¿Es la democracia deliberativa una moralización de la política?

En el presente artículo intentaremos realizar un análisis crítico de las interpretaciones que ven a la democracia deliberativa como una moralización de la política. No sólo intentaremos contestar a esta lectura, sino que además nos ocuparemos de mostrar la manera en la que la perspectiva deliberativa capta la moralidad en política, la cual no consiste en proponer una concepción ética densa para el espacio político.

Smartphone chronic gaming consumption and positive coping practice

Purpose - Chronic consumption practice has been greatly accelerated by mobile, interactive and smartphone gaming technology devices. This study explores how chronic consumption of smartphone gaming produces positive coping practice. Design/methodology/approach - Underpinned by cognitive framing theory, empirical insights from eleven focus groups (n=62) reveal how smartphone gaming enhances positive coping amongst gamers and non-gamers. Findings - The findings reveal how the chronic consumption of games allows technology to act with privileged agency that resolves tensions between individuals and collectives. Consumption narratives of smartphone games, even when play is limited, lead to the identification of three cognitive frames through which positive coping processes operate: (a) the market generated frame, (b) the social being frame, and (c) the citizen frame. Research limitations/implications – This paper adds to previous research by providing an understanding of positive coping practice in the smartphone chronic gaming consumption. Originality/value - In smartphone chronic gaming consumption, cognitive frames enable positive coping by fostering appraisal capacities in which individuals confront, hegemony, culture and alterity-morality concerns.

Modernizing Mount Royal Park : Montréal’s Jungle in the 1950s

Durant les années 1950, les autorités municipales, sous la pression du département de la police, ont demandé le déboisement d’une section du parc du Mont-Royal. Cette section, communément appelée la « Jungle » et principalement composée de broussailles, de buissons et d’arbres, était fréquentée par une clientèle considérée comme indésirable. Cette dernière comprenait, essentiellement, des alcooliques, des voyous, des pervers, et, surtout, des homosexuels. Leur éradication s’est alors déployée selon un plan en trois étapes qui avait pour objectif de simplifier les techniques de surveillance utilisées par le département de la police. D’abord, une augmentation de l’éclairage, puis, le déboisement de la « Jungle », et, finalement, la construction d’une route, aujourd’hui connue sous le nom de Camillien-Houde. Le parc devenait ainsi plus accessible et plus sécuritaire. Les coupes, que l’on a appelées les « coupes de la moralité », ont eu un effet considérable sur l’environnement et la composition écologique du parc, donnant, entre autres, aux Montréalais, l’impression que le parc était devenu chauve (ce qui lui conféra d’ailleurs le surnom de Mont Chauve). Les transformations du parc du Mont-Royal n’étaient cependant pas limitées à sa Jungle. En fait, des modifications furent aussi mises en application dans d’autres sections considérées comme sous-développées. La métamorphose du parc et de sa « Jungle » était un acte de développement caractéristique de l’ère moderniste de la planification du Montréal d’après-guerre. La re-planification du parc du Mont-Royal témoigne ainsi d’une volonté sans bornes des autorités d’instaurer la moralité et la modernité dans la ville, volonté qui aura pour conséquence d’altérer la composition écologique du parc. C’est ce qui sera à l’origine d’une campagne nommée « Save-the-Mountain Movement », qui a cherché à empêcher la modernisation de l’espace et milité pour la réhabilitation du parc en tant que boisé paisible.

Ethical-moral courses of action and active citizenship in health students

Abstract Introduction: The practice of active citizenship, ethical-moral courses of action and civic, moral and ethics education are essentials for ethical decision making in health. Objetive: To determine if gender influences students’ ethical- moral course of action. Methods: Descriptive study with a non-probabilistic sample of 85 students enrolled in the 1st cycle of the health degree. Results: Of the participants surveyed 61.2% were found to say that action should take into account their moral principles, with ethical/ moral subjectivism prevailing; 44.7% consider that one should “Do what will have the best consequences for the greatest number of people”, with the principle of utilitarianism being significant; 55.3% think that “An action is ethically good” if “It is in accordance with morality”, thereby highlighting subjectivism/relativism; 45.9% believe that “ethical-moral values” “are relative and vary from society to society” agreeing with relativism as an explanatory principle for action. Males showed a greater tendency to support their decision-making with the principle of objectivism, (Fischer=.010). Conclusion: The results suggest that students’ ethical-moral education is required to promote an ethical-moral course of action in their professional practice. Thus, universities with their health courses should be at the forefront of this education, making their graduates ambassadors/interveners of a way of knowing and of being as well as promoters of the dignity of the citizen of the modern world.

Fundamentos do agir ético em estudantes do ensino superior

Introduction: It is urgent that higher education in health develop a proactive ethico-moral commitment in students which is translated into the creation of socio-professional values. Objectives: To evaluate the ethical foundations which support morality in higher education students. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sithectional study, performed in 345 ESSV/IPV students, 80% female, average age of 20.82 years old. The “Questionário de Cidadania Ativa e Modo de Agir Ético” (CiAMAE) by Cunha (2015) was applied. Results: The results were 74.8% of the students showed a positive/adequate ethical method of acting; (with 45.8% adequate and 29% very adequate). In 25.2% the method of acting was ethically inadequate. The morality of the student’s actions were focused mostly on individualism and were based on the following ethical principles: 68.7% ethical subjectivism (69.1%♂ and 68.6%♀); 56.5% Relativism ( 56.5%♂ and 56.7%♀); 53.9% Deontological Ethics (Kant) (55.8%♂ and 47.0%♀); 11.3% Subjectivism/Ethical Selfishness (7.4%♂ and 12.3%♀). Conclusions: We may infer that the majority of the students do not have/ do not use an impartial consideration of good as criteria for morality of actions. They mostly manifested accepting an ethical subjectivist perspective, which means that good is not considered as a value for everyone. In contrast, applying the criteria of ethical impartiality would imply considering the greater good, and choosing/adopting the universal point of view in which any rational and enlightened student would choose for him/ herself and for others that universal greater good.

Health extension workers' and mothers' attitudes to maternal health service utilization and acceptance in Adwa Woreda, Tigray Region, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: The maternal health system in Ethiopia links health posts in rural communities (kebeles) with district (woreda) health centres, and health centres with primary hospitals. At each health post two Health Extension Workers (HEWs) assist women with birth preparedness, complication readiness, and mobilize communities to facilitate timely referral to mid-level service providers. This study explored HEWs' and mother's attitudes to maternal health services in Adwa Woreda, Tigray Region. METHODS: In this qualitative study, we trained 16 HEWs to interview 45 women to gain a better understanding of the social context of maternal health related behaviours. Themes included barriers to health services; women's social status and mobility; and women's perceptions of skilled birth attendant's care. All data were analyzed thematically. FINDINGS: There have been substantial efforts to improve maternal health and reduce maternal mortality in Adwa Woreda. Women identified barriers to healthcare including distance and lack of transportation due to geographical factors; the absence of many husbands due to off-woreda farming; traditional factors such as zwar (some pregnant women are afraid of meeting other pregnant women), and discouragement from mothers and mothers-in-law who delivered their children at home. Some women experienced disrespectful care at the hospital. Facilitators to skilled birth attendance included: identification of pregnant women through Women's Development Groups (WDGs), and referral by ambulance to health facilities either before a woman's Expected Due Date (EDD) or if labour started at home. CONCLUSION: With the support of WDGs, HEWs have increased the rate of skilled birth attendance by calling ambulances to transfer women to health centres either before their EDD or when labour starts at home. These findings add to the growing body of evidence that health workers at the community level can work with women's groups to improve maternal health, thus reducing the need for emergency obstetric care in low-income countries.

Power to the virtuous? Civic culture in the changing digital terrain

Much scholarship laments a decline in civic participation and community social capital in a changing media world. But the concept of “civicness” remains important to functioning societies across the globe. This research borrows from the cultural turn in studies of media, communication and citizenship to examine civic as culture, anchored in the practices and symbolic milieu of everyday life. As its theoretical entry point, this research paper positions civic as virtue. Drawing on scholars from Aristotle to Pierre Bourdieu, civic virtue may be understood as a perceived moral obligation to serve the common good, especially the interests of a “community” in which individuals and/or groups are connected. In particular, the research extends Bourdieu's ideas to consider news media as a powerful institution alongside the state that may claim monopoly over the manipulation of civic virtue under certain social conditions. Civic virtue offers much in discussions about media power in the digital age and its relationship to the future viability and legitimacy of news media. The research draws on exemplars from a study into digitally mediated civic participation in a rural/regional Australian context to position certain local media as “keepers” and “conferrers” of civic virtue in the social settings they serve.

Shifting foundations: journalism and the power of the 'common good'

This essay rethinks the relationship between news media and the universal notion of the ‘common good’ as a key foundational concept for journalism studies. It challenges dominant liberal democratic theories of the press linked to the idea of the ‘public good’ to offer a new way of conceptualizing news media’s relationship to civic life that incorporates power and legitimacy in the changing media world. In doing so, it argues current understandings of journalism’s relationship to the common good also require some re-alignment. The essay draws on Pierre Bourdieu to contend the common good can be understood as a global doxa – an unquestionable orthodoxy that operates as if it were objective truth – across wider social space. How this is carried out in practice depends on the specific context in which it is understood. It positions the common good in relation to news media’s symbolic power to construct reality and argues certain elites generate and reinforce their legitimacy by being perceived as central to negotiating understandings of the common good with links to culture, community and shared values.

Encountering causalities

The distinction between morality and ethics is a fizzy topic. Morality often seems to involve a kind of code-withcontent, that’s to say, there are categories and actions fall into them or they don’t – no matter when, where or with whom. Ethics, in comparison, would speak to principles of action, those from which we might derive responses that we, and others, can live with in certain moments and contexts. Ethics considers the how of navigating a life rather than what’s to be coolly assessed.

Book review. Historical justice in international perspective

The notion that something can — and must — be done to address injustices of the past has gained signifieant political currency around the world in recent decades. As demands for apologies, reparation, restitution, and restorative justice have grown louder, the attempt to make amends has emerged as an important national marker in what Elazar Barkan has called a new era of intemational morality. For historians, this seemingly new way of engaging with the past is particularly intriguing, perhaps signalling a significant change in historical consciousness in the contemporary world. Historical Justice in International Perspective offers a window onto these events, surveying the political, judicial, and historical landscapes of what has become known as historical justice. In doing so, this collection demonstrates the widespread and increasing significance of historieal redress in contemporary political life.

Ética, Direito, Economia e Mercados de Valores Mobiliários (MVM)

Resumo: 1 - Ética, Direito, Economia e «mercados de valores mobiliários»: realidades concretas de um só mundo no qual interagem, de modo constante e complexo, uma série de factores económicos, sociais, políticos, culturais e mentais que não se podem separar de modo artificial; 1.1 – Intróito e primeiro andamento; 1.2 – Introdução e desenvolvimento; 1.3 – A chamada «protecção penal de valores» e/ou o «moralismo»; 2 – Ética nos mercados de valores mobiliários e capitalismo; 2.1 – Possíveis perigos do problema da ética económico-financeira; 2.2 – Os fundos éticos nos mercados de valores mobiliários; 2.3 – Códigos de conduta interna e/ou deontológica, transparência e/ou o papel dos investidores como instrumentos éticos nos mercados de valores mobiliários; 2.4 – Ética e mercados de valores mobiliários: mais alguns possíveis desenvolvimentos pré-conclusivos; 3 – Ética e mercados de valores mobiliários: o microcrédito como desenvolvimento conclusivo; 3.1 – Ética, Paz Social, Corrupção; 3.2 – Direito penal, ética e «Educação e/ou Formação no Ensino Superior»: conclusões § Abstract: § 1 - Ethics, Law, Economy and “securities” (markets): concrete realities of one only world in which they interact, in constant and complex way, a series of economic, social factors, politicians, cultural and mental who if cannot separate in artificial way; 1.1 – “First introduction” and first course; 1.2 - Introduction and development; 1.3 - The call “criminal protection of values” and/or the “morality”; 2 - Ethics in the “securities” (markets) and capitalism; 2.1 - Possible “risks” of the problem of the ethics economic-financier; 2.2 - The ethical “stock fund” in the “securities” (markets); 2.3 - Codes of internal and/or deontological behavior, transparency and/or the paper of the investors as ethical instruments in the “securities” (markets); 2.4 - Ethics and “securities” (markets): plus some possible p.-conclusive developments; 3 - Ethics and “securities” (markets): the microcredit as conclusive development; 3.1 - Ethics, Social Peace, Corruption; 3.2 - Criminal law, ethical and “Education and/or Formation in ‘University’ School”: conclusions

Pedagogías lúdicas para la paz: una mirada a las percepciones de violencia en niñas y niños de Ciudad Bolívar

En esta investigación indagué sobre la influencia del entorno en las concepciones sociales que se forma el sujeto (en este caso los niños) frente a distintas realidades y situaciones de su cotidianidad, los elementos que están presentes en sus formas de interacción más cotidianas, y hasta dónde herramientas como la educación con enfoque lúdico y social pueden o no modificar prácticas y percepciones en el individuo. Para ello, la investigación se centra en tres conceptos claves: violencia, educación, y paz. Y hacia el final del trabajo se planta una propuesta de currículo para una educación para la paz basada en la formación de la persona social, desde el enfoque de la paz negativa.

El rol de las redes de apoyo transnacional en la evolución del régimen de trata de personas en la región del mekong, 2004-2015

Con el fin de la unipolaridad no sólo se fortalecieron mecanismos de gobernanza global como los Regímenes Internacionales, sino también se fortalecieron actores no estatales. A pesar de la importancia que tomaron estos dos elementos aún no existe una teoría que explique exhaustivamente la relación que existe entre ellos. Es por lo anterior que, la investigación busca responder de qué manera el rol de las Redes de Apoyo Transnacional ha incidido en la evolución del régimen de tráfico de personas en la Región del Mekong. Asimismo tiene como objetivo comprender las relación entre el Régimen y las Redes de Apoyo Transnacional a través de la formulación de un caso de estudio basado en metodologías cualitativas, específicamente, en el análisis teórico-constructivista y el análisis de contenido de documentos producidos por actores estatales y no estatales.

Social competence and emotional comprehension: How are they related in children?

The developmental progression of emotional competence in childhood provides a robust evidence for its relation to social competence and important adjustment outcomes. This study aimed to analyze how this association is established in middle childhood. For this purpose, we tested 182 Portuguese children aged between 8 and 11 years, of 3rd and 4th grades, in public schools. Firstly, for assessing social competence we used an instrument directed to children using critical social situations within the relationships with peers in the school context - Socially in Action-Peers (SAp) (Rocha, Candeias & Lopes da Silva, 2012); children were assessed by three sources: themselves, their peers and their teacher. Secondly, we assessed children’s emotional understanding, individually, with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (Pons & Harris, 2002; Pons, Harris & Rosnay, 2004). Relations between social competence levels (in a composite score and using self, peers and teachers’ scores) and emotional comprehension components (comprehension of the recognition of emotions, based on facial expressions; external emotional causes; contribute of desire to emotion; emotions based on belief; memory influence under emotional state evaluation; possibility of emotional regulation; possibility of hiding an emotional state; having mixed emotions; contribution of morality to emotion experience) were investigated by means of two SSA (Similarity Structure Analysis) - a Multidimensional Scaling procedure and the external variable as points technique. In the first structural analysis (SSA) we will consider self, peers and teachers’ scores on Social Competence as content variables and TEC as external variable; in the second SSA we will consider TEC components as content variables and Social Competence in their different levels as external variable. The implications of these MDS procedures in order to better understand how social competence and emotional comprehension are related in children is discussed, as well as the repercussions of these findings for social competence and emotional understanding assessment and intervention in childhood is examined.

Test of Emotion Comprehension: Exploring the underlying structure through Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Similarity Structure Analysis

Some decades of research on emotional development have underlined the contribution of several domains to emotional understanding in childhood. Based on this research, Pons and colleagues (Pons & Harris, 2002; Pons, Harris & Rosnay, 2004) have proposed the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) which assesses nine domains of emotional understanding, namely the recognition of emotions, based on facial expressions; the comprehension of external emotional causes; impact of desire on emotions; emotions based on beliefs; memory influence on emotions; possibility of emotional regulation; possibility of hiding an emotional state; having mixed emotions; contribution of morality to emotional experiences. This instrument was administered individually to 182 Portuguese children aged between 8 and 11 years, of 3rd and 4th grades, in public schools. Additionally, we used the Socially in Action-Peers (SAp) (Rocha, Candeias & Lopes da Silva, 2012) to assess TEC’s criterion-related validity. Mean differences results in TEC by gender and by socio-economic status (SES) were analyzed. The results of the TEC’s psychometric analysis were performed in terms of items’ sensitivity and reliability (stability, test-retest). Finally, in order to explore the theoretical structure underlying TEC a Confirmatory Factor Analysis and a Similarity Structure Analysis were computed. Implications of these findings for emotional understanding assessment and intervention in childhood are discussed.