Moral, direitos humanos e participação social Morality, human rights and social participation

Este artigo verifica a representação que universitários têm do seu envolvimento e do envolvimento do governo com os Direitos Humanos (DH), analisa a relação entre essa representação e variáveis psicossociais e compara alguns valores morais veiculados pela Rede Globo de Televisão à representação dos universitários. Para verificar as representações dos estudantes sobre os DH, foi realizado, baseado na teoria psicossociológica das representações sociais, um estudo com 93 universitários da UFPB e da UEPB. Os resultados revelaram que a representação do envolvimento possui quatro dimensões - pessoal-abstrato, pessoal-concreto, governamental-abstrato e governamental-concreto; o compromisso dos estudantes é maior com direitos individuais do que com direitos societais; a representação do envolvimento com os DH está ancorada, sobretudo, na identificação partidária e na participação desses estudantes em atividades sócio-políticas; e que existe uma similitude entre valores morais predominantes nos programas analisados e o tipo de artigo da Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos mais valorizado pelos estudantes.<br>This article analyzes the representation university students make of their own involvement and the involvement of the government with Human Rights (HR); it also analyzes the relationship between this representation and the psychosocial variables and compares some moral values transmitted by Rede Globo de Televisão (the most influential TV channel in Brazil) to the university students' representation. A study based on the psychosocial theory of the social representations was carried out with 93 university students from UFPB and UEPB in order to check the students' representation about HR. The results revealed that the representation of the involvement has four dimensions - the abstract-personal, the concrete-personal, the abstract-governmental and the concrete-governmental. It was found that the students' commitment with individual rights is stronger than with societal rights; the representation of the involvement with HR is mainly grounded on party affiliations and on the participation of these students in socio-political activities. There is also a similarity between the prevailing moral values of the TV programs under examination and the type of article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the students support more strongly

Human Rights Attitude and Civic Engagement Behavior Among University Students

Although civic engagement and human rights are critical values in social work education, few empirical studies have explored the association between civic engagement and human rights exposure and attitudes. This study aims to examine the relationship between the exposure to human rights information, human rights attitudes, normative beliefs, and civic engagement behaviors among university students. A total of 214 students at a public university in the Midwest of the United States responded to the study survey. Findings indicate that students with more exposure to human rights issues showed more civic engagement. This relationship between human rights exposure and civic engagement was mediated by students’ attitudes toward human rights, but not moderated by normative beliefs. In addition, students majoring in social work revealed higher civic engagement and more positive attitudes toward human rights issues than those in other disciplines