Le famiglie interculturali: identità, dinamiche familiari e sociali

Le famiglie interculturali, composte da persone appartenenti a culture diverse, rappresentano un fenomeno sociale in progressiva espansione nel contesto italiano. L’obiettivo della presente ricerca è quella di analizzare questa nuova tipologia famigliare distaccandosi dall’approccio che caratterizza la maggior parte delle ricerche internazionali, ossia quello della psicologia cross-culturale. La prospettiva teorica di riferimento di questo lavoro è, invece, la psicologia culturale (Mantovani, 2005) che concepisce la cultura come una risorsa per l’azione agita concretamente dagli individui all’interno dei contesti e delle situazioni della vita quotidiana. Nell’assumere questo punto di vista, sono stati adottati modelli d’analisi complessi (Falicov, 1995; Fruggeri, 1995; Hustonn, 2000), nella convinzione che una simile tipologia famigliare potesse essere letta in modo esaustivo solo attraverso differenti fattori individuali, interpersonali e sociali. Prima di tutto, privilegiando il livello sociale, si è cercato di dare una definizione più puntuale di famiglia interculturale studiando la percezione che il contesto sociale ha dei principali gruppi di immigrati presenti in Italia. Questo obiettivo è stato raggiunto attraverso la messa a punto e la somministrazione di un questionario strutturato ad un campione di soggetti italiani adulti. In una seconda fase della ricerca si è cercato di analizzare, attraverso interviste narrative a 17 coniugi di coppie interculturali, le situazioni rilevanti per queste famiglie e gli episodi in cui si attiva un confronto tra le loro appartenenze culturali. A partire dai risultati delle interviste narrative è stato condotto un terzo studio realizzato attraverso 40 interviste semistrutturate a 20 coppie miste. Lo strumento utilizzato è articolato in diverse parti, finalizzate a rilevare le dimensioni dell’identità, delle pratiche culturali, la soddisfazione di coppia e le strategie adottate per fare fronte a tre specifiche situazioni dilemmatiche: le scelte educative, il rapporto con l’esterno e con la famiglia allargata. I principali risultati hanno mostrato che il grado di “mixité” che tende dall’esterno ad essere attribuito ad una coppia interculturale è più accentuato per le coppie dove uno dei due partner proviene da paesi arabi o dall’Albania e più moderato nelle coppie formate da un italiano e da una persona proveniente dall’Est Europa e dal Sud America. Questa percezione del contesto sociale ha ripercussioni sulle dinamiche di queste famiglie, incidendo sui profili identitari delle coppie e sulle strategie adottate per fare fronte a decisione della vita quotidiana. Maggiore è, infatti, la percezione di distanza fra le due culture a livello sociale, maggiore è l’impegno della coppia alla valorizzazione delle differenze culturali e alla costruzione di un’identità multiculturale. Un secondo importante risultato è rappresentato dal fatto che le modalità di gestione delle differenze culturali nelle diverse situazioni interattive considerate non sembrano determinate dagli orientamenti culturali dei coniugi, ma sono piuttosto contesto-specifiche. In sintesi i risultati confermano che le modalità di gestione delle differenze nelle situazioni concrete della vita quotidiana rappresentano sono l’esito dell’intreccio tra di fattori individuali, interpersonali e macrosociali.Families where spouses belong to different cultural groups, are a very recent phenomenon in Italy, and are very often seen as problematic and dysfunctional. Taking a cross-cultural perspective most of the research sees the dynamics of these families only as a function of the two cultures of the spouses. The theoretical framework of the present work is instead the “cultural psychology” that studies culture not as a fixed entity, but as a resource that people use to act in a particular environment. The aim of this research is to study the specificity of the dynamics of the intercultural families, the coping strategies that they adopt to face situations of every day life where cultural differences become salient, and the factors that influence such strategies. An individual semi-structured interview has been administered to 40 partners of 20 intercultural couples. The semi-structured interview focuses on three dilemmatic situations where two partners an intercultural couple deals with an episode that involves the cultural differences between them (language spoken by children, difficulties to find work for a foreigner and cooking for Christmas dinner). The second part of the interview includes scales about the cultural identities and practices. The first results showed that there are diversified couple strategies according the type of context involved in the situation (interpersonal, intergenerational, social). Gender appears also as a discriminating variable

Safety Compliance in a Sample of Italian Mechanical Companies: The Role of Knowledge and Safety Climate

The accident rate in the Italian mechanical sector is still too high, and evidence-based interventions to improve safety performance are essential. To better address this, our study contributes to the understanding of how to promote safety compliance through safe behaviours by using a sample of Italian mechanical workers (n = 109). Before and after scheduled safety training, intervention data on organizational factors, as well as on individual factors affecting safety-related behaviours, were collected. Particularly, data were collected using multiple sources, including self-perception questionnaires (to measure the safety climate among the management and colleagues and the safety attitude), paper and pencil tests (to measure safety knowledge), and observations by personnel with experience in observation tasks (to measure safety behaviours objectively). A model class of competing general linear models was built to determine which of the models was best suited for predicting safety-related behaviours. The results showed that both knowledge and the management’s safety climate effectively promoted safety compliance. Crucial implications for the effectiveness of active teaching methods, along with the need for continuous training and the prominent role of the management team members in giving, through their actions, further relevance to the need to respect rules and procedures, were revealed. Finally, practical implications for researchers, corporate decision makers, government agencies, and international bodies are discussed

The determinants of Teachers’ Wellbeing: the mediating role of Mental Fatigue

In recent years, many studies have focused on the determinants and consequences of teacher stress. One of the most recent theoretical models concerning stress is the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. This study examines one process – namely the energetic process – which supposes that high job demands exhaust employees’ mental and physical resources and therefore cause ill health. Particularly, this study examines the mediating role of mental fatigue between three job demands of teachers (workload, inequity and work/family confl ict) and three consequences of stress: psychological and physical symptoms and work satisfaction. An Italian version of the selfreport Questionnaire for Psychosocial Work Environment and Stress (PWSQ) was administered to 697 teachers belonging to a random sample of 17 school organizations. The results showed that mental fatigue has a mediating role in the relationship between work/family confl ict and the three outcomes considered, namely psychological and physical symptoms, and work satisfaction. This study has an important implication for intervention strategy because mental fatigue is a pre-strain condition which arises before more intense outcomes, such as stress-related diseases occur. Identifi cation of this condition allows prevention of the consequences of stress

Personal and social aspects of professional identity.. An extension of Marcia's identity status model applied to a sample of university students

The study proposed an extension of Marcia's identity status model based on validation of the Professional Identity Status Questionnaire (PISQ-5d), a scale able to measure both intra-individual and intergroup processes connected with the development of a professional identity in university students. The aims were to prove the construct validity of the PISQ-5d, to determine the appropriate number of identity statuses, and to assess the concurrent validity of the identity statuses considering both job-related and academic factors. In this study, 477 university students completed a questionnaire with the PISQ-5d scale; 220 also completed the measures of work values; and 168 completed the measures of student self-esteem and self-efficacy, academic motivation, and grades. Results confirmed the expected five-dimensional structure of the PISQ-5d and the scale's effectiveness at differentiating five types of identity status. Relationship between professional identity status and job-related and academic factors showed that the students with achievement or foreclosure identities had higher scores on measures of academic self-esteem and intrinsic work value and had lower scores for intention to leave university. Implications in terms of considering the PISQ-5d scale a useful tool for the evaluation of professional identity construction processes in university students will be discussed

The push and pull factors related to early retirees’ mental health status: A comparative study between Italy and Spain

AbstractIn recent years, early retirement has attracted increasing attention in the literature. Using a larger Italian- Spanish sample, this study examines the push and pull factors related to early retirees’ mental health status, as well as the moderating effects of perceived self-efficacy on the relationships between reasons for early retirement and mental health. Analyses revealed that poor retirees’ mental health is positively correlated to the push factor Pressure from Employer and negatively related to the pull factor Pursue Own Interests. Thus, mental health status is better for Italian retirees than for their Spanish counterparts. The Italian sample shows that Pursue Own Interests was negatively related to poorer mental health particularly under the low self-efficacy condition. Findings suggest that mental health depends on both the motivating reasons that lead people to retire early and the personal resources available to them to manage this psychosocial transition

Effectiveness of occupational health and safety training. A systematic review with meta-analysis

Purpose This meta-analysis aims to verify the efficacy of occupational health and safety (OHS) training in terms of knowledge, attitude and beliefs, behavior and health. Design/methodology/approach The authors included studies published in English (2007–2014) selected from ten databases. Eligibility criteria were studies concerned with the effectiveness of OHS training for primary prevention of workplace injury; and studies focused on examined outcome related to OHS. Findings The selected studies (n = 28) highlighted a strong support for the effectiveness of training on worker OHS attitudes and beliefs and, to a lesser extent, on worker’s knowledge but only medium for behavior and small evidences for its effectiveness on health. Research limitations/implications Future research should more deeply investigate the efficacy on knowledge increase of trainings delivered by experts and researchers, applying different methods, in a small group; training delivered by peer and by researcher, applying different methods; and trained workers less than 29 years and more than 49 years old, considering that workers in these age groups are particularly vulnerable to fatalities. Practical implications Our study is a contribution for those they intend to grant effective training, in response to specific needs of OHS. The evidences presented could be considered a first step to identify the factors related to the efficacy of OHS training to plan adequate interventions. Social implications The OHS training is effective on the basis of the extent interventions are carried out for each specific learning outcome. Originality/value This meta-analysis suggested that classroom training, although the most used and studied, does not ever revealed itself very effective: it was not significant for outcomes in terms of knowledge and showed a decreasing efficacy for attitudes and beliefs, behaviors and health. It seemed that there was a distinction between interventions on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, as opposed to behavioral interventions and health

Qualità della vita lavorativa e rischio di mobbing: l’effetto moderatore del clima sociale

The aim of the present study is to identify the psychosocial factors that are more related to the risk of workplace bullying in the organizational contexts. According to the work environment hypothesis, job demands, job control, perception of equity and leadership have been considered. It has been hypothesized that all these variables infl uence directly negative acts and also their effects are moderated by perception of colleagues. In order to investigate these relationships, a self-report questionnaire has been administered to 148 participants who represented all the population of a structure of private health care. The main results showed that job demands and leadership are the organizational antecedents more related to workplace bullying. Furthermore, the perception of colleagues has a moderating effect especially between job characteristics, like job demand, and negative acts, while this effect is weaker between relational antecedent, as leadership, and bullying. The data seem to con- fi rm that mobbing prevention can be implemented starting from the psychosocial work environment and management of relationships involving leader and colleagues.El objetivo del presente estudio es identificar cuáles son los factores psicosociales que se  asocian a un mayor riesgo de acoso en los contextos laborales. En particular, en línea con la hipótesis situacional se tuvieron en cuenta la demanda laboral, el control, la percepción de equidad y el liderazgo. Específicamente se plantea una influencia directa de estos factores sobre las acciones negativas perpetradas en los lugares de trabajo y un efecto moderador de las percepciones de los colegas entre los factores considerados y el riesgo de acoso laboral. El estudio, llevado a cabo en una institución privada hospitalaria, incluyó la aplicación de un cuestionario de auto-reporte a todos los trabajadores de la organización (N = 148). Los resultados han evidenciado que son, sobre todo, la demanda laboral y el liderazgo los que influencian directamente las acciones negativas, mientras que el efecto es más débil entre los antecedentes de carácter más relacional, como el liderazgo, y el acoso laboral. Los datos confirman que la prevención del acoso laboral debe ser implementada a partir del ambiente psicosocial de trabajo y de la gestión de las relaciones que impliquen a los colegas y a los superiores

La gestione del cambiamento organizzativo. Un confronto tra le aspettative dell’organizzazione ed il punto di vista dei lavoratori nell’ottica della consulenza aziendale

Lo scopo di questo lavoro è analizzare l’attuale letteratura sul cambiamento organizzativo, mettendo in luce gli aspetti che possono essere utilizzati nella consulenza aziendale per supportare, da un lato, i processi organizzativi e, dall’altro, i lavoratori nelle fasi di cambiamento. Sono stati selezionati articoli dal 2014 al 2019; le tematiche esaminate rispetto alla gestione organizzativa riguardano la comunicazione aziendale e la leadership, mentre il job crafting è stato analizzato dal punto di vista dei lavoratori. Nonostante tali costrutti siano presenti da decenni in letteratura, vengono fatte considerazioni sui nuovi significati che assumono nell’attuale contesto socioeconomico. Inoltre, vengono discusse implicazioni sulla gestione organizzativa del cambiamento

The Predictive Factors of New Technology Adoption, Workers’ Well-Being and Absenteeism: The Case of a Public Maritime Company in Venice

The main goal of this research was to investigate the psychosocial aspects that influence the acceptance of innovative technology in maritime transport and its impact on employees’ work-related wellbeing and absenteeism. In particular, this study focused on a device that had been introduced to sailors working in water public transportation in Venice. The theoretical framework included two integrated models: the TAM model, concerning acceptance of the technology, and the JD-R model, related to workers’ well-being. A two-wave study was conducted; at T1, a self-report questionnaire was administered to 122 sailors. Four months after its first administration (T2), objective data related to days of absenteeism were collected. The study showed that the perceived ease of use and the usefulness of the device influenced the workers’ intentions to use the technology and their motivational processes of work engagement, which was also related to social support. Work engagement impacted on work satisfaction and predicted the level of absenteeism (measured at Time 2). The implementation of a new technology may fail if transportation companies do not consider psychosocial factors that assist in the acceptance of such technology and promote the involvement of workers in the technological system