librarians must continue their traditional roles as privacy rights activists and intellectual freedom upholders into the digital age, and across electronic information sources, including social media fora. Social media is quickly becoming a major source of information and center for information seeking, and librarians have an opportunity to promote and help shape social media policies that protect users’ privacy and assure that users can seek information without inhibition. One way librarians can be involved in the promotion of online privacy is by joining the social media user rights movement and advocating terms of use agreements that protect information seekers that follow the "Privacy by Design" model created by Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D.

Dinâmica de institucionalização de práticas sociais: estudo da responsabilidade social no campo das organizações bancárias

The scope of this theses is to understand the dynamics of the institutionalization of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the Field of Banking Organizations in Brazil. Using the social analysis model put forward by Boltanski and Chiapello (1999) and reverting to the conceptual basis of the institutional approach and using Bourdieu¿s notion of interest (1996), we arrive at an analytical model that enabled us to assess CSR as part of a movement of displacement of capitalism. The theory we propose here is that with the institutionalization of CSR, actions are justified in terms of the common good, being legitimized by structural confirmations and arrangements and, at the same time, heeding the inherent interests of the Field. The means used for comprehension of the dynamics of the institutionalization of CSR were: (1) the analysis of the construction of the phenomenon of CSR, which enabled us to identify critical factors and events, leaders in Brazil and associated ratification of the institutionalization of this social practice; (2) the description of the Field of Banking Organizations and the identification of the elements of its CSR in History, which are essential steps for understanding the justifications for insertion of the Field in the movement towards CSR; (3) the identification of key players in the institutionalization of the social practice within the Field, as well as the categorization of practical actions considered socially responsible to be found in the organizations researched, analyzing them in terms of justifications and interests; (4) the analysis of the dissemination and sedimentation of structural arrangements linked to CSR in the organizations of the Field, such as specific areas created to deal with CSR, social reports and organizational websites. The field research assessed some 30 organizations and included documentary analysis and interviews. We noted that, from being a marginal and isolated action, over the course of the past decade CSR has become a structured action in banking organizations, while at the same time becoming transformed into a social value, capable of contributing to the legitimacy of the Field. In this respect, research showed that retail banks are those that are inserted in the movement towards CSR, which ratifies the thesis of the phenomenon as displacement of capitalism.

Responsabilidade corporativa: entre o social e o regulado estudo de um setor da siderurgia brasileira

Este trabalho teve como objetivo analisar as dimensões de responsabilidade corporativa "regulada" e a responsabilidade corporativa "social", explorando o conceito de responsabilidade social em relação às práticas de responsabilidade social e regulada, bem como sua aplicação no ramo siderúrgico brasileiro, especificamente nas seguintes empresas: Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional, CSN e Companhia Siderúrgica Paulista, COSIP A. Em linhas gerais, os resultados chamaram a atenção para o fato de que, em grande parte, o que se vem chamando de responsabilidade social, não passa do cumprimento às determinações legais. Dessa forma, entender a responsabilidade que as empresas têm para o desenvolvimento de uma sociedade requer verificar em que medida as organizações estão contribuindo para um desenvolvimento econômico e social, que leve em conta noções de sustentabilidade e que vão além das determinações pautadas pela legislação vigente. No tratamento dos dados coletados nas entrevistas utilizou-se análise do discurso como uma forma de entender as relações intertextuais e interdiscursivas, ou seja, compreender as disfuncionalidades entre o que se diz e o que se faz. Além disso, serviram de suporte para análise pesquisas documental e bibliográfica do tema em questão.