Secular trends in legal and illegal substance use among 16 to 20 year old adolescents in Switzerland.

BACKGROUND: Data targeting trends in legal and illegal substance use by adolescents are scarce. Using the data from two similar large national surveys run in 1993 and 2002, this paper assesses secular trends in rates of substance use among 16-20-year-old Swiss adolescents. METHODS: Self-reported regular use of tobacco, alcohol misuse, regular cannabis use (01 occasion over last 30 days) and lifetime use of psychoactive medication, LSD, ecstasy, cocaine and heroine were assessed through identical questions using an anonymous self-administered questionnaire. 9268 (1993) and 7428 (2002) high school students and apprentices were included in the analyses. RESULTS: There is a higher proportion of regular smokers among apprentices than among students (p <0.001). Between 1993 and 2002 the increase in regular tobacco consumption was significant among both female and male apprentices (p <0.001) but not among students. Between 1993 and 2002 alcohol misuse significantly increased in all four groups (p <0.001). It is more prevalent among males than among females (p <0.001) and higher among apprentices than among students (p <0.001). Regular use of cannabis has increased in the four groups (p <0.0001). It is higher among males than among females (p <0.001), while it is largely the same among students and apprentices. While the increase in ecstasy use is highly significant in all four groups (p <0.001), the increase in LSD and cocaine use is significant among apprentices only (p <0.001). Use of LSD, ecstasy and cocaine is more prevalent among males than among females (<0.001) and higher among apprentices than among students (p <0.001). CONCLUSION: The secular increase in psychoactive substance use among older Swiss adolescents calls for the implementation of effective strategies both from individual and public health viewpoints.

Violent adolescents and their educational environment: a multilevel analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the respective roles of personal and environmental factors in youth violence in a nationally representative sample of 7548 postmandatory school students and apprentices ages 16-20 years in Switzerland. METHODS: Youth violence was defined as having committed at least one of the following in the previous 12 months: attacking an adult, snatching something, carrying a weapon, or using a weapon in a fight. Different ecological levels were tested, resulting in a three-level model only in males (individual, classroom, and school) as the low prevalence of female violence did not allow for a multilevel analysis. Dependent variables were attributed to each level. For males, the classroom level (10%) and the school level (24%) accounted for more than one third in interindividual variance. RESULTS: Factors associated with violence perpetration in females were being a victim of physical violence and sensation seeking at the individual level. In males, practicing unsafe sex, sensation seeking, being a victim of physical violence, having a poor relationship with parents, being depressed, and living in a single-parent household at the individual level; violence and antisocial acts at the classroom level; and being in a vocational school at the school level showed a correlation with violence perpetration. CONCLUSION: Interventions at the classroom level as well as an explicit school policy on violence and other risk behaviors should be considered a priority when dealing with the problem of youth violence. Furthermore, prevention should take into account gender differences.

Youths carrying a weapon or using a weapon in a fight: what makes the difference?

The objective of this study was to characterize weapon-carrying adolescents and to assess whether weapon carriers differ from weapon users. Data were drawn from a cross-sectional school-based survey of 7548 adolescents aged 16-20 years in Switzerland. Youths carrying a weapon were compared with those who do not. Subsequently, weapon carriers were divided into those who had used it in a fight and those who had not. Individual, family, school and social factors were analyzed using bivariate and stepwise multivariate analysis. For both genders, delinquent behavior and being victim of physical violence were associated with weapon carrying. For males, quarreling while intoxicated, being an apprentice, being sensation seekers, having a tattoo, having a poor relationship with parents and practicing unsafe sex were also related to weapon carrying. Compared with weapon carriers, female weapon users were more likely to be regular smokers. Male weapon users were foreign born, urban and apprentices; had poor school connectedness; practiced unsafe sex and quarreled while intoxicated. Carrying a weapon is a relatively frequent behavior among youths in Switzerland and a sizeable proportion of weapon carriers have used it in a fight. Weapon carrying should be part of the clinical assessment and preventive counseling of adolescents. Preventive programs specific for at-risk youth groups need to be developed.

Dysménorrhée: patience, pilules ou bouillotte [Dysmenorrhea: patience, pills or hot-water bottle?].

Which treatments are used for dysmenorrhea and with what reported outcome? A questionnaire was sent to 2400 students and apprentices, following the "retrospective treatment-outcome" method. The response rate was 22%. Most frequent treatments used are ibuprofene (53%), paracetamol (51%), hormonal contraception (40%), hot-water bottle (or hot pad) (35%), food supplements or medicinal plants (23%). Physicians only discuss a tiny proportion of dysmenorrhea treatment in their consultation, because it is mostly a matter of self-treatment, with the family as the source of information in 80% of the cases. Rather surprising because not mentioned in most official guidelines, hot-water bottle (or hot pad) appears as the treatment followed by the best reported outcome (satisfactory in 92% of users).

Finding an apprenticeship : hidden curriculum and social consequences

In Switzerland, the majority of students are oriented towards professional training after compulsory schooling. At this stage, one of the biggest challenges for them is to find an apprenticeship position. Matching supply and demand is a complex process that not only excludes some students from having direct access to professional training but also forces them to make early choices regarding their future sector of employment. So, how does one find an apprenticeship? And what do the students' descriptions of their search for apprenticeships reveal about the institutional determinants of social inequalities at play in the system? Based on 29 interviews conducted in 2014 with 23 apprentices and 6 recruiters in the Canton of Vaud, this article interrogates how the dimensions of educational and social trajectories combine to affect access to apprenticeships and are accentuated by recruiters using a "hidden curriculum" during the recruitment process. A hidden curriculum consists of knowledge and skills not taught by the educational institution but which appear decisive in obtaining an apprenticeship. By analysing the contrasting experiences of students in their search for an apprenticeship, we identify four types of trajectories that explain different types of school-to-apprenticeship transitions. We show how these determinants are reinforced by the "hidden curriculum" of recruitment based on the soft skills of feeling, autonomy, anticipation and reflexivity that are assessed in the context of recruitment interactions. The discussion section debates how the criteria that appear to be used to identify the "right apprentice" tend to (re)produce inequalities between students. This not only depends on their academic results but also on their social and cultural skills, their ability to anticipate their choices and, more widely, their ability to be a subject in their recruitment search. "The Subject is neither the individual, nor the self, but the work through which an individual transforms into an actor, meaning an agent able to transform his/her situation instead of reproducing it." (Touraine, 1992, p.476).

El factor edad en la adquisición del español como lengua extranjera : análisis comparativo entre estudiantes de sexto grado de primaria y universitarios sobre el uso del par preposicional a/ en

Résumé L’hypothèse de la période critique, émise par Lenneberg dans les années 60, affirmait qu’un enfant pouvait acquérir une langue seconde, sans difficulté, environ jusqu’à l’âge de la puberté. Après cette période, l’apprentissage d’un autre idiome serait difficile, dû à la latéralisation du cerveau. En même temps, les travaux de Chomsky enrichirent cette théorie avec l’idée de la Grammaire universelle, laquelle établit que nous possédons tous, dès la naissance, les éléments linguistiques universels qui nous permettent d’acquérir une langue maternelle. Tant que la Grammaire universelle est active, notre langue maternelle se développe et c’est pourquoi, si nous apprenons une autre langue pendant cette période, l’acquisition de celle-ci se produit de manière presque naturelle. Pour cette raison, plus une langue est apprise tôt, plus elle sera maîtrisée avec succès. En nous appuyant sur ce cadre théorique ainsi que sur l’Analyse d’erreurs, outil qui permet au professeur de prédire quelques erreurs avec la finalité de créer des stratégies d’apprentissage d’une langue seconde, nous tenterons de vérifier dans le présent travail si l’âge est un facteur qui influence positivement ou négativement l’apprentissage d’une langue seconde, l’espagnol dans ce cas-ci, par le biais de l’analyse comparative des prépositions a/ en dans deux groupes d’étudiants différents.

Asma ocupacional en peluquería: una revisión de la literatura

Este artículo pretende realizar una revisión de la literatura vigente acerca del asma ocupacional secundaria a la exposición de los factores de riesgo identificados en peluquería. Se realizó una búsqueda sistemática en las bases de datos PubMed y Cochrane de artículos de revistas indexadas con las palabras claves “Asthma occupational, hairdressers, hairdresser, work related asthma”. Aplicando los criterios de selección descritos, se revisaron 26 artículos en total donde se incluían reportes de casos, estudios de prevalencia, incidencia, corte transversa y revisiones, abarcando principalmente los temas de epidemiologia, fisiopatología, diagnóstico y prevención. Se agruparon según la metodología PRISMA para su respectiva comparación. Se concluyó que a pesar de la importancia de esta patología en el sector de peluquería, existen factores asociados como la informalidad del sector, la falta de estudios de investigación originales de cohorte o el desconocimiento de un protocolo claro de diagnóstico en este tipo de trabajadores, que limitan datos concluyentes acerca de la misma. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los autores concluye la relación entre la patología y la labor de peluquería, así falte esclarecer los mecanismos fisiopatológicos relacionados con los alérgenos identificados.

Work and the adolescent in medieval England (AD 900-1550). The osteological evidence

What was it like to be a teenager in medieval England? Despite the fact that medieval society often singled young apprentices and workers out for comment, their study has been largely neglected in medieval archaeology. The skeletal remains of 4940 adolescents (6.6-25 years) from 151 sites in medieval England was compiled from a combination of primary data collection and secondary data from published and unpublished skeletal reports and on-line databases. The aim was to explore whether apprentices could be identified in the archaeological record and if so, at what age they started work and what impact occupation had on their health. The data were divided into urban and rural groups, dating from before and after the Black Death of AD 1348-9, and before the Industrial Revolution. A shift in the demographic pattern of urban and rural adolescents was identified after the Black Death, with a greater number of young females residing in the urban contexts after 14 years. The average age of males increased from 12 years to 14 years after the plague years, contrary to what we might expect from the documentary sources. There were higher rates of spinal and joint disease in the urban adolescents and their injuries were more widespread than their rural counterparts. Domestic service was the potential cause of the greater strain on the knees and backs of the urban females, with interpersonal violence evident in the young urban males. Overall, it was the urban females that carried the burden of respiratory and infectious diseases suggesting they may have been the most vulnerable group. This study has demonstrated the value of adolescent skeletal remains in revealing information about their health and working life, before and after the Black Death.

The attractiveness of the work is affected when production of handcrafted log houses moves indoors

Viewed from a historical perspective, a shift has occurred within the forestry and wood sector towards indoor work. In Sweden, the production of handcrafted log houses has now also begun to move indoors. With a point of departure in development processes within the log house sector involving working indoors, education, work attractiveness, between 2001-2005, the aim of this study was to compare indoor work with outdoor work, based on log house builders' experience of working on handcrafted log houses. Methods used in the interactive development project involving apprentices, experienced log house builders and researchers, were participation with continuous documentation of experiences and opinions; questions; interviews; and measurement of the work environment. The Attractive Work Model has been used in order to analyse perceptions and values. The changes, 15 out of 22 areas, were perceived both negatively and positively. Therefore, it can not be said that working on traditional, handcrafted log houses becomes more attractive if it is moved indoors. The majority wanted to work both outdoors and indoors, while most of the others only wanted to work outdoors. The results indicate that there is scope for developing more attractive work indoors by utilising experiences from log house builders and closely related activities such as the forestry and wood sector. Changes made within one area of work attractiveness affect other areas. Further research is needed both with regard to comparisons between indoor and outdoor work and regarding the interaction between the areas that are identified in the Attractive Work Model.

A formação para as relações etnicorraciais e a profissionalização em história: saberes e práticas docentes no contexto da educação a distância

Esta pesquisa analisa a experiência de formação em história, na modalidade a distância, de professores-leigos da educação básica dos estados do Ceará, Bahia, Maranhão e Sergipe, contemplados pelo Programa Pró-Licenciatura II, financiado pelo Ministério da Educação, graças ao consórcio firmado entre a Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro e a Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, entre os anos de 2006 e 2010. O objeto do estudo foi a aplicabilidade da Lei nº 11.645/08, antes Lei nº 10.639/03, que alterou a Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional nº 9.394/96, ao instituir a obrigatoriedade do estudo da história e cultura afro-brasileira e indígena em todos os estabelecimentos de ensino fundamental e de ensino médio, públicos e privados do país. Há uma produção significativa de estudos que relacionam educação e relações etnicorraciais, porém são escassos os trabalhos voltados para a formação inicial e/ou continuada de professores. Quais disciplinas são oferecidas? Como o tema aparece no currículo? Como os licenciandos e professores lidam com a obrigatoriedade da Lei? Como ocorrem a produção e a mobilização dos saberes, assim como as práticas sobre esse tema? E qual o nível de comprometimento com o mesmo foram algumas das questões que nortearam a pesquisa. A resposta para essas questões foram orientadas pelas contribuições de Maurice Tardif sobre os saberes docentes, amparadas em metodologia de estudo de caso que utilizou entrevistas semiestruturadas, questionários, análises das aulas-texto produzidas pelos formadores, do ambiente online da disciplina e dos documentos formais que organizaram o curso e instituíram a citada Lei. A investigação revelou um esforço dos docentes formadores e dos professores-cursistas em se munir de saberes e práticas concernentes aos temas da Lei, por outro lado, alguns fatores impuseram limites à profissionalização, como a modalidade a distância, o desconhecimento sobre o tema e a disponibilidade de tempo dos professores-cursistas.

Já li muita coisa, então, eu posso inventar mais! A leitura literária e o desenvolvimento do pensamento criativo na infância

This study investigates the contributions of reading literature for the development of creative thinking in childhood. Its relevance consists in exploring practices that contemplate the creative thinking development in apprentices at school space and understanding the literature like a significant way to promote the creative thinking. The study is connected to the qualitaty strand. The exploratory observation and the intervention were adopted as research techniques. The field diary and the audio and video recording of the reading sections were adopted as methodological instruments. The research was conducted in the application s college from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, in a 1th grade class, with 18 students between 6 and 7 years old. During the intervention, 8 readind class happened, with varied strategies and literary genres. The reading sessions were conducted through the principles of scaffolding, defended by Graves and Graves (1995). The corpus is made of speaks episodes, whose encoding semantics allowed the grouping into two central categories: divergent thinking and coauthoring of literary reader. It was taken as a theoretical framework the studies of Amarilha (2011; 2006; 2001; 1991; 1993; 1994), Alencar (2001), Coelho (2000; 1997), Culler (1999), De Masi (2005), Gallo (2000), Guilford (1977), Iser (1996), Jouve (2002), Kneller (1978), Martínez (1997), Smith (2003), Stierle (1979), Vigotski (2009; 1998), Wechsler; Nakano (2003; 2002). The analysis points to the formation of creative individuals in the classroom, through the reading of literature. Reposition the literary education front of the new social demands. Resizes the function of school in children s development, considering the children s skill in exploring, testing hypotheses and making use of their creative thinking, in climate of freedom mental. It signals, in this way, the teacher like a mediator, promoting a favorable to the development of creative thinking environment, a stimulating atmosphere, which enhances the expression of creative thinking in community

A dimensão social do desenho: um estudo sobre as interações no processo de (re) construção imagética da criança no Ensino Fundamental

In the historical-cultural perspective, the drawing is processed by means of a shared and complex way, under diverse relations with the other and with the immersed signs of the culture. That is, something constituted by the social interactions and that can modify the structure of the psychological functions, therefore as socialized sign, propitiates the incorporation of the functions socially. In this way, the figuration carrier sensitive and established meanings historically disclosing the shared experiences and the ways of the subject to think and perceive the world. Such reflections gave shape to the main problem of this research: how to think over about the drawing at the school to incide in the reconstruction of the childs imaginative language? Under such perspective, this work deals with the interactions in the production process of the drawing of the children in a context of teach-Iearning of the elementary school having as goal to analyze the interactions established in the cIassroom in the process of production of the drawings; to propose situations of learnings that favor the advance graphical expression of the students; and to identify in the interactive games some relations between body expression and drawing. For its accomplishment, it was opted for the construction process based in the collaborative investigation by the fact to propitiate negotiations, sharing and confrontation of ideas, becoming possible a joint construction of the knowledge. For this research, the researcher and the collaborating teacher, as well as the involved children, become themselves into co-authors of the context studied. As locus of the research, it was chosen a first cycle class, with 30 students, from Municipal School Profª. Emília Ramos (Natal/RN - Brazil), whose election took in account the fact of this school to constitute in a promotional space of reflections and professional development of teachers in service and, at the same time, for presentinglimitations theoretic- methodological in the field of teaching for Arts. In the process of the research, it was perceived that the children with the support of the verbal language formulates meanings on the seen and imagined object, printing lines and forms that if overlap to the physiological aspects of the visual perception. That is, the drawing discloses a reality appraised, enriched for the picked up vision of the image, but the meanings established for the author, or observer who becomes it perceivable and identified. In the systemizing situations, it was observed that the teaching-Iearning process of the drawing, implies a co-construction between teachers and learners. And, moreover, the necessity to interlace emotion and cognition by means of plastic-corporal interactions that foment drawing experiences, whose process concurs for the imagenative reconstruct of the apprentices

Rendeiras da Vila de Ponta Negra Natal/RN: o ensino da renda de bilro e do desenho como alternativa de continuidade da produção artesanal tradicional

This paper analyzes the development of Bobbin Lace and Design workshops, in the neighborhood of Vila de Ponta Negra (in Natal - RN, Brazil), which proposed contents and practices for its learning and teaching that would compose a possible model for a hybrid Workshop of Bobbin Lace and Lace Design. This research was based on Ergonomic Work Analysis, a methodology used by Ergonomics to analyze work in a wide approach, considering cognitive, social, organizational, as well as other aspects which are relevant to the study of the working situation, in terms of learning/teaching, as addressed on this paper. Some steps of the above mentioned methodology were followed in order to understand the activity of Bobbin Lace craftswomen, by means of bibliographical research centered on this activity. The instruments used for collecting data comprise of conversational actions, analysis of collective work, and spontaneous as well as provoked verbalizations. The adaptations performed in the process of learning/teaching Bobbin Lace for the achievement of Bobbin Lace and Design workshops became instrumental for the continuity of that tradition, attracting new apprentices to this art/craft causing to revitalize a network of handicraft economical activities linked to the Bobbin Lace production, such as the making of cushion, bobbins and trestles

Precarização do trabalho no setor de supermercados : um estudo de caso com trabalhadores em Natal

Precarization of work, process situated historically after the third Industrial Revolution, express itself as one of the faces of changes in production modus and working conditions. The present study aims to identify the process of work precarization in supermarket sector in Natal municipality. The choice for this sector and professional category is based on low investment in studies on the commercial sector and on technological and administrative transformations that supermarkets have implemented. After a bibliographical review, ten indicators of precarization were chosen which permitted to set up a schedule to interviews and its application to employees of two supermarkets (local companies) in Natal area. The following working functions were chosen to participate in the survey: cashier, display assistant (shelf-stacker) and attendants (N=6). From the interviews we developed an analysis of categorical contents in order to identify the presence of precarization indicators. Categorizations allowed us to identify five major themes: work categorization; work meaning: its attributes; work meaning: work centrality; comments on the employment of apprentices or trainees; and transversal work contents. Such themes contents express or not the presence of precarization process at supermarket sector in Natal area. Precarious work is identified in participants speech when they refer to the employees decreasing power in salaries negotiation between them and employers that institute the precarious work conditions

Challenges of programming apprentice

The present article describes the challenges programming apprentices face and identifies the elements and processes that set them apart from experienced programmers. And also explains why a conventional programming languages teaching approach fails to map the programming mental model. The purpose of this discussion is to benefit from ideas and cognitive philosophies to be embedded in programming learning tools. Cognitive components are modeled as elements to be handled by the apprentices in tutoring systems while performing a programming task. In this process a mental level solution (the mental model of the program) and an implementation level solution (the program) are created. The mapping between these representations is a path followed by the student explicitly in this approach. © 2011 IEEE.