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Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud

versão impressa ISSN 1692-715X

Rev.latinoam.cienc.soc.niñez juv vol.11 no.1 Manizales jan./jun. 2013

 

 

Editorial

 

Editorial

 

Editorial

 

Presentation of Volume 11, Number 1 of January-June, 2013.

 

This issue of the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth presents empirical-qualitative and meta-theoretical research studies that, approached from different perspectives, aim at contributing to the development of knowledge about current Latin-American problems concerning age groups of boys, girls and youngsters.

Three meta-theoretical studies favor the approaching of thinking frameworks with reference to social and psychological elements. One of them focuses on the review of document sources about the epigenetic perspective concerning the mental representation of law in infants and adolescents, thus alerting, for instance, about the relation of dependence among these representations and those related to the community, the State and the nation; and how these representations change according to the age of individuals. With reference to the age notion, there is a study that questions, from the nominalist perspective, the grounds of functionalistic approximations that, according to the authors, underestimate variables such as the social structure or the particular elements of the environment surrounding the subjects; thus, establishing a preponderance of age as an anchoring factor in the definition of youth. A third study relates to a search for developing the concept of resilience and the environmental factors that converge to structure its definition. From the study of programs developed in various South American countries, this work aims at characterizing the common elements considered in programs with the purpose to promote the development of the competences necessary to encounter adverse situations of both boys and girls.

An interesting phenomenon refers to the capacity of youngsters to provide themselves with tools to be able to encounter the challenges imposed on them. In this sense, one of the research studies in this volume deals with the level of subjective wellbeing and the different ways to face stress in both adolescents and youths; thus revealing that the adolescents in Colima, Mexico, appear to encounter their social conditions from the acceptance of responsibility, besides keeping a high average of subjective wellbeing in comparison to the young segment. Another study aims at describing the time management profile developed by university students, through the administration of questionnaires to students in the first academic years at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela. Accordingly, the authors display high scores in variables that permit one to observe coherent behaviors with reference to the maturity and development degree necessary to face the academic challenges when joining the university.

The relations between youngsters and technologies are also approached in this issue. Accordingly, one of the studies approaches the socio-cultural factors related to the acquisition and use of mobile phones by youngsters belonging to low socio-economic strata. At the same time, another study analyzes the adoption and use of Information and Communications Technologies as part of the protest processes of Chilean youths in the course of educational manifestations in the year 2006. Finally, a third study analyzes the digital gap existing between teachers and students at Colombian public schools and how this gap reproduces itself at school by means of inequality and social exclusion expressions.

Another work analyzes inequality from the perspective of the educational system as a reflection of a highly segregated society and it also analyzes the way how such a segregation hinders the exertion of the right to education in Dominican youths and the society itself. Similarly there is another work that explores specialized mental health services available to Mexican children and youngsters and the existing difficulties to gain access to such treatments.

Another aspect considered in this edition deals with those research studies referring to various aspects concerning youth and adolescence. Some of these articles refer to the identity strategies that Latin American youths, especially those facing poverty or social vulnerability problems, adopt to encounter the social and economic circumstances affecting them. From this perspective, it is important to highlight two research studies; one of them refers to the objectivization of identities of youngsters from mate herb growers, who face a complex economic and social context. Something similar is provided by the study about the relationship among Mexican youths who are Punk followers; a style which from music, literature and esthetics contributes to the construction of an identity, which although it is not totally determined, provides the youngsters with a positioning before the world that surrounds them.

Another look, concomitantly, approaches identity from the perspective of education. One of the research studies in this issue analyzes the case of patrimonial education in Brazilian communities of both children and adolescents, with the aim to stimulate the sense of belonging, from which to construct an identity. This could be done by providing critical judgments based on the construction of a collective “we” by means of a diachronic sense.

In the field of educational environments with reference to childhood, it is also interesting to deal with relevant learning which should be constructed by infants, such as the socioeconomic context and the vulnerability around specific social groups and how these elements affect their educational possibilities. For instance, an article approaches the learning that must be constructed by boys and girls in their first years of life on the basis of the analysis, the opinions provided by both male and female educators, families, teachers in training, boys and girls. Another study explores the life conditions of both boys and girls in immigrant monoparental families. A qualitative research carried out in Barcelona, Spain, with migrant Latin American families tells about the high risk of poverty and social exclusion undergone by minors and about the social and educational effects resulting from the life conditions abroad.

In this issue of the Review we can also find studies concerning the perceptions dealing with punishment as one of the elements to be considered and analyzed in the child rearing process which, without a doubt, it is a topic to be included when approaching the educational context out of educational centers. One study, for example, analyzes this topic from the case study of four families with a low socioeconomic status in the city of Bogota, Colombia. At the same time, from the participatory action research, a complex phenomenon such as violence against children is approached. In this sense, the various socioeconomic, cultural and legal aspects that participate in the structuring of this phenomenon are taken into account. Without a doubt, violence against children is one of the critical points to be dealt with at the moment to advance towards the comprehension of the environments where children and youths develop; even more when concrete public efforts are addressed to eradicate such situations of violence.

A topic that has been recurrent in Latin American agendas, and with a special emphasis in the last decade, has to deal with social inequality and its reflection both in educational contexts and in the positions assumed by part of the youth segments. Movements such as those of Chilean, Brazilian, Porto Rican, Colombian and Dominican students in 2011 and 2012, reflect not only a students’ dissatisfaction with reference to educational policies but a deep questioning of the conditions in which the educational processes are developed.

That is to say, the problem appears not to be only the educational policies or the financing of education but that Latin American education is the reflection of a system that is not giving the right answers required by the youths who are aware of the immense inequality gaps existing in our countries. It is not only school dissatisfaction, it is a general discomfort where the educational environments are just one more aspect where marginalization, lack of opportunities and social inequality take place repeatedly.

As a matter of fact, the majority of the research studies referred to in this issue is an indicator, from the academic and scientific perspective, that the social and economic problems have not been addressed correctly from the public policies. It becomes very urgent to have an integral perspective which assumes the economic, social, psychological and ideological perspectives involved in the development of boys, girls and youths. Accordingly, the analysis expressed in one of the articles with reference to the relation of Chilean high school youths with institutions other than the family is also of interest, thus revealing a huge mistrust towards them, and where trust appears as an inclusion/ exclusion system that determines the attitude to face the external world, being the family the only entity the youths rely upon. Another work approaches the case of Mexico City youths, ages ranging from 14 to 29 years, who correspond to the “NiNi” concept, those youngsters who do not study or work and whose population volume increases as the opportunities for Ibero-American and Caribbean youths decrease.

What good moves and in what aspects are the Latin-American and Caribbean societies failing to both youths and children? This is maybe the aspect where the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth presents itself as a relevant space for academic reflection. As we have tried to point out in the preceding paragraphs, this journal devotes itself to a diversity of disciplines, methodologies, thinking frameworks and approximation strategies to the problems that, in effect, require the participation of multiple voices approaching the topics concerning childhood and youth. The current times require an active participation of both male and female researchers in the formulation of answers that favor the unraveling of the complex network of phenomena that affect Latin-American and Caribbean societies; thus highlighting the capacity of Social Sciences to influence the social processes and challenges that characterize and will characterize Latin America and the Caribbean in the XXI century.

The Third Section of this issue presents its traditional and updated author and topic Index as well as the last bulletin of the “Decade for an Education for Sustainability”, published by the Organization of Ibero-American States, with articles on environmental topics and on the importance of education in the studies and proposals to solve problems resulting from the planetary climatic crisis. The Fourth Section starts with the review by Fanny T. Añaños-Bedriñana, Professor at Granada University, Spain, about the book “Co-education: proposals to reach gender equality from the classroom”, written by Estrella Ryan and Soledad de Lemus Martin (Coordinators). This collective work presents various perspectives about the matter under discussion and about the pedagogical orientations and practices concerning co-education. Renowned male and female authors as well as professionals in the fields mentioned also take part.

Another publication that is reviewed is “The school as a peace territory. Social construction of boys and girls as political subjects in armed conflict contexts” by Sara Victoria Alvarado, Héctor Fabio Ospina, Marieta Quintero, María Teresa Luna, María Camila Ospina-Alvarado and Jhoana Patiño, edited by Clacso in Buenos Aires, Argentina, University of Manizales and Cinde in 2012. This publication approaches the fact that knowing or generating knowledge implies putting things in a wide and multidimensional horizon, because what we are thinking, showing and analyzing appears in the diverse dimensions of life and of the subjects who are immersed in those processes, as well as in the history of the country and in the state of the research about the topic. This It is “putting” things in a multidimensional context what generates clarity; that is, a knowing articulation about a wide and profound knowledge about something that permits us to understand what is happening and why.

here is another interesting book entitled “Youths, policies and cultures: experiences, approaches and diversities”, authored by Sara Victoria Alvarado, Silvia Borelli and Pablo Vommaro, published in Buenos Aires, Argentina, by Clacso and Homo Sapiens in 2012. These authors propose, from the Clacso Work Group “Youth and new political practices in Latin America”, the research from a plural perspective in the field of a political option whose meaning horizon is the recognition, comprehension, legitimization, and strengthening of other forms of being, staying, doing, saying, feeling, corporalizing and naming that are being constructed intersubjectively and conflictively among the complex plots that make up the “among us”.

The Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth has accepted the call by Publindex at Colciencias, Colombia, with the aim to remain in the Category A 2 or to be promoted to Category A 1. The actions foreseen for the year 2013 with the aim to obtain indexations in Scopus and ISI have led to the implementation and fulfillment of the requirements necessary to that end. We aim at assigning the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to the articles and, besides, at getting the qualification of the web page of the review to get the maximal visibility, both easily and efficiently. We have also asked for indexation in Category A at Capes, Brazil, as we consider we meet the requirements established; at this moment we are in Category B 1 at Capes.

When finishing the preparation of this issue of the review, SciELO informed us that our journal had been included in the SciELO Citation Index of the Web Knowledge and that the journals in this index are in the process of generating sciencemetric indicators at ISI. This news is of relevance for the members of our academic and research community, as it places us in the process of global measurement for those who publish articles in the journal and defines their impact in the high-level bibliographic and research environment in the world.

In 2012 our publication was accepted in the following databases: Actualidad Iberoamericana, E-Revistas, Hapi, Social Service Abstract, Sociological Abstract and Academic Journal Database. It is also important to mention that the Center for Advanced Studies in Childhood and Youth of University of Manizales and Cinde, editing institution of the Latin American Review of Social Sciences, Childhood and Youth, has been certified as an Editorial Center for Colciencias, Colombia, which permits that new books and chapters of books be recognized as research publications. This year we have advanced our editorial schedule for the publication of the various issues of our journal with the aim to spread the resulting knowledge the soonest possible, both at the web page and in its physical format. Accordingly, this Volume 11 Number 1 of January-June is launched in February, and Volume 11 Number 2 will be published in July. The purpose of this is to accelerate the editorial processes and speed up the flow of information that circulates through the channels proposed to authors, editors, evaluators and readers.

This is the panorama we are proposing in the first issue of 2013, as we are aware that you will enjoy a valuable and well-built compendium of important studies and researches for childhood and youth in Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.

Finally, we welcome Fernanda Saforcada, Coordinator of the Clacso Network of Graduate Programs in Social Sciences at the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, as a member of our Scientific Committee. For our journal, it is a great honor that people of the qualities scientific, academic and humans as Fernanda become members of our Editorial and Scientific Committees.

Guest Editor

Lorena Valderrama
Researcher at Technological Information Center, Chile

Director-Editor

Héctor Fabio Ospina

 

Associated Editors

Sônia Maria da Silva Araújo
Universidade Federal do Pará, Brazil

Liliana Del Valle
Villa Flora Educational Institution, Medellin, Colombia

Marta Cardona
Member of the Coordinating Collective at the Master’s Program in Education and Human Rights at Latin American Autonoma University, Medellín, Colombia