Entanglements between Agency and Vulnerability in the Phenomenon of Birth. Reflections on Children’s Expressions about ‘Being Born’

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2-2020) ◽  
pp. 135-146
Author(s):  
Catrin Heite ◽  
Veronika Magyar-Haas
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Cultural Embeddedness

Analogously to the works in the field of new social studies of childhood, this contribution deals with the concept of childhood as a social construction, in which children are considered as social actors in their own living environment, engaged in interpretive reproduction of the social. In this perspective the concept of agency is strongly stressed, and the vulnerability of children is not sufficiently taken into account. But in combining vulnerability and agency lies the possibility to consider the perspective of the subjects in the context of their social, political and cultural embeddedness. In this paper we show that what children say, what is important to them in general and for their well-being, is shaped by the care experiences within the family and by their social contexts. The argumentation for the intertwining of vulnerability and agency is exemplified by the expressions of an interviewed girl about her birth and by reference to philosophical concepts about birth and natality.

The Moderation Role of Being Valued by Teachers Over the Association Between School Children Motivation and Need for Competition

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110441
Author(s):  
Cristina Maria Bostan ◽  
Tudor Stanciu ◽  
Răzvan-Lucian Andronic
Keyword(s):  
School Children ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Economic Status ◽  
Motivation For Learning ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family

Concordant with classical theoretical guidelines (i.e., social facilitation, social constructivism theory, and the Pygmalion effect) we tested the need for competition and perception of being valued by teachers to be better motivated for learning in school. We extend knowledge by testing these associations mediated by the social economic status given by the well-being of the family (i.e., controlling for gender and socio-economic status). A total of 214 Romanian students (45.3% boys) with ages between 13 and 17 years were administered the PEER questionnaire (i.e., perception of being valued by teachers, school-children motivation, and the need for competition). Results show a positive relation between the need for competition and motivation for learning. We also found positive relations between the perception of being valued by the teacher and motivation for learning and the need for competition. We conclude that motivation is higher when the need for competition is higher and the perception of being valued by teachers is higher.

scholarly journals The Social Contexts of Resilient Architecture

2021 ◽  
pp. 625-645
Author(s):  
Terri Peters
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Resilient Design ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
And Performance ◽  
New Generation

In architecture, the term resilience tends to be used narrowly describe a building’s structural and environmental performance in quantitative terms—but can a building be called resilient if it fails to make inspiring spaces for people, promote well-being, or improve people’s experience? The chapter begins by exploring how the term is currently evaluated in and around buildings, through discussion of related concepts such as sustainability, passive survivability, and performance gaps. The chapter traces the emergence of a new generation of building evaluation metrics and certification systems that are focused not solely on environmental performance but also consider synergies between people’s experience and our natural resources, such as Active House. The work of GXN and 3XN in Denmark are discussed, in relation to how their research explores resilience and sustainability by focusing on the social aspects of how buildings make people feel. Examples from the multifunctional, process-based strategies used in a series of new climate adaptation renovations in Copenhagen, Denmark, are discussed as exemplary resilient design projects that address neighborhood flooding by simultaneously improving the qualities of public spaces and better connecting people to nature. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how locally specific and socially focused designs can support more resilient environments for people.

scholarly journals A Study of the Understated Violence Within Social Contexts Against Adolescent Girls

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Shivangi Nigam ◽  
Niranjana Soperna
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Individual

Violence against women is linked to their disadvantaged position in the society. It is rooted in unequal power relationships between men and women in society and is a global problem which is not limited to a specific group of women in society. An adolescent girl’s life is often accustomed to the likelihood of violence, and acts of violence exert additional power over girls because the stigma of violence often attaches more to a girl than to the  perpetrator. The experience of violence is distressing at the individual emotional and physical level. The field of research and programmes for adolescent girls has traditionally focused on sexuality, reproductive health, and behaviour, neglecting the broader social issues that underpin adolescent girls’ human rights, overall development, health, and well-being. This paper is an endeavour to address the understated or disguised form of violence which the adolescent girls experience within the social contexts. The parameters exposed under this research had been ignored to a large extent when it comes to studying the dimension of violence under the social domain. Hence, the researchers attempted to explore this camouflaged form of violence and discovered some specific parameters such as: Diminished Self Worth and Esteem, Verbal Abuse, Menstruation Taboo and Social Rigidity, Negligence of Medical and Health Facilities and Complexion- A Prime Parameter for Judging Beauty. The study was conducted in the districts of Haryana (India) where personal interviews were taken from both urban and rural adolescent girls (aged 13 to 19 years) based on  a structured interview schedule. The results revealed that the adolescent girls, both in urban as well as rural areas were quite affected with the above mentioned issues. In urban areas, however, due to the higher literacy rate, which resulted in more rational thinking, the magnitude was comparatively smaller, but the difference was still negligible.  

scholarly journals Coming out of the closet "six feet under": textual silences and the social construction of the family stage in the obituary genres

2006 ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel Corona Marzol
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Textual Description ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Social Explanation ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis ◽  
Constant Element

The 'Family' stage -the lines devoted to the surviving members of the deceased's family- is a 'constant element' (Hasan 1985) in obituaries. The present study is built up around the structural analysis of genres as developed by Bhatia (1993, 2004), Hasan (1985), Martin (1985, 1992), and Swales (1990). The purpose of this study is to bring a social explanation or understanding to bear on the textual description of the 'Family' stage from a corpus of obituaries published in more than two hundred American and British newspapers collected over a period of three years. The research process has developed two more steps. First, following Huckin's (2004) notion of content analysis, quantitative and qualitative modes have been applied, trying to identify the content which is not manifest. Secondly, the identification of 'textual silences' (Huckin 2002) is followed by an exploratory ethnographic analysis (Scollon 1998) on two case studies. This multi-staged analysis is aimed at a more comprehensive account of the obituary genre as a social process (Kress 1993). It shall be argued that the 'Family' stage encapsulates one of the most controversial topics of our time.

Conclusion

A Child's Day ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 165-178
Author(s):  
Killian Mullan
Keyword(s):  
Time Use ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Uk

This concluding chapter surveys the key findings and issues raised in the previous chapters. This study of a child's day provides the most extensive picture currently available in the UK, and elsewhere in the world, into how children's time use has changed over the past several decades. It identifies areas of expected change as well as other areas of surprising stability. It reveals how change and stability in children's time use blend together to comprise a child's day, uncovering also the multi-layered contexts of a child's day. Aspects of children's time use, and how this may have changed, will no doubt continue to surface in public debate in connection with their well-being. While welcoming this, it is necessary to always question and seek to understand how supposed changes actually fit within a child's day, the types of days where these changes are concentrated, among whom, and to seek out evidence on how such changes relate to other activities and the social contexts of daily life.

Under the Same Label: Adopted Adolescents’ Heterogeneity in Well-Being and Perception of Social Contexts

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 1544-1568 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Paniagua ◽  
Carmen Moreno ◽  
Maite Román ◽  
Jesús Palacios ◽  
Harold D. Grotevant ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reference Group ◽  
School Context ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Family Context ◽  
School Aged Children ◽  
Adolescent Population ◽  
The Family ◽  
Hbsc Study ◽  
Spanish Health

This study compares a sample of 223 adopted adolescents with a nonadopted reference group representative of the Spanish adolescent population from the “Spanish Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study.” Variables related to the family context, peers, school context, and emotional well-being are compared. Adoptees are not only analyzed as a group, but also according to the type of adoption (domestic or intercountry) and the birth area of origin (Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe). The results showed more similarities than differences between the whole group of adoptees and the reference group, as well as heterogeneity within the adoptees depending on their origin.

Moral Thresholds of Outrage

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo D’Orsi
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
National History ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Social ◽  
Large Audience ◽  
Emotional Identification

This article analyses the social construction of moral outrage, interpreting it as both an extemporaneous feeling and an enduring process, objectified in narratives and rituals and permeating public spaces as well as the intimate sphere of social actors’ lives. Based on ethnography carried out in Istanbul, this contribution focuses on the assassination of the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007. This provoked a moral shock and led to an annual commemoration in which thousands of people—distant in political, religious, ethnic positions—gather around a shared feeling of outrage. The article retraces the narratives of innocence and the moral frames that make Dink’s public figure different from other victims of state violence, thus enabling a moral and emotional identification of a large audience. Outrage over Dink’s murder has become a creative, mobilizing force that fosters new relationships between national history and subjectivity, and de-reifies essentialized social boundaries and identity claims.

How 15- to 16-year-old Swedish adolescents experience social relationships and health-related behaviours: A qualitative study

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 527-536
Author(s):  
Ulrica Paulsson Do ◽  
Birgitta Edlund ◽  
Christina Stenhammar ◽  
Ragnar Westerling
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Personal Management ◽  
The Social ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Old Swedish ◽  
Health Related

Aims: Health-related behaviours are associated with social relationships. Adolescence is a time when healthy and unhealthy behaviours are established. There is a need to investigate adolescents’ views on how social relationships are related to health-related behaviours of adolescents in the Scandinavian welfare system. This study aimed to explore Swedish adolescents’ experiences and thoughts of how social relationships in different social environments are related to health-related behaviours. Methods: A total of 36 adolescents aged 15–16 years were interviewed in seven focus-group sessions. Qualitative content analysis was used for analysis of the transcribed interviews. Results: Two themes – social context and personal management – emerged. Swedish adolescents describe that their health-related behaviours as being partly shaped by their own personal management but mainly by the social contexts that surround them. Social contexts were expressed as playing a role in the adolescents’ health-related behaviours, as they provide fellowship, pressure, dependability and engagement. Fellowship with friends and family was expressed as providing healthy behaviours and high levels of well-being. Fellowship with friends was particularly important for physical activity. Close relationships were stated to influence health-related behaviours. Pressure from friends, teachers and social media were described as mainly influencing unhealthy behaviours and, to some extent, low levels of well-being. However, adolescents’ personal ability illustrated how adolescents shaped their own health-related behaviours. Conclusions: The study results contribute to the understanding of Swedish adolescents’ views on how social relationships can shape their health-related behaviours. The findings may be useful to school professionals in supporting adolescents to improve well-being and healthy behaviours.

scholarly journals ‘Childness’: An Alternative Approach to the Archaeology of Childhood through Cemetery Studies

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 451
Author(s):  
Muller ◽  
Burke ◽  
Leiuen ◽  
Degner ◽  
Farrell
Keyword(s):  
South Australia ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Rural South ◽  
Social Ideology ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Class And Status

Notions of childhood in colonial Australia were informed by a variety of social contexts that varied across time and space and were given material expression in the memorialization of children’s burials. Using data drawn from two studies of nineteenth-century cemeteries in rural South Australia, in this paper, we suggest an alternative way to understand children archaeologically that avoids the trap of essentialism: the notion of ‘childness’. Childness is defined as the multiple conceptions of being, and being labeled, a child. The concept of being a child may be instantiated in different ways according to particular social, cultural, chronological, and religious contexts; childness is the measure of this variation. In Western historical settings, the most likely causes for such variation are the social processes of class and status via the closely associated ideologies of gentility and respectability and their attendant expectations around labor, as well as the shifts they represent in the social ideology of the family. Exploring childness, rather than children, provides an alternative way to approach the histories of contemporary Western understandings of childhood, including when particular types of childhood began and ended, and according to what criteria in different contexts, as well as how boundaries between child and adult were continually being established and re-negotiated.

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