Social networking sites as virtual ‘showcases’

A survey of Italian mothers who engage in ‘sharenting’ suggests they are motivated by both a desire for external validation, as well as more communitarian goals such as sharing moments with distant relatives and seeking support. But while many mothers see it as their right to engage in sharenting, what implications does this have for children’s rights and privacy? Davide Cino is a PhD student studying education in contemporary society at the University of Milano-Bicocca and a visiting pre-doctoral Fellow at Northwestern University. He researches children’s social media presence and online privacy. Silvia Demozzi, PhD, is a researcher in education at the University of Bologna. Her work focuses on child adultisation and sexualisation, sharenting and children’s rights

Le avventure di Alice tra controllo e cambiamento. Una rilettura pedagogica del classico di L. Carrol

The essay gives a second reading of Carrol’s classics trought the examination of some categories as control and change. The pedagogical proposal reconsiders some existentials and educative abilities with particular attention to youthful context

“That’s the only place where you can get this information today!” An exploratory study on Parenting WhatsApp Groups with a sample of Italian parents

open3noThis paper studies Parenting WhatsApp Groups (PWGs) as interactional loci parents can join to be involved in their children’s academic life, building on the quantitative and qualitative results of an online survey administered to a sample of 302 Italian parents recruited through convenience sampling. First, PWGs are positioned within the broader literature on offline/online parent involvement, parents’ peer interaction via social media, and technological peculiarities of WhatsApp. Second, quantitative results from a binary logistic regression are reported to explore possible predictors of PWG’s membership among our sample, as well as quantitative and qualitative findings investigating parents’ perceptions/opinions of and experience with PWGs. Finally, limitations, future directions, and implications of this study are discussed.openDavide Cino, Alessandra Gigli, Silvia DemozziDavide Cino, Alessandra Gigli, Silvia Demozz

Il valore dell’incertezza : gli effetti della pandemia tra crisi e cambiamento

L’emergenza pandemica attuale svela il tema della vulnerabilità umana, l’incertezza che accompagna le esistenze, nonché l’impossibilità di esercitare un controllo sull’intreccio di variabili che interagiscono in un sistema complesso. Si presenta come sintomo di una crisi più profonda di quella esclusivamente sanitaria: è la crisi dei paradigmi epistemologici e socio-economici della società modernamente intesa, rispetto ai quali si impone l’esigenza di un cambiamento radicale. Perché non guardare a tale crisi anche come a un’occasione? Il contributo si interroga sulla possibilità che il cambiamento possa generare una (ri)nascita, grazie a soggetti protagonisti di narrazioni inedite. In tale contesto si inserisce l’indagine qualitativa L’educazione ai tempi del Coronavirus (e dopo), svolta dal CREIF (Università di Bologna) con l’obiettivo di indagare quali siano state, da parte dei professionisti dell’educazione, le emozioni vissute e le risposte elaborate durante la prima fase dell’emergenza. La ricerca ha esplorato le aree relative al senso e alla motivazione attribuiti alla propria azione educativa, ai timori emersi, alle idee sollecitate dal cambiamento, interrogandosi sulle possibili condizioni strutturali in grado di favorire «uscite creative». La valorizzazione del lavoro in équipe — in grado di alimentare processi riflessivi — e la centralità dei processi di accompagnamento e formazione continua emergono quali elementi cruciali

“Padri in uniforme”: Il paradosso di una (nuova) genitorialità in cerca di ascolto

Military fathers stand at the intersection of two important processes of change: the socio-cultural one – involving fatherhood – and the military institution one. Starting from “father paradox” (Zoja, 2016) and “military paradox” concepts and through a qualitative research approach, the present study explores how these men embody their roles, act the parental function and how (if) they manage to integrate the institution and the family requests, especially when far from home due to missions. Ten interviews were carried out with militaries, fathers of children 3-12 years old. The main emerging themes (the pride in their profession, the desire to be “present” fathers, the need to find a work-family balance) can be the starting point for a parenthood support evaluation within the military institution.I padri militari si trovano all’intersezione fra due processi di cambiamento: quello socio-culturale – che investe la figura paterna – e quello dell’Istituzione militare. A partire dai concetti di “paradosso del padre” (Zoja, 2016) e “paradosso del militare”, lo studio esplora, con approccio qualitativo, come tali soggetti incarnino il loro ruolo, agiscano la funzione genitoriale e come (se) riescano ad integrare le richieste della famiglia e dell’Istituzione, in particolare quando lontani da casa, impegnati in missioni. Sono state condotte 10 interviste a militari, padri di bambini/e 3-12 anni. Emergono temi rilevanti (l’orgoglio per la propria professione, il desiderio di essere padri “presenti”, il bisogno di trovare un equilibrio fra lavoro e famiglia), che possono rappresentare il punto di avvio per una valutazione di interventi di sostegno alla genitorialità

La alianza educativa escuela/familia y los grupos de chat de padres: una mirada a la situación italiana

The call for collaboration between the school and the family is a constant of many educational centers, however, its meaning is rarely defined and not always the measures adopted to support it at the pragmatic level are adequate, registering from both sides problematic situations of des-alliance. In this contribution, the coordinates of the educational alliance are analyzed, highlighting the latest advances and prefiguring resolution scenarios from a theoretical and methodological point of view. In particular, the most adressed topic that appears with more and more force in the dynamics between families and educational and school services: The use of the progenitors of new communication technologies. These new forms of relationship, although they have positive aspects, are characterized by a communication little filtered, very immediate and, often, emotional, having an impact on the educational relationship, generating more problems and urging the need for a type of project-action from the educational institutions.La llamada a la colaboración entre escuela y familia es una constante de muchos centros educativos, sin embargo, raramente se define su significado y no siempre las medidas de apoyo pragmático son adecuadas, registrándose desde ambas partes situaciones problemáticas de des-alianza. En esta contribución se analizan las coordenadas de la alianza educativa destacando los últimos avances y prefigurando escenarios de resolución desde un punto de vista teórico y metodológico. En particular, se aborda una temática que se presenta cada vez con más fuerza en las dinámicas entre familias y centros educativos: se trata del uso por parte de los progenitores de las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación. Estas nuevas formas de relación, aunque tienen aspectos positivos, se caracterizan por una comunicación poco filtrada, muy inmediata y, a menudo, emocional, repercutiendo a la relación educativa, generando más problemas y haciendo urgente algún tipo de proyecto-acción por parte de las instituciones educativas

La alianza educativa escuela/familia y los grupos de chat de padres: una mirada a la situaci\uf3n italiana

La llamada a la colaboraci\uf3n entre escuela y familia es una constante de muchos centros educativos, sin embargo, raramente se define su significado y no siempre las medidas de apoyo pragm\ue1tico son adecuadas, registr\ue1ndose desde ambas partes situaciones problem\ue1ticas de des-alianza. En esta contribuci\uf3n se analizan las coordenadas de la alianza educativa destacando los \ufaltimos avances y prefigurando escenarios de resoluci\uf3n desde un punto de vista te\uf3rico y metodol\uf3gico. En particular, se aborda una tem\ue1tica que se presenta cada vez con m\ue1s fuerza en las din\ue1micas entre familias y centros educativos: se trata del uso por parte de los progenitores de las nuevas tecnolog\uedas de comunicaci\uf3n. Estas nuevas formas de relaci\uf3n, aunque tienen aspectos positivos, se caracterizan por una comunicaci\uf3n poco filtrada, muy inmediata y, a menudo, emocional, repercutiendo a la relaci\uf3n educativa, generando m\ue1s problemas y haciendo urgente alg\ufan tipo de proyecto-acci\uf3n por parte de las instituciones educativas

Biographies of young people's participation in eight European Cities.

This thematic report addresses the core research questions of the Partispace project from a biographical perspective. This perspective aims to further Partispace’s understanding of the complexity of young people’s social and political participation, and spaces and styles of participation, by exploring participatory activities over the course of young people’s lives and the young people’s meaning-making of participation in terms of their biographies. Partispace’s analysis of national and European discourses on participation (see Andersson et al, 2016; Becquet et al, 2016) indicates that these frameworks endorse participation in the teenage and young adult years because it is integral to individuals’ socialisation processes and is important for outcomes in later life. However, little attention is paid to how young people perceive their social role and interpret their participation in their daily lives and in their particular social and personal contexts. In addition, the prevailing perspective of ‘demotivated’ young people within European discourses is one-dimensional and neglects a variety of factors that are important in young people’s participation - for example, belonging to and recognition from peers, and experiences in and with institutions and particularly with decisions that are crucial for identity-work and self-efficacy. Furthermore, in considering that young people in Europe now are living in an individualised, pluralised and complex world where the life-course is less predictable, further Partispace findings from the ethnographic case studies (see Batsleer et al 2017) indicate that young people’s participation is changing and that dominant discourses on participation must, therefore, be challenged. Importantly, the Partispace project does not conceive of young people as a homogeneous group with common needs and aspirations; nonetheless, the age group of the Partispace sample includes young people who are in a life stage that is characterised by common challenges in terms of opportunities and changes in life domains (e.g. education, training, employment, welfare, housing, and health). These issues over the life-course, as well as ongoing identity-work, influence the reasons why and the ways in which young people participate in their everyday lives and in democratic spaces. The young people taking part in Partispace are viewed as active and meaning-making individuals who define their situations, and reflect about themselves, their actions and the lives they live, and as active social actors with their own conceptualisations and lived experiences, complex identities and social positioning. The interconnected relationship between the self and the social world, however, requires an exploration of the meanings of ‘participation’ for young people in order to understand how these meanings relate to a wider, sociocultural context from a micro-perspective. This interwoven micro-perspective is developed by analysing the narrated life stories of young people in order to reconstruct life trajectories and subjective meaning-making. Utilising an understanding of biographies as a construct within the dialectic of the subjective and objective, biographical reconstructions can illustrate on the one hand meaning-making, trajectories and subjective interpretations (the micro) and, on the other, structure, society and opportunities (the meso and macro). The current report considers the micro, meso and macro level of young people’s biographies of participation. Many studies on participation focus on who participates where and when, but few studies explore how and why (or why not) young people participate in different ways throughout their lives. Partispace’s biographical analysis began during the ethnographic case studies, which analysed summaries of all of the biographical interviews collected during the project (96). The analysis of the summaries centered on young people’s self-presentation and motivations and their involvement in participatory activities and derived five overlapping themes (‘stories’) in order to start to capture the biographical meaning of participation for the young people: • Self-made wo/man stories refer to young people for whom participation means self-development with pragmatic and/ or careerist motivations. These motivations are further broken down: young people who prioritise their personal development through their participatory activities; those who relate their leadership skills in particular to their participatory activities; and those who aim to make a career from participatory activities. • Experimentation stories refer to young people who participate in order to explore life in general, their identity, or a specific participatory practice. Young people engage in experimentation in a number of ways: through motion and change, which involves trying new things, places, activities, and social environments and norms; through identity-work, which involves exploring personal qualities, and strengths and weaknesses; and through immersing themselves in an activity (e.g. sport, music or theatre) in order to test potential or limits. • Doing/ changing/ resisting/ taking responsibility stories include those young people who want to challenge systemic and societal injustices by taking responsibility for working towards change through participation. These young people can ‘resist’ and ‘rebel’ but stress also taking responsibility for creating change. This theme demonstrates that young people can both resist and take responsibility, and that their self-presentation is not always neatly aligned with their participation settings. • Stories of rediscovery of oneself and one’s identity refer to young people who use their participation to cope with racial, ethnic, class and gender issues and discrimination and to cope with other personal problems including health issues and bullying. These stories centred on social identities and self-identity. • Finally, stories of role models (or their absence) include young people who associate their participation with an important figure (through aspiration, inspiration, orientation or conditioning) or the absence of such a figure. Important figures are, generally, parents or teachers, and participation framed in this way is often related to early-life conditions. By introducing a biographical perspective into the research on the styles and spaces of youth participation, then, the analysis can explore how and why participation unfolds, who (e.g. significant others) and what (e.g. turning points, experiences and family backgrounds) are subjectively relevant to participation and in what way. In this analysis, participation is conceived as integral to a young person’s biography while a biography is, in turn, integral to participation. The aim of this thematic report is to analyse a small number of the Partispace biographies in depth in order to understand the individual biography by reconstructing it analytically and exploring the relationship between biographies, life trajectories and participation. In order to do so, the analysis used two complementary approaches, connecting the concept of ‘biography’ with the concept of the ‘life-course’. The analytical link between the life-course and the biographical perspective rests on the classical, interactionist assumption that the individual must be understood as a social being who is embedded within a socially constructed world (Mead 1934/1967). The first approach developed ‘clusters of participation careers’ by focusing upon the interaction of biographies with (i) structural elements within a life-story, including turning points and significant others; (ii) needs, wishes and desires that inform young people’s participation; and (iii) (lived) participatory learning processes and experiences that influence the individual biography. The second approach explored the young people’s ‘participation biographies’ (see von Schwanenflügel 2015) in terms of how biographical experiences within young people’s stories lead to and bring about their involvement with various participatory activities over time by attributing experiences to activities. The second approach developed ‘dimensions of participation biographies’. Drawing the findings from the analysis together enabled using reconstructions of biographies for a micro, meso and macro exploration of biographies of participation. The report comprises six more sections. The next chapter sets out the importance of considering biographies of participation by exploring some statistical findings on youth participation in Europe and by starting to question why young people participate. Chapter 3 summarises the theoretical rationale for the analysis and sets out the methodology and methods utilised in the two strands of analysis. The fourth and fifth chapters explore the biographical data in ‘clusters of participation careers’ and ‘dimensions of participation biographies’. Chapter 6 synthesises the findings and draws conclusions, and is followed by the final chapter which sets out some policy recommendations from the analysis