The Dialogic Turn: Dialogue or Violence?

Individuals and social groups are increasingly using dialogue to take decisions, perform actions and solve conflicts in diverse social relationships, from international policies or globalization processes to personal friendships, labor relations or the intimacy of bedroom. When they do not use dialogue, they use violence or imposition: there are only two ways to proceed. The increase of dialogue does not imply that there is no violence in human and social relationships, obviously there is; but this phenomenon confirms that there exist many dialogic interactions and procedures in society which shed light to the process of radicalization of democracy, and thus need to be further analyzed from the social sciences. This article does so; it discusses the “dialogic turn” in the social sciences and illustrates it with the case of feminist theory and practice. Whereas in the past feminism had been a movement for few academic women often speaking for “others”, current dialogic feminism brings into egalitarian dialogue the voices of very diverse women who reach agreements regarding vision and action.

Female University Students Respond to Gender Violence through Dialogic Feminist Gatherings

Within the framework of the "Free_Teen_Desire" research project led by the University of Cambridge and funded by the programme Marie Curie Actions[i], a survey was conducted. Vignette-Test data for 127 female university students (ages 18-27 years) in Spain reveals that the wish to hook up with a violent young man significantly decreases after a gathering on the topic of the Mirage of Upward Mobility, a successful programme elaborated in Dialogic Feminism (Butler, Beck & Puigvert, 2003). In the pre-test,78.4%of the respondents stated that their female friends wouldliketo hook up with a violent man at a party, while this percentage decreased to 38.5% when they responded concerning themselves. After the pre-test, there was a one-hour gathering and debate. The subsequent post-test revealed that only 48.8%of the respondents stated that their female friends wouldliketo hook up with a violent man at a party, and 14.9% of the respondents made the same statement concerning themselves. The survey presented pictures of four men accompanied by a short explanation of their characters. The explanations of man 1 and man 3 included sentences that describe behaviours characterized as gender violence in previous international surveys (Banyard et al., 2005; Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 1999; Gross et al., 2006; Kalof et al., 2001). The descriptions of man 2 and man 4 only included non-sexist behaviours. The data did not significantly change when we exchanged the pictures of man 2 and man 4 in the instrument with the pictures of the men with violent profiles and then administered the post-test. For different groups of respondents, the period between the pre-test and the gathering as well as between the gathering and the post-test were changed from fifteen minutes to one and two weeks. In all cases, we obtained similar results for the pre- and post-tests. However, additional research is required to demonstrate how long the effect of the gathering endures and to identify the processes that can increase or decrease the effect over time.[i]This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 659299

La Tertulia: A Dialogic Model of Adult Basic Education in the New Information Age

In the new information age dialogue and dialogic projects are increasingly becoming a social requirement. La Tertulia Literaria is a learning experience in which adults with non-academic background read Joyce, among other classics, crossing cultural barriers and transforming the horizons of their lives and environments

Formación del profesorado en las comunidades de aprendizaje

En las comunidades de aprendizaje, la formación del profesorado es parte de aquella en la que se involucra el conjunto de agentes educativos (profesorado, familiares, personal no docente, voluntariado). Mientras las escuelas heredadas de la sociedad industrial se van transformando en comunidades de aprendizaje de la sociedad de la información, la formación del profesorado –centrada en los conocimientos previos y las adaptaciones curriculares– va siendo transformada en formación de todos los agentes educativos, para coordinar y optimizar sus interacciones con los alumnos. La primera parte del artículo explica el proceso de formación del profesorado en las comunidades de aprendizaje, que también es llevado a cabo parcialmente en otros centros. La segunda parte, desarrolla los contenidos de la formación centrada en el aprendizaje dialógico, es decir, una formación dialogante, competente, transformadora, instrumental, creadora de sentido, solidaria e igualitaria en las diferencias

The concept and the name of Isolating Gender Violence

In December 2020, the Catalan Parliament approved by unanimity the world’s first legislation of the concept of Isolating Gender Violence (IGV); in 2021, several parliaments are developing their own legislations. The elaboration of this concept and later this name has been a long and dialogic process among diverse scientists, policymakers, governments, parliaments, victims, survivors, social organizations and citizens. Since 2016, CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All) has developed a process of elaborating the concept of IGV oriented to obtain the scientific, policy and social impact required to make a key contribution to overcoming gender violence. This process was simultaneous to the elaboration by the same researchers of the criteria of policy and societal impact of the EU’s scientific programme of research (Horizon Europe). This paper presents this dialogic research conducted to get the concept and the name IGV and the consequences of this concept along scientific, policy and social impact. The results show that the key for getting the name and the impacts of this scientific robust concept has been three of the main characteristics of the present EU research program Horizon Europe: the priority of social impact, the co-creation of knowledge between scientists and citizens and sustainability

No se puede hacer sociología desde la postmodernidad: diferencias entre las perspectivas

Althusser creó el marxismo estructuralista y escribió "Pour lire le Capital" sin apenas haber leído a Marx. Algunos de sus seguidores de entonces se hicieron lo que hoy se denomina postestructuralistas y postmodemos a partir de las obras de Heidegger y Nietzsche: deconstrucción de Derrida, genealogía de Foucault y postmodernismo de Lyotard. El debate sobre esta corriente se está llevando todavía con menos seriedad que lo hicieran Althusser y sus seguidores con el estructuralismo marxista. Una de las consecuencias de esta falta de seriedad son las propuestas de una sociología postmoderna basada en lo positivo de cada una de esas corrientes, cayendo en el mismo sinsentido que una propuesta de psicoanálisis conductista. Esas "Imposturas" tienen entre sus negativas consecuencias el desprestigio y la desaparición a medio plazo de las ciencias sociales, como pone de manifiesto el actual debate en torno a Sokal.La sociología se basa, como aclara Habermas, en unas pretensiones de validez que son diferentes de las pretensiones de poder. El postmodernismo niega esa racionalidad y esas pretensiones de validez y defiende que se impone como validez (en concreto, como verdad) el poder. Por eso, todo postestructuralista más o menos serio (como Foucault) no acepta que se haga una sociología basada en su obra, porque su obra genealógica niega toda ciencia social.Quienes quieren hacer una sociología postmoderna suelen desconocer las obras fundamentales del postmodernismo o de la sociología o de ambas perspectivas. Como Althusser, se basan en lecturas secundarias o en charlas de café. No es raro que utilicen deconstrucción como sinónimo de crítica con alternativa progresista o que crean que Foucault consideraba el poder como algo negativo. Por supuesto, tampoco han profundizado en las obras fundamentales de la teoría sociológica actual como la teoría de la acción comunicativa de Habermas

The New Alternative Masculinities and the Overcoming of Gender Violence

Research about masculinities gathers different topics from diverse disciplinary perspectives. One of the topics has been the analysis of the perpetuation’s effect of the traditional heterosexual model of masculinity in the violence against women. Recent scientific evidences about the reproduction of this social problem have evidenced the existence of three different types of masculinities (in the sense of the weberian ideal types): dominant traditional masculinity (DTM), oppressed traditional masculinity (OTM), and new alternative masculinities (NAM). The first two types contribute to perpetuate gender violence, while the latter allows preventing it and, consequently, it leads to its overcoming. This article approach the existence of these three types of masculinities and analyzes both, theirs characteristics and their consequences for violence against women. It presents evidences that what makes NAM providing a preventive effect is its linkage between the language of ethics and the language of desire.