L’affidamento familiare: le strategie educative elaborate dagli affidatari

Foster care is a condition of welcoming children with families in serious difficulty, legally regulated, aimed at guaranteeing to minors a suitable space for growth, and to families of origin the possibility of overcoming the problems so as to consent the return of the children. It is a challenging educational condition, to be deepened with research. The complexity of the backgrounds of origin and the co-presence of multiple risk factors in fact generate in children and young people in foster care, important difficulties in development, which foster families have to cope with, also with the support of specialists, services and associations. However, the skills that caregivers come to build over the years are valuable, deserving of pedagogical insights, so that good practices of positive parenting can be valued and shared. In this paper we will report the results of a survey, carried out with a national sample of 323 foster families. The study makes it possible to investigate the reasons for the custody prevision, the relationships with families of origin, the difficult life trajectories of the children in foster care (transitions, placements, discontinuities, years of foster care, continuation of relationships after foster care). In this way it is possible to identify the needs highlighted by the minors, the relevant problems that emerge and the promising strategies adopted by the foster families.

Between Secularists and Catholics. The debate on Maria Montessori in the early 20th Century

The contribution, after a brief parenthesis which describes the Unione Magistrale Nazionale and the Associazione Magistrale Italiana “Nicolò Tommaseo” as expressions of the difficult socio-educational condition experienced by Giolitti’s Italy, through different opinions taken from the files of two representative pedagogical magazines of the time, Rivista Pedagogica and Scuola Italiana Moderna, analyzes the way in which, in the first twenty years 1900s, secular and catholic circles discussed Maria Montessori’s thought and system.

La relazione educativa in epoca di Covid-19. Una riflessione pedagogica sul ruolo della famiglia e sul senso di cittadinanza

The educational relationship, being humanly determined, becomes a privileged instrument of education because it accepts the difference and recognizes the limit of the individual in the wealth of the other by himself during a time, not too short but not too long, in which he identifies as useful and fundamental, not only to promote the intentional and global growth of the educating, but also to favor mutual involvement within the community. This contribution aims to investigate the role of the family today in the society affected by the coronavirus emergency. The sense of citizenship, in such a context, tends to change transforming and adapting to the sociocultural changes that characterize the evolution of the community. Hence, we are talking of not only a health issue, but a problem of immediate educational interest, which embraces the most authentic diversity and human relationships. The family, the most relevant educational environment for the development of relationships and parenthood, today is put to the test, by a socio-educational condition in deep crisis, caused by the pandemic situation of Covid-19.

Rural Education: some indicators

The following article, whose nature is descriptive and bibliographic, aims, based on Goal eight of the National Education Plan 2014-2024 (PNE), to identify some indicators for the Countryside Education. For such purpose, we consider the educational reality of the countryside based on: the low schooling of the population; in the negative evolution of the enrollments number in the last few years; and in the circumstances through which the quality benchmark, provided by the Basic Education Development Index (Ideb), has been unproductive to the define public policies aimed for the Countryside Education. Despite the operational difficulties of the educational system to obtain the necessary information for its composition, the results of the last two Ideb, however, already show progress. Based on these indicators, we conclude that some actions aimed at increasing the schooling of the countryside population were undertaken, however, the unequal educational condition among young people living in the countryside and those who live in the urban areas still persists. There is a possibility of fulfilling the goal eight of PNE by 2024, however, this may not mean progress in guaranteeing the countryside population’s rights to an education of quality, but, on the contrary, its reduction.

Targeting our blind spot: A metacognitive intervention ameliorates negative feelings, evaluations, and stereotypes towards conservatives in a liberal sample

Political polarization between conservatives and liberals threatens democratic societies. Ameliorating liberal research participants’ negative feelings, evaluations, and stereotypes towards conservatives might be one step into the direction of a political depolarization. In a sample of U.S.-American liberal research participants recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (N = 271), we randomly assigned participants in a pre-post-design either to a clinical-psychological, metacognitive-intervention (MCT), an educational, or a no-treatment-no-pre-measurement-control-condition. In the MCT-condition, participants were first asked seemingly simple questions that frequently elicited incorrect responses, followed by corrective information. In the educational condition, information was conveyed in a simple narrative form. MCT was significantly more effective in ameliorating liberal participants’ negative feelings, evaluations, and stereotypes towards conservatives compared to the other two control-conditions. Further, MCT-participants significantly reduced their negative feelings, negative evaluations, and perceptions of threat from pre- to post-measurement, significantly more than participants in the educational condition. The results of our preliminary study and its implications are discussed, and recommendations for further research are made.

THE STORY OF INONG BALEE: A CASE STUDY ON BEGGAR FAMILIES IN BANDA ACEH

The current study explores the Inong Balee beggars, widows who have been left by their husbands who passed away. Their survival of living is through begging around with their fatherless children in the city of Banda Aceh. The objectives of this study are to identify the demographic condition of Inong Balee beggars, the reasons why inong balee beg, and the educational condition of their children. The study was conducted using a case study approach which includes observation, interviews, and document analysis. Data was collected from April 2012 to August 2012 in the city of Banda Aceh. Purposive sampling was used to select the informants. The interviews and observations were conducted with 12 informants consisting of Inong Baleebeggars and their children. The findings have shown that most of the beggars are from regions in Aceh, other than Banda Aceh and began begging in Banda Aceh after the Tsunami in 2004. Furthermore, the main reason for Inong Baleeto beg is because they become widows without a main source of income and need to increase the financial status of their family. The education condition of their children is notgood; some of them still go to school but do not get a quality education, while others have dropped out of school entirely. This study examines the current status of Inong Balee beggars in terms of social, economic, and educational conditions. The government of Aceh should put a larger focus on Inong baleein order to improve their lives.

The Cave

Explains Plato’s famous image of the cave and the prisoners, who Plato claims are “like us.” Given the way the image of the cave is associated with the divided line, this has the effect of having the prisoners’ (and our own) initial educational condition being associated not just with opinion, but with the lowest subsegment of the divided line, associated with imaging. Scholars have found this association either implausible or unintended by Plato, but an argument is given here for how and why Plato would have accepted this association. Reviews the various stages the prisoners go through in this image of education. This chapter also provides a new explanation of what has been called “the happy philosopher problem”: the future rulers’ initial reluctance to return to the cave, in the terms of Plato’s epistemology argued in this book and also in the light of hints Plato provides in the cave image itself.