Editorial

Presentation of Volume 8, Number 1 of the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth.

We are offering to the research and academic community of social sciences, childhood and youth, this issue which deals with three great theme blocks on childhood, youth and education, as well as a selection of articles on moral philosophy, Latin American critical thought, as well as skin color and discrimination in Brazil.

The first section of Theory and Meta-Theory opens with the article entitled “Foucault’s theoretical-methodological perspective. Some notes to research Eugenia Bianchi’s ‘ADHD’’’, who aims at knowing how medicine contributes to stating what is considered a disease, specifically ADHD as a childhood behavior disorder, thus taking advantage of the theoretical-methodological framework that is complementary to Michel Foucault’s contributions.

To continue on this childhood line, Eduardo de la Vega presents “Psychoanalysis and politics. Pathologization of poor childhood in Argentina”, where he analyzes how, from various fields, that it is possible to intervene the poor childhood problems; in this case, with psychoanalysis as one of most prominent narratives which, at the same time, has been questioned with reference to its political efficacy by the new philosophical pragmatism.

In “Streets and knowledge in action”, Laura Daniela Aguirre Aguilar defines how Mexican backwardness, absenteeism and school desertion result from affective problems caused by broken familial nuclei. When these situations are added to a disadvantageous socio-economic condition, children’s work, home abandonment and the possibility of street life are stimulated.

Both male and female youths find an approximation to the construction of their category as “Minors and consumers’. Socio-historical construction of youth(s) in Argentina”, from Mariela Analía Mosqueira’s analytical perspective, who defines the theoretical bases to go through the youth emergence conditions in Western societies in order to, in a third moment, study various historiographical works focusing on two cultural images of the young subject, which emerge from the vernacular scenario: the “minor subjects” and the “consumer subjects”.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, the practices of some orchestras developed under the framework of public policy projects, “Child-Juvenile Orchestras” and “School Orchestra” have been taken into consideration. They were designed with the aim to facilitate social integration processes of child-youth groups living in poverty. The results are presented by María Villalba in “The public policy of the child-juvenile orchestras”.

“Arturo Escobar” and his critical sources in the construction of the Latin American thought” is Patricia Botero’s contribution to this section. She tracks Escobar’s thought construction by assuming his theory as a proposal which insinuates a “political epistemology” in Latin American studies. This perspective is an invitation to opt for post-development from multiple critiques in the reading of the historical realities constructed in this region.

Luis Guillermo Jaramillo Echeverri and Juan Carlos Aguirre García present their article entitled “Face and otherness: from the plastic presence to ethical nudity”, with the aim to explore Lèvinas relations about the Face and suggest inclusion ways in the contemporary debates concerning Latin American social realities. Their article consists of two great parts: the first, the question about the face in Lèvinas debate with representational thought; the second, the concept of face from its relation with infinite.

In Brazil, from the changes that happened in the labor world, mainly from the 80’s, to study the behavior of the union movement became an important issue. The main concern of the author of the following article, Wellington de Oliveira, centers on Minas Gerais education workers’ movement at the end of 1970’s, located in the context of the so-called “New Unionism”. It refers to “O movimento docente de Minas Gerais, no final dos anos 1970: um engajamento no “Novo Sindicalismo”.

In Brazil too, “Estudo teórico sobre o uso do conceito de paisagem em pesquisas arqueológicas” (A theoretical study on the landscape concept in archaeological research), by Marcelo Fagundes and Danielle Piuzana is a study about landscape in Archaeology, where various paradigms in which the landscape concept has been used as a social construction, which widens the notion of archaeological site and is understood as a social construction.

Another Brazil is “Education of the field in Brazil: a discouse post- colonial?” of Sônia Maria da Silva Araújo.

“Studies and Researches” is our second section and also consists of the three great fields dealt with in the first section (childhood, youth and education) and a final article about Brazilian discussion on skin color and racial discrimination.

We start this section with the text entitled “Two categories to analyze reasoning on socio-moral rules”, written by Martin Plascencia González, which reports the results from a research designed to know about the moral reasoning of both boys and girls between 10 and 11 years of age, about socio- moral rules and transgressions narrated in hypothetical stories.

Andrés Klaus Runge, Juan David Piñeres Sus and Alexander Hincapié García present the state of the art about the documentary production conducted between 1995 and 2005, whose main theme was the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Boys, Girls and Adolescents in the city of Medellín, Colombia. Its main feature was the privileging the use of the subject’s analytical category to show the functioning of such a category within the discourses dealing with commercial sexual exploitation. The title of the article is “Subjectivations, language and parody: reflections on expert discourse about the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Boys, Girls and Adolescents (ESCNNA)”.

With reference to research on street life, María Paula Montesinos and Ana Pagano contribute with their article “Boys and girls on street situation and educational democratization processes”. They reflect around a pedagogical proposal to promote street boys and girls’ schooling and their action lines: school and school workshop enrolments.

The article entitled “Resilience and political sense in both street boys and girls”, written by Patricia Granada Echeverry and Sara Victoria Alvarado, is a hermeneutical analysis about the meanings of the survival practices of both street boys and girls in the city of Pereira, Colombia. The authors make such an analysis from the narratives of the kids’ life stories and other documentary sources in order to create new places for reading the subject and the context of their practices which, at the same time, define the action power of the adversity subjects.

The young male and female Ecuadorians’ perspectives about democracy and participation are part of the qualitative study entitled “Youth, Democracy and Citizen Participation in Ecuador”. This study, conducted by Anne Gillman, shows a clear division between “democracy” and “politics”, conceived as a corruption and exclusion field where male and female youngsters realize the feasibility to generate positive social changes through their democratic participation processes.

“The student leading participation in the university extension process”, by Gretel Báez Padrón is a research which approaches the need to encourage the leading participation of both male and female students at the Program of Socio-Cultural Studies at the Municipal University Campus in San Cristóbal, a branch campus of Universidad Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca, Cuba, in the University Extension process, as well as to contribute to the local and university socio-cultural development.

To propose a reflection about the youth sociologic discourse from the perspective of social sciences is the main goal of “Spain immigrant ‘Youth’. The debate about the complexity of a discursive category”. Magdalena Jiménez Ramírez presents in this article the complexity existing in the construction of the concept and analyzes how the situation becomes more difficult if the analysis approaches the “immigrant youth” category.

Elvia Taracena Ruiz presents a critical reflection about her research studies with both boys and girls by emphasizing on the definition of the problem existing in the articulation of three registers: macro, medium and micro. Her article entitled “Towards a psycho-social characterization of the ‘streetization’ phenomenon” describes the theoretical-methodological framework where she presents the need to construct a transdisciplinary and multireferential framework.

The scenario is now Zarco Square in Mexico City as well as the daily practices of male and female young adults with ages ranging from 18 to 28 years who dwell in this place. Lucía Barragán Rodríguez, in her article entitled “Daily practices of male and female young adults dwelling in Zarco Square (Mexico City)” analyzes how without taking into account the necessary renovations and equipping to meet their basic needs, but with the physical, organizational and cognitive resources, the above mentioned young adults implement strategies and tactics to cope with their biological, recreational, social and affective needs.

The results from a research that relates variables concerning free time, social class and gender in 219 adolescents with ages ranging from 16 to 17 tears of a public school located in a urban district characterized by its high social delay and one of the most expensive schools in Costa Rica, are shown in “Free time in school adolescents belonging to two social classes in Costa Rica”. The authors Juan Diego García Castro and Rolando Pérez Sánchez found that the male students at the public school use the computer more and practice more sports. On the other hand, the female students at the public school spend more time with their boyfriends and help more with the housework; and the male students at the private school devote more time to artistic activities.

“Characterization of creative cognition in youngsters with school retardation and social deprivation” by Jaime Parra Rodríguez is a study where the author aims at characterizing creative cognition in a population of boys, girls and youngsters with school retardation and poverty. It was found that creative cognition with this kind of population is normally distributed, with a slight asymmetry towards the left, thus making it plausible the central hypothesis on computational cognitive theories stating that creativity is normally distributed in human beings.

¿How is the Competence General High School Curriculum developed from the perspective of people involved in the educational practice? is the question answered by Rocío Adela Andrade Cázares and Sara Catalina Hernández Gallardo in “The competence approach and high school curriculum in Mexico”. This qualitative research article that states that this curricular change process requires an active stance by the male and female students in their own learning process and by the male and female teachers as managers of the teaching-learning process.

In Colombia, the qualitative results and conceptual precisions concerning the teaching practices evidenced in the Spanish notebooks of third and fifth grade of primary school are presented by Gloria Esperanza Bernal Ramírez in her article entitled “Grammar teaching in Colombia: Results from an analysis of school notebooks”. This analysis allows to configure categories related to disciplinary aspects of grammar and school knowledge and with postures referring to the purposes of grammar teaching, that are visible in the didactic work and in the sources providing knowledge that is transferred to teaching.

Intimidation and bullying, from the students’ perspective, are characterized in the article “Naturalization of intimidation in educational institutions”, written by Alfredo Manuel Ghiso and Viviana Ospina Otavo. This article presents the methodology implemented in the project and highlights the innovating aspects concerning interactive techniques. It ends with the conclusions that aim at structuring a methodological proposal about denaturalization and alertness to stop the habituation to intimidation and bullying.

Researcher Heublyn Castro, in “Training of male and female teachers: past faces that remain and reconfigure the teaching profession”, tries to evidence that many of the analyses conducted about the social meaning of being a teacher and their training in past times are representations that continue to be present and in vogue nowadays. This implies the survival, even in teacher- training institutions, of the image of a teacher lacking general and the own knowledge, who carries out a number of activities in the school environment.

An important topic is social expenditure in education, coverage and distributive impact of investment in this region of 14 countries which is approached by Alejandro H. Del Valle in “Productivism, stratification of educational services in Latin America”. The author states that nowadays the stratification processes of the educational services result in the emergence of new inequality and social fragmentation patterns that are expressed as benefit segregation.

Finally, in scientific literature and especially on researches about whiteness, the emphasis has been on critical whiteness while acritical whiteness has been put aside. This is the topic of the article entitled “Branquitude acrítica e crítica: A supremacia racial e o branco anti-racista” (Acritical and critical whiteness: the racial supremacy and the anti-racist white individual), by Lourenço Cardoso, that aims at highlighting the importance of distinguishing both concepts.

In “Reports and Analyses”, that is the third section of the journal, there is in first place the updated “Author Cumulative Index”, as well as the “Thematic Index”. It also includes the report by Amparo Wilches, Óscar Macías and Daniel Gil Pérez “Themes of Key Action as Supporting Instruments to the Decade of Education for Sustainability (2005-2014)”.

Also in this section, the Infancia-Imágenes (Childhood-Images) journal from Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas invites institutions and academics who have conducted studies and researches in the field of childhood to submit their original articles to be published in the next issue of such journal.

Similarly, there is the invitation to attend the Third Omep International Meeting on Childhood Education “Sciences and Environmental Education: teaching how to understand the world and to live sustainably” that will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 25, 26 and 27, 2010.

We are also announcing the call for Volume 9 Nº 1 (January-June 2011) of the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth, a monographic issue on Researches on Youth and Political Practices in Latin America and the Caribbean. This thematic issue of the journal is published on occasion of “Political practices of youth in Latin America” Clacso Work Group. Researchers are also invited to focus their historical look on political events and the enunciation forms of youngsters involved in political action experiences. The aperture of the call has been effective since May 5, 2010. The deadline for submitting articles is January 31, 2011, but we hope you can send your contributions effective today.

In the fourth section of the journal, Reviews and Recensions”, we are publishing the text entitled “Axiological work with boys and girls from 0 to 6 years of age”, by the Pedagogical Team of the World Association of Early Childhood Educators (Amei-Waece). The article approaches the need to start axiological education from the early childhood, as it is in this stage when the body development fundamentals of the boy or girl’s personality are defined. It also analyzes the methodology of axiological education as a transversal axis from the globalized approach. This section finishes with two examples: “The Club of the Children as Protectors of the Earth Planet” and “The education program for peace: training in values since Early Childhood”.

Our journal was re-indexed again early this year in Category B by Publindex of Colciencias, Colombia. We are also very pleased to inform that the journal has been indexed in the first semester of 2010 in three new bibliographic bases: Iresie, Compludoc and Fuente Académica, thus incrementing the international visibility and impact of its articles, which are our two main goals concerning our editorial activity.

We look forward to counting on your interest on the articles in this issue. The work developed by the actors involved in the research, academic and editorial process has been permanent and it will continue in favor of the findings and contributions in the various the fields dealt with, so that they will be reflected on policy and budget executions to benefit the most vulnerable sectors in our society.

The director-editor

Héctor Fabio Ospina Serna