Bullying as a social process : factors influencing bystander behaviour

Bullying was approached as a social phenomenon in the present study. The central aim of this thesis was to uncover some of the factors that contribute to the attitudes and behavioural choices of bystanders during bullying situations. With this type of information, interventions can be tailored to change the behaviour of bystanders during bullying situations, and thus the ethos of the larger group. Thus, acting to alter the available sources of reinforcement for bullying behaviour and peer intervention attempts. Six hundred and twenty-six students participated. Students were sampled from grades 4 (n=140), 5 (n=l 13), 7 (n=205), and 8 (n=168). Students were measured for their involvement in bullying and victimization, as well as for involvement in the following bystander behaviours: encouraging, onlooking, defending, and seeking adult support. In addition, students were measured for tolerance of deviance, pro-victim attitudes, social anxiety and fear, and self-efficacy for peer intervention. Last, students were asked to complete a series of qualitative measures, including a series of hypothetical vignettes and open-ended questions. Analyses centered on the following areas: 1) rates of bullying, victimization, and bystander behaviour; 2) the influence of age and gender on bystander behaviour; 3) the characteristics associated with students who predominantly report involvement with defending, seeking adult assistance, encouraging, and onlooking behaviour; and 4) the influence of past involvement with bullying and victimization on bystander behaviour. b .--' -i . k Rates of bullying, victimization, and bystander behaviour were comparable to findings in the existing literature, where male students were more likely than female students to report involvement in both bullying and victimization. Boys were more likely than girls to report participation in encouraging and onlooking behaviours, while being less likely to report involvement in defending and seeking adult assistance. Partly consistent with existing findings, older students were more likely to report involvement in bullying, encouraging, and onlooking behaviour than younger students, who were more likely to report victimization, defending, and seeking adult assistance. Self-identified encouragers and onlookers reported a similar array of characteristics, in that they tended express high levels of tolerance of deviance, while expressing low levels of pro-victim attitudes and self-efficacy for peer intervention. Likewise, self-identified defenders and seekers of adult assistance tended to report a similar array of characteristics to each other, in that they tended to report low levels of tolerance of deviance, while expressing high levels of pro-victim attitudes and self efficacy for peer intervention. Additionally, self-identified bullies and self-identified bully-victims tended to report increased involvement in encouraging and onlooking, whereas self-identified victims tended to report increased involvement in defending behaviour and seeking adult assistance. Results are discussed in terms of implications for bullying prevention and intervention. Specifically, evidence from the present study suggests that as bystanders, students predominantly act to either support bullying acts or to support the victims of these acts, or alternatively, to actively remain outside bullying situations. Thus, encouraging students to make small changes in the way they express these sentiments during bullying situations would act to alter the culture of the larger peer group and the sources of reinforcement available for bullying acts as well as peer intervention attempts.

Theorizing Literacy, Politics and Social Process: revisiting Maktab literacy in Rian in search of a paradigm

Literacy as a social practice is integrally linked with social, economic and political institutions and processes. As such, it has a material base which is fundamentally constituted in power relations. Literacy is therefore interwoven with the text and context of everyday living in which multi-levelled meanings are organically produced at both individual and societal level. This paper argues that if language thus mediates social reality, then it follows that literacy defined as a social practice cannot really be addressed as a reified, neutral activity but that it should take account of the social, cultural and political processes in which literacy practices are embedded. Drawing on the work of key writers within the field, the paper foregrounds the primary role of the state in defining the forms and levels of literacy required and made available at particular moments within society. In a case-study of the social construction of literacy meanings in pre-revolutionary Iran, it explores the view that the discourse about societal literacy levels has historically constituted a key terrain in which the struggle for control over meaning has taken place. This struggle, it is argued, sets the interests of the state to maintain ideological and political control over the production of knowledge within the culture and society over and against the needs identified by the individual for personal development, empowerment and liberation. In an overall sense, the paper examines existing theoretical perspectives on societal literacy programmes in terms of the scope that they provide for analyses that encompass the multi-levelled power relations that shape and influence dominant discourses on the relative value of literacy for both the individual and society

Using decision support systems to facilitate the social process of knowledge management

The social processes involved in engaging small groups of 3-15 managers in their sharing, organising, acquiring, creating and using knowledge can be supported with software and facilitator assistance. This paper introduces three such systems that we have used as facilitators to support groups of managers in their social process of decision-making by managing knowledge during face-to-face meetings. The systems include Compendium, Group Explorer (with Decision Explorer) and V*I*S*A. We review these systems for group knowledge management where the aim is for better decision-making, and discuss the principles of deploying each in a group meeting. © 2006 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exploring food choice as social practice : appreciating the context of family feeding in Kahnawake, Québec, Canada

De nous jours, les modèles se référant aux comportements individuels représentent la pensée dominante pour comprendre les choix alimentaires dans le domaine de la nutrition en santé publique. Ces modèles conceptualisent les choix alimentaires comme un comportement de consommation décidé de façon rationnelle par des individus, en réponse aux multiples déterminants personnels et environnementaux. Même si ces modèles sont utiles pour décrire les déterminants des comportements individuels d’alimentation, ils ne peuvent expliquer les choix alimentaires en tant que processus social façonné en fonction des individus et des lieux, dans des contextes diversifiés. Cette thèse élabore le Cadre Conceptuel sur la Pratique des Choix Alimentaires afin d’explorer les choix alimentaires comme phénomène social. En utilisant le concept de pratique sociale, les choix alimentaires des individus symbolisent une relation récursive entre la structure sociale et l’agence. Ce cadre conceptuel nous donne un moyen d’identifier les choix alimentaires comme des activités sociales modelées sur la vie de tous les jours et la constituant. Il offre des concepts pour identifier la manière dont les structures sociales renforcent les activités routinières menant aux choix alimentaires. La structure sociale est examinée en utilisant les règles et les ressources de Giddens et est opérationnalisée de la façon suivante : systèmes de significations partagées, normes sociales, ressources matérielles et ressources d'autorité qui permettent ou empêchent les choix alimentaires désirés. Les résultats empiriques de deux études présentées dans cette thèse appuient la proposition que les choix alimentaires sont des pratiques sociales. La première étude examine les pratiques de choix alimentaires au sein des familles. Nous avons identifié les choix alimentaires comme cinq activités routinières distinctes intégrées dans la vie familiale de tous les jours à partir d’analyses réalisées sur les activités d’alimentation habituelles de 20 familles avec de jeunes enfants. Notre seconde étude a élaboré les règles et les ressources des pratiques alimentaires à partir des familles de l’étude. Ensuite, nous avons analysé la façon dont les règles et les ressources pouvaient expliquer les pratiques de choix alimentaires qui sont renforcées ou limitées au sein des familles lors de la routine spécifique à la préparation des repas et de la collation. Les ressources matérielles et d'autorité suffisantes ont permis d’expliquer les pratiques de choix alimentaires qui étaient facilitées, alors que les défis pouvaient être compris comme etant reliés à des ressources limitées. Les règles pouvaient empêcher ou faciliter les pratiques de choix alimentaires par l’entremise de normes ou de significations associées à la préparation de repas. Les données empiriques provenant de cette thèse appuient les choix alimentaires comme étant des activités routinières qui sont structurées socialement et qui caractérisent les familles. Selon la théorie de la structuration de Giddens, les pratiques routinières qui persistent dans le temps forment les institutions sociales. Ainsi, les pratiques routinières de choix alimentaires façonnent les styles d’habitudes alimentaires familiales et contribuent par ailleurs à la constitution des familles elles-mêmes. Cette compréhension identifie de nouvelles directions concernant la façon dont les choix alimentaires sont conceptualisés en santé publique. Les programmes de promotion de la santé destinés à améliorer la nutrition sont des stratégies clés pour prévenir les maladies chroniques et pour améliorer la santé populationnelle. Les choix alimentaires peuvent être abordés comme des activités partagées qui décrivent des groupes sociaux et qui sont socialement structurés par des règles et des ressources présentes dans les contextes de pratiques de choix alimentaires.

Decision making and planning of children in the reproductive process of males

Reproduction is not restricted to the biological; it is also a complex and dynamic social process. The objective of this paper is to analyze the decision and planning of children as part of the reproductive process in men. Methodologically, a qualitative research was made. The analysis includes in-depth interviews with 30 parents between 20 and 45 years, of medium socio-economic level in México. The results show that the reproductive process incorporates family formation negotiated with their couple the marriage until they had economic potential. In some cases, their decision hastened because the couple was pregnant. The planning was not contemplated but when getting the news, they accept it and get involved in the process, while others see it as a conflict.

Las Jarretaderas, Nayarit, Mexico: a Social Interstice in Touristic Zona Metropolitana of Sun and Sand

The objective of the present article is to illustrate the social interstice (Las Jarretaderas) existing between the municipalities Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit and Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. The researched community is an outstanding case-study providing an in-depth analysis of a number of social process mostly related to the chiapaneca migration. The text is divided into two sections. The first one deals with the urbanization process of the metropolitan area of Puerto Vallarta. The second and longer section defines the concept of social interstice and explains how the researched locality falls under under that previously-defined concept according to the processes analyzed.

kàjré: a vida social de uma machadinha krahô

This paper proposes to analyse a situation of social drama involving the Krahô Indians (classified in ethnology as belonging to Jê-Timbira group) and the Museu Paulista of the Universidade de São Paulo, which we can classify as two distinct social fields. The understanding of the drama is conveyed through an examination of each of these fields and the coming together of both on the basis of the positions taken up, within the network of relationships established during the social process, by actors representing both the Krahô field and what we may call here the academic-administrative field. A multi-sited ethnographic approach is adopted, seeking the complexity of the drama and the positions in the aforementioned network, taking into consideration institutional political projects, personal projects and personal trajectories within a historical perspective. The aim is to encourage discussion of the relationship between the formation of the historical-scientific and ethnographic museums and the practices of the anthropological discipline, as well as the social role of these institutions and the processes of signification of objects belonging to the indigenous material culture

Produção do espaço urbano e exclusão social em Marília-SP

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

The social construction of cooperation: exchange, identification and collective intentions within the organization

My aim is to develop a theory of cooperation within the organization and empirically test it. Drawing upon social exchange theory, social identity theory, the idea of collective intentions, and social constructivism, the main assumption of my work implies that both cooperation and the organization itself are continually shaped and restructured by actions, judgments, and symbolic interpretations of the parties involved. Therefore, I propose that the decision to cooperate, expressed say as an intention to cooperate, reflects and depends on a three step social process shaped by the interpretations of the actors involved. The first step entails an instrumental evaluation of cooperation in terms of social exchange. In the second step, this “social calculus” is translated into cognitive, emotional and evaluative reactions directed toward the organization. Finally, once the identification process is completed and membership awareness is established, I propose that individuals will start to think largely in terms of “We” instead of “I”. Self-goals are redefined at the collective level, and the outcomes for self, others, and the organization become practically interchangeable. I decided to apply my theory to an important cooperative problem in management research: knowledge exchange within organizations. Hence, I conducted a quantitative survey among the members of the virtual community, “www.borse.it” (n=108). Within this community, members freely decide to exchange their knowledge about the stock market among themselves. Because of the confirmatory requirements and the structural complexity of the theory proposed (i.e., the proposal that instrumental evaluations will induce social identity and this in turn will causes collective intentions), I use Structural Equation Modeling to test all hypotheses in this dissertation. The empirical survey-based study found support for the theory of cooperation proposed in this dissertation. The findings suggest that an appropriate conceptualization of the decision to exchange knowledge is one where collective intentions depend proximally on social identity (i.e., cognitive identification, affective commitment, and evaluative engagement) with the organization, and this identity depends on instrumental evaluations of cooperators (i.e., perceived value of the knowledge received, assessment of past reciprocity, expected reciprocity, and expected social outcomes of the exchange). Furthermore, I find that social identity fully mediates the effects of instrumental motives on collective intentions.

Creative process in globally distributed teams: a study of new product development in Volvo

With the business environments no longer confined to geographical borders, the new wave of digital technologies has given organizations an enormous opportunity to bring together their distributed workforce and develop the ability to work together despite being apart (Prasad & Akhilesh, 2002). resupposing creativity to be a social process, the way that this phenomenon occurs when the configuration of the team is substantially modified will be questioned. Very little is known about the impact of interpersonal relationships in the creativity (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). In order to analyse the ways in which the creative process may be developed, we ought to be taken into consideration the fact that participants are dealing with a quite an atypical situation. Firstly, in these cases socialization takes place amongst individuals belonging to a geographically dispersed workplace, where interpersonal relationships are mediated by the computer, and where trust must be developed among persons who have never met one another. Participants not only have multiple addresses and locations, but above all different nationalities, and different cultures, attitudes, thoughts, and working patterns, and languages. Therefore, the central research question of this thesis is as follows: “How does the creative process unfold in globally distributed teams?” With a qualitative approach, we used the case study of the Business Unit of Volvo 3P, an arm of Volvo Group. Throughout this research, we interviewed seven teams engaged in the development of a new product in the chassis and cab areas, for the brands Volvo and Renault Trucks, teams that were geographically distributed in Brazil, Sweden, France and India. Our research suggests that corporate values, alongside with intrinsic motivation and task which lay down the necessary foundations for the development of the creative process in GDT.

Multimodal viral communication: a social semiotic analysis of the popular Spanish "Ola ke ase" meme

Multimodality – the interdependence of semiotic resources in text – is an existential element of today’s media. The term multimodality attends systematically to the social interpretation of a wide range of communicational forms used in meaning making. A primary focus of social- semiotic multimodal analysis is on mapping how modal resources are used by people in a given social context. In November 2012 the “Ola ke ase” catchphrase, which is a play on “Hola ¿qué hace?”, appeared for the first time in Spain and immediately has been adopted as a Twitter hashtag and an image macro series. Its viral spread on social networks has been tremendous, being a trending topic in various Spanish-speaking countries. The objective of analysis is how language and image work together in the “Ola ke ase” meme. The interplay between text and image in one of the original memes and some of its variations is quantitatively analysed applying a social-semiotic approach. Results demonstrate how the “Ola ke ase” meme functions through its multimodal character and the non-standard orthography. The spread of uncountable variations of the meme shows the social process that goes on in the meaning making of the semiotic elements.

A formulação das políticas públicas para a juventude rural no Brasil e os elementos constitutivos desse processo social

The construction of the research problem occurred in trying to investigate the configuration of public policies for the rural youth and how this political agenda was introduced in the State of the Brazil. The main issue in the research is how the process of configuration of public policies for rural youth in federal government has occurred. The methodology for this study used was qualitative research procedures were triggered participant observation, interviews and documentary analysis. During the research the actors, the formulated policies and rural youth category expressed during this process were highlighted

La complejidad de un campo social periurbano centrado en la zonas rurales de La Plata

Se trata de dar un panorama general de las zonas rurales del periurbano con centro en el Municipio de La Plata, caracterizadas como un campo social rural periurbano, contextualizado en el "Gran Buenos Aires". Se hace una historia y caracterización territorial local atendiendo a los diversos procesos sociales involucrados y a los distintos actores sociales en juego. Se analizan particularmente las políticas regionales, el asociativismo y los cambios en las relaciones sociales interculturales y en las organizaciones locales que confluyen en la situación actual, que condicionan las circunstancias de un desarrollo local.

A formulação das políticas públicas para a juventude rural no Brasil e os elementos constitutivos desse processo social

The construction of the research problem occurred in trying to investigate the configuration of public policies for the rural youth and how this political agenda was introduced in the State of the Brazil. The main issue in the research is how the process of configuration of public policies for rural youth in federal government has occurred. The methodology for this study used was qualitative research procedures were triggered participant observation, interviews and documentary analysis. During the research the actors, the formulated policies and rural youth category expressed during this process were highlighted

La complejidad de un campo social periurbano centrado en la zonas rurales de La Plata

Se trata de dar un panorama general de las zonas rurales del periurbano con centro en el Municipio de La Plata, caracterizadas como un campo social rural periurbano, contextualizado en el "Gran Buenos Aires". Se hace una historia y caracterización territorial local atendiendo a los diversos procesos sociales involucrados y a los distintos actores sociales en juego. Se analizan particularmente las políticas regionales, el asociativismo y los cambios en las relaciones sociales interculturales y en las organizaciones locales que confluyen en la situación actual, que condicionan las circunstancias de un desarrollo local.