STUDI DI SOCIOLOGIA

Creativity is today a topic of interest not only scientifically, but also, above all, economically: as has recently been observed, the world’s production of wealth is increasingly linked to the ability to have new ideas. This article intends  to deepen a path of knowledge of the characteristics of creativity that have been identified in recent decades especially in the psychological field and then propose a specifically sociological-relational perspective of this very precious  potential. In this framework, the point of arrival of the survey will be a reflection on the social dynamics involved in the processes of development or impediment of the creative potential of the subject and the group, arriving at  identifying future research needs in the specific field of the educational relationship to creativity.

The article intends to reflect on the relationship between the welfare state, the risk of social disaffiliation and technological acceleration at a time when social relations – an essential aspect of human life – have undergone a disintegration and remodeling due to both the pandemic crisis and the wedging into the social world of new technological paradigms. Specifically, after an introduction aimed at framing the general definitions of the concepts of social  policies and welfare state, the authors propose reflections on the relationship between social well-being, the elderly and technology in a particularly critical moment, trying to bring out both the strengths of the technological acceleration process, and the limits of this model in a context of unpredictable social, relational and health disruption.

This work focuses on the establishment of the teaching of Sociology at the end of the 19th entury at the University of Padua, trying to fill a gap with respect to the initial history of the discipline in this University through archive  research and literature analysis. In particular, periods of discontinuity as concerns the presence of teaching from the late 1800s to the 1940s are emphasized, attempting to reconstruct and differentiate their contexts. Finally, we  examine the figure of Achille Loria (1857-1943), the first professor to hold a free course in Sociology in Padua in 1894, highlighting some aspects related to both the academic and cultural relations that contributed to his calling  and to the themes of his teaching, so different and distant from current sociology. This discussion offers the opportunity to provide a preliminary interpretative framework about the institutionalization and cultural diffusion of Sociology  during the period of Positivism up to the criticism, very destabilizing for the discipline, moved by Croce and by Idealism.

Nationally and internationally, practice placement is considered the key experience in Social work education. The aim of this theoretical essay is to deepen the preparation to practice placement, debating, through questions and  representations, reflections on the following concepts: the relationship between theory and practice, the expectations and responsibilities in teaching and learning and in knowledge production processes, the needed pre-requisites to  begin the practice placement, the emotional and relational dimension of the experience. This article can support students, educators and practice teachers in living, planning, supporting and assessing the practice placement experience, including researchers investigating the needs and peculiarities of social work education.

Families’ participation in child protection is a challenge both in its theoretical interpretation and practice implementation. When social workers have to protect children from their own family, they must reflect on how to guarantee the  exercise of parents and children’s rights and duties. After a brief outline of research on parents and children’s participation in Child Protection, this paper presents results from quantitative research. Social workers are asked to define  the concept of participation. Two main groups are defined. In the first one, social workers understand participation mainly as a therapy process in working with families. In the second one, social workers show a broader idea of  participation, in which opportunities to make a real partnership with parents and children are promoted. Both of these groups interpret parents and children’s participation at a casework level, while parents and children’s participation to improve services seems quite absent.

 

LA PARTECIPAZIONE DI BAMBINI, RAGAZZI E FAMIGLIE NEI SERVIZI DI TUTELA MINORILE: LE RAPPRESENTAZIONI DEGLI OPERATORI SOCIALI by Valentina Calcaterra, Maria Luisa Raineri is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The present article presents and discusses a creative method for researching subjectivities in social inquiry: making objects or models. It is a method used in organisational development, in supporting creative problem solving and, albeit marginally, in media studies. I frame this method in the arts-based collaborative research tradition, using the extended epistemology of Heron and Reason (1997), to explain its potential to reach profound meanings in a vivid form. I also connect this method to other strands of methodological reflection, such as qualitative inquiry, visual studies and the study of materiality, as to argument its applications both as a research and as an action method. Moreover, I present a test of this method with PhD students and professionals in sociology, aimed at experiencing and discussing, within the expert panel, its potentialities and limitations. In conclusion, the method presents good possibilities for involving participants in expressing meanings at various levels and forms (individual/group, connected to the past/generated in the interaction, implicit/explicit, verbal/sensuous etc.), facilitates participation to the task, it is fun and allows for various types of analysis of the rich material it produces. Its role in generating change, though, is bound to how the whole participatory action research project is designed, especially to which stakeholders are actively involved in problem solving processes and to the formulation of the topic to be modelled, which should be as close as possible to the problems that need to be tackled.

Focusing the reflection on the Italian experience, the present article discusses two distinct but closely related theses. The first one is that bibliometrics can be used in the evaluation of scientific production even in the field of Sociology, at least in perspective. The second one affirms that bibliometric indicators can be a useful tool to support the evaluation but cannot replace the evaluation itself.

This article aims to outline the practices of social interaction between individuals and/or social groups in the urban spaces of our cities. Cities represent the most suitable context for analyzing he interactive dynamics between foreigners and residents. The cities have always offered opportunities for foreigners to meet and they represent a pole of attraction for individuals and groups looking for opportunities. This phenomenon has made them free spaces for the coexistence of people with different social and cultural backgrounds (Mantovan 2015; Simmel 1903). Observing the daily practices of coexistence it is possible overcoming a normative vision that considers the individuals within rigid categories, highlighting how concretely subjects build and redefine their relationships and identity day by day (Colombo 2015).

Late modernity is characterized by the global dimension of the economy, growing systemic risks and the weakening of the nation-state. This situation leads to a process of “reflective modernization” that might be read in terms of a growing individual and collective social responsibility, prerequisite to a renewed social solidarity bond and innovative ways of social regulation. In light of this interpretative framework, the contribution intends to offer a reading of social responsibility in the late modernity, discriminating between a generic civic attitude and the specific role of social engagement – as a focus on the relationship – in defining the features of the civic engagement as the practical expression of the agency of social actors. Two responsible models of integration between the economy and society will be thus defined and discussed.