Editorial

Presentation of Volume 8 Number 2, July-December 2010, a monographic issue on Infantile Rearing and Development.

The Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth and the Research Line on Child Rearing and Development of the Doctorate Program on Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth of CINDE and the University of Manizales, have jointly promoted the publication of this monographic issue on Child Rearing and Development. It is satisfactory to see the great and valuable response to this call, consisting of articles on this topic, which undoubtedly reflects the interest resulting from this important problem by researchers and thinkers on social and human sciences nowadays.

Last year the journal published a monographic issue on Childhood: “Research Panorama in Childhood in Latin America in the XXI Century”, thus coinciding with the twenty years of the promulgation of the International Convention on Children’s Rights. Effective this date, the interest on studies that aim at evaluating the implementation of the Convention with reference to the promulgation of policies favoring childhood, and that aim at evaluating the impact of those policies on the situation of childhood, has been retaken.

The call for participating in this issue of the Review takes place in a moment in which new important advances on the recognition of early childhood have been taking place in Colombia, and the need to generate programs to satisfy the great needs of our children in order to achieve the compliance of their rights is also in vogue. The Policy for Early Childhood, the result from a significant joint effort made by public and private entities, by NGO’s, as well as by researchers, scholars and apprentices in the field of early childhood has been designed and approved. This policy aims at recognizing an integral approach concerning the care of infantile population and the creation of the minimal conditions for the healthy development of both boys and girls. Concomitantly, Law 1295 of April 6 of 2009 which regulates the integral care to be provided to both boys and girls in early childhood of the poorest sectors of the population has been sanctioned.

The expectation from this call aimed at exploring the regional interest by scholars and researchers in the study of child rearing and development, based upon the firm belief in the existence of the narrow and positive relation between research and improvement practices to favor children. This issue aims at contributing to the creation of a more favorable world for the development of our boys and girls in the Latin American Region, the Caribbean and in the world; of healthier environments for their development and of the protection and guarantee of their rights. Also, the conviction that just with the coordinated effort that integrates theory, research and practice and, with the participation of the diverse social spheres, political promoters, designers, program conductors, researchers, scholars, thinkers and dreamers, along with the overseeing and participation of civil society, it will be possible to meet this scope.

The reflection on child rearing and development refers to two topics affecting both boys and girls, their families and the general society, and is related to familial and social contexts where children develop, to their present and future capacities in all dimensions of human development, to all their possibilities to be active members, participants and contributors to society, and to be just and happy human beings. The concern about this problem is clearly reflected in the articles published in this number, which, at the same time, shows the richness on the reflection and regional research.

The First Section of the Review shows some articles on the theoretical reflection or essays based upon on previous researches, which approach different topics concerning child rearing and development. First, we have included three articles approaching topics on socialization of boys and girls in different contexts and on their relation to the cultural characteristic of the world today, where migrations and displacements are very relevant: “Childhood, development and knowledge: boys and girls and their socialization” by Carolina Duek, and “Notes on child socialization and identity construction in multicultural environments” by María Dilia Mieles and María Cristina García. This last article is based on discussions that took place in the “Child Rearing and Development” Research Line of the Doctorate Program in Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth of the Center for Advanced Studies in Childhood and Youth of the University of Manizales and CINDE. This section also approaches the socialization with reference to boys and girls in risky situations by means of an interesting and lightening reflection by Patricia Murrieta, about power relations as determinants of children’s permanence on the street, based upon her experience with children in Mexico streets.

The second reflection topic refers to The parents’ role in the development of boys and girls, approached by Ana María Mesa and Ana Cristina Gómez in their article on premature babies: Mentalization as a strategy to promote Mental Health in premature babies”.

The third topic is a reflection on early education which is presented in three articles: Mariela Caputo and Gabriela Gamallo analyze early education with reference to “The quality of the Maternal Garden and its influence on the children’s cognitive development”, and Rosa Julia Guzmán and Mónica Guevara analyze educators’ conceptions on childhood with reference to their learning and practices in the course of their alphabetization processes in their article “Educators’ conceptions on childhood, early alphabetization and learning”. With reference to the preceding topic is Diva Nelly Mejía’s article on the importance on reading motivation from early childhood: “Early reading to get to school”.

A last reflection topic that appears in the first section of this Review concerns “social protection and its relation with childhood categories”, analyzed, in the case of Argentina, by Leandro Luciani in his article: “Childhood social protection: subjectivity and post-rights in second modernity”.

The Second Section of the Review: Studies and Researches presents some works displaying a very good sample of regional research interest concerning the problems on childhood and boys and girls’ rearing and development. It includes research studies conducted in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico; two of these studies being multinational ones. At the same time, this section permits to have a perspective about the diversity of research approaches and strategies implemented by regional researchers, who make use of distinct researching ethnographic and phenomenological strategies, with the predominance of qualitative approximations without excluding analytical empirical studies.

The starting topic is Rearing, which opens our trip through regional research, with six articles resulting from research studies. The first one by Ianina Tuñón studies the characteristics of the family and the socio-economic level about socialization in her article “Determinants of rearing and socialization opportunities in childhood and adolescence”. In the second article, “Social configurations of rearing in popular neighborhoods in Great Buenos Aires”, Laura Santillán anthropologically explores child rearing and education in poor urban contexts in Great Buenos Aires. There is also a study on behaviors, attitudes and rearing patterns in 78 municipalities in the Province of Boyacá, Colombia, carried out by Alba Nidia Triana, Liliana Ávila and Alfredo Malagón entitled “Boys and Girls’ rearing and care patterns in the Province of Boyacá”. The next research on this topic studies the problems concerning familial violence by exploring the maternal violence practices on boys and girls, as well as its impact on the maternal-filial bond. This research was conducted by Mauricio Hernando Bedoya Hernández and Mary Lucy Giraldo.

We find a sub-group of researches on rearing that studies rearing with reference to ethnic groups. The first one, presented by Carolina Remorini, explores the relation between movement, health and identity, from a multidisciplinary, anthropological, sociological and psychological perspective. She discusses the findings from an ethnographic research about the representations and practices related to child rearing and development, carried out in the Mbya Guarani Missions, Argentina. In the last study in this subgroup, Ana Carolina Hecht and Mariana García present a research study conducted in a Toba neighborhood, in the periphery of Buenos Aires, about the ethnic categories and adscription to them by boys and girls.

The second group of researches emerges from studies concerning the construction of gender identity and perception about boys and girls’ sexuality. The first study is on the construction of gender identity in children belonging to countryside communities in Costa Rica. Its author, Mauricio Menjívar entitles his research as “Boys who become men: Male identity conformation in Costa Rican farmers”. The second research with reference to this topic explores, in boys and girls in the city of Neiva, Colombia, his perception and explanation about different sexuality situations. Carlos Bolívar Bonilla explores this topic from the perspective of moral justifications, in his article entitled “Moral justifications about sexuality in boys and girls”.

Three researches about the problems of street children give continuity to our relation of contents in this issue of the Review. The first is a study conducted in Chile and Ecuador, where the researchers Patricia Guerrero and Evelyn Palma analyze the social representations about street boys and girls in Santiago and Quito, thus evidencing the perception of expulsion and exclusion from school by these boys and girls. In another research, Ladislao Adrián Reyes and Juan de Dios González explore the topic concerning the caring institutions and the street children, as well as their educational programs from the perspective of their adaptation and response capacity to the boys and girls’ characteristics, by evidencing a palliative education and a punitive control. To end, in a positive look, Sabine Cárdenas analyzes the process of life change experimented by three street boys, who have a successful experience in their process of social reincorporation and construction of an alternative life project.

Two articles refer to the important topic of early education. In the first, Beatriz Elena Zapata and Leonardo Ceballos look into the characterization of the role and profile of the early childhood educator by exploring the opinion about the role of the education professional in early childhood held in Colombia and Chile. Accordingly, they consult various types of actors: directive teachers, education representatives, families, students and professionals in other fields.

In another research study conducted in Argentina by Nora Scheuer, Monserrat de la Cruz and María Sol Iparraguirre research the conceptions of 120 boys and girls at pre-school and first grade of primary school in Argentinian public schools about learning in three domains: drawing, writing and numerical notation.

Three research studies could be placed within the wide range of topics on mental and physical health of boys and girls. In the first of them, Marta Isabel López and Mónica Schnitter study the relationship existing between the primary relational context of the boy or girl with learning problems and learning disabilities (DA). Very nearly, Luisa Matilde Salamanca presents the research study that allowed to design, validate and define the reliability of an instrument to assess limitations and restrictions in boys and girls with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a topic of great significance for the early detection and treatment of these disorders in both boys and girls. Finally, the topic concerning child obesity and its relation with food habits in Sonora, Mexico, is studied. This topic, which has become today an international health problem, is researched by Juana María Meléndez, Gloria María Cáñez and Hevilat Frías in a group of children with ages ranging from 7 to 9 years.

The issue concerning child participation is dealt with in a research study carried out by Silvia Paulina Díaz, who looks, in schooling boys and girls inhabiting the city of Medellín, Colombia, into their social representations about the citizen exercise, thus finding that boys and girls are prepared to exert their right to participation, but they exhibit difficulties in social practices that include them and favor such participation.

The topic of punishment as an element in the process of child socialization is explored in a historical study, with archaeological approach, conducted by Arley Fabio Ossa, who, in a genealogical perspective, “describes discontinuities, existence conditions and emergency of punishment in the field of public instruction in the United States of Colombia, in the case of the Sovereign State of Antioquia, from 1867- 1880”.

To close this research section, there is an important study concerning the construction of local indicators about the situation of childhood. Ana María Osorio and Luis Fernando Aguado define a set of indicators that allow “to analyze the welfare and compliance with the rights of boys and girls in various fields: health, education, nutrition, proper lodging and the exposure to early risks such as work and maternity” in the Province of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. The indicators adapted to specific contexts are a fundamental tool to assess the impact from the implementation of public policies to favor childhood and the programs, through which such policies are consolidated in the follow-up of the compliance with the convention and the millennium scopes on the rights of boys and girls. With this interesting article, “A look at the childhood situation in the Province of Valle del Cauca”, we close this section of the monographic issue on child rearing and development of the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth.

We are sure that this issue will, through the contributions of authors and researchers, contribute to the construction of this field of knowledge and to its impact on policies and practices for the benefit of both boys and girls in Latin America and in the Caribbean.

The content of the third (Reports and Analyses) and the fourth (Reviews and Recensions) sections of the journal may be consulted entirely at the digital version of the publication. In the third section there are two calls which are open to receiving articles: “Call for Volume 9 Number 1 (January-June, 2011), a monographic number on research about youth and political practices in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the “Call for Volume 9 Number 2 (July-December, 2011), monographic number: Childhood and Adolescence”.

This year, our journal has been accessed to three new international bibliographic indices: Ebsco, Prisma and Doac, which means and advance in the level of visibilization and impact on the scientific and academic community.

We also introduce and welcome the new members of our Scientific and Editorial Committees: Sonia Maria da Silva Araújo, from Brazil, Doctor in Education and Professor at the Federal University of Pará, in Belem, Brazil; Janssen Felipe da Silva, from Brazil too, Doctor in Education and Professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco; and Patricia Granada Echeverri, from Colombia, Doctor in Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth, and Professor at Technological University of Pereira, Colombia. José Luis Grosso, from Argentina, Doctor in Anthropology and Professor at National University in Catamarca is the new member of the Scientific Committee. With these new members, the journal strengthens its editorial, research and academic processes.

We are also redirecting our goals to reach the national and international academic and research community through the implementation of new systems and leading edge technology, which will allow us a permanent and on-line interlocution with our users. With this purpose, we are installing the “Open Journal System” (OJS) Program so that the management of contents and the editorial of the Review be on line, and the access to the contents and the information of the publication be open permanently. We are also in the process of redesigning the journal and constructing a new interactive webpage. These are goals that we are considering for next year.

Guest editor

María Cristina García Vesga

Director-Editor

Héctor Fabio Ospina Serna