Families and Social Media Use: The Role of Parents' Perceptions about Social Media Impact on Family Systems in the Relationship between Family Collective Efficacy and Open Communication

Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including family interactions. The present study aims at deepening the role that parents’ perceptions about social media effects on family systems can exert within their family functioning, specifically referring to the relationship between collective family efficacy and open communications within family systems with adolescents. A questionnaire to detect the openness of family communications, thecollectivefamilyefficacyandtheperceptionsabouttheimpactsofsocialmediaonfamilysystems wasadministeredto227Italianparentswhohadoneormoreteenagechildren,andwhouseFacebook and WhatsApp to communicate with them. From the results, these perceptions emerge as a mediator in the relationship between the collective family efficacy and the openness of communications, suggestingthatitisnotonlytheactualimpactofsocialmediaonfamilysystemsthatmattersbutalso parents’ perceptions about it and how much they feel able to manage their and their children’s social media use without damaging their family relationships. Thus, the need to foster parents’ positive perceptions about social media’s potential impact on their family relationships emerges. A strategy could be the promotion of knowledge on how to functionally use social media

Migration and situated contexts: natives and Maghrebian habitants of San Marcellino (South Italy)

Literatures on ethnic identity and acculturation strategies - integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization (Berry,1997) - have shown how host populations perceive migrants and that migrant populations may be viewed very differently by the majority group or the larger society. We could understand the complex interaction between individual factors, the individual’s belonging to a group, the intragroup and intergroup dynamics, while bearing in mind that at the same time the dimensions we have mentioned interact reciprocally within the group and with external groups. For this reason, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with inhabitants – natives and Maghrebian – in an area in the territory surrounding Naples where there is a Mosque and which has a high density of various kinds of migrants. This self-descriptive tool of the interview aims at collecting information ranging from a description of oneself to a description of others and of the context. With relation to the aforementioned objectives, the participants were selected on the basis of a theoretical sampling: natives and Maghrebian migrants with various characteristics and social roles, with and without reciprocal contacts. The interviews and the textual materials gathered were audio-recorded. They were transcribed and underwent qualitative analysis by means of the methodology of grounded theory. This is a “substantive theory”, which is derived via an inductive method from the study of a phenomenon, an explanation, an interpretation of a specific phenomenon which is particular because it is built by means of a theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). This study thus intends to identify classification systems which support the representation of the self and of others in terms of belonging or extraneousness in relation to contexts which imply various levels of sharing, participation and trust in order to promote forms of interconnection and planning involving the different cultures simultaneously present in a given territorial community. In this regard, recognising the reciprocal classifications enables us to investigate the elements which are supposed to be the basis of processes of integration

Migration and situated contexts: natives and Maghrebian habitants of San Marcellino (South Italy)

Literatures on ethnic identity and acculturation strategies - integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization (Berry,1997) - have shown how host populations perceive migrants and that migrant populations may be viewed very differently by the majority group or the larger society. We could understand the complex interaction between individual factors, the individual’s belonging to a group, the intragroup and intergroup dynamics, while bearing in mind that at the same time the dimensions we have mentioned interact reciprocally within the group and with external groups. For this reason, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with inhabitants – natives and Maghrebian – in an area in the territory surrounding Naples where there is a Mosque and which has a high density of various kinds of migrants. This self-descriptive tool of the interview aims at collecting information ranging from a description of oneself to a description of others and of the context. With relation to the aforementioned objectives, the participants were selected on the basis of a theoretical sampling: natives and Maghrebian migrants with various characteristics and social roles, with and without reciprocal contacts. The interviews and the textual materials gathered were audio-recorded. They were transcribed and underwent qualitative analysis by means of the methodology of grounded theory. This is a “substantive theory”, which is derived via an inductive method from the study of a phenomenon, an explanation, an interpretation of a specific phenomenon which is particular because it is built by means of a theory (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). This study thus intends to identify classification systems which support the representation of the self and of others in terms of belonging or extraneousness in relation to contexts which imply various levels of sharing, participation and trust in order to promote forms of interconnection and planning involving the different cultures simultaneously present in a given territorial community. In this regard, recognising the reciprocal classifications enables us to investigate the elements which are supposed to be the basis of processes of integration

Valorizing Community Identity and Social Places to Implement Participatory Processes in San Giovanni a Teduccio (Naples, Italy)

This paper addresses the implementation of an intervention aimed at promoting participatory processes in San Giovanni a Teduccio—a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Naples—to foster the acknowledgment and valorization of local social, cultural, and identity resources by citizens. Former industrial and marine area, today disused and run-down industrial establishments in the neighborhood and obscure and pollute the sea, weakening local identity and cultural heritages. Interviews were carried out to address citizens’ and stakeholders’ social identity, their civic and social engagement in the community, and the potential and critical issues they identified in it. A split community emerged from their words, with a minority civically and socially engaged in the regeneration of community places and relationships—even though through a fragmented multiplicity of projects—and a “dormant” majority, passive and anesthetized by the nostalgia of the industrial and marine past. Participants were also asked to share pictures about meaningful community places; these showed abandoned and run-down urban spaces, but also places where citizens could meet, share, and identify. An exhibition was organized to share these materials with the broader community, opening up a space for thinking about the need to involve citizens in acknowledging and valorizing local cultural, social, and identity resources through participatory processes

Protective and risk social dimensions of emergency remote teaching during COVID-19 pandemic: A multiple mediation study

The changes in teaching due to COVID-19-related restraints generated distress among teachers, putting their job-related efficacy and satisfaction at risk. This study deepens the community-related protective and risk factors in teachers' experience. An online questionnaire detecting social distancing burnout, job-related distress experience, efficacy and satisfaction, and Sense of Community (SoC) was administered to 307 Italian teachers. A multiple mediation model was tested with Structural Equation Modeling. Evidence showed that social distancing burnout could increase teachers' distress rates and, through them, impact their job-related efficacy and satisfaction; however, its effects on the latter depended on the kind of distress mediating. Conversely, SoC could support their job-related efficacy and satisfaction, yet no association with their distress rates emerged. The role of social distancing and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)-related distress as the main threats for teachers stems, along with the one of job distress and the community of belonging as assets on which teachers relied

Groups participation and action in a local context

This work pertains to the research about young participation to community life. According to preview literature, participation is been often defined as collective action, whose purpose is to improve social status, power and influence of a whole group, rather than few people (Tajfel & Turner, 1978). Participation is very close to the concept of empowerment, being its determinant but also its effect. Participation often brings about an increase of psychological empowerment, because people become trustful to have a collective influence (Zimmermann, 1990). Thanks to organizations, those are intermediate facilities among citizens and institutions; it's possible to gain role patterns and skill to influence social environment, those are impossible to gain by oneself. Besides participation promotes the awareness of interdependence among individuals, that encourages a virtuose circle of belonging to more inclusive groups. So the collective choice should be strengthened, as long as wider and superordinate collectivities come to replace the preview ones. One of the expressions of participation is emotional climate that concerns the relationship inside a group, and between the in-group and the out-group. Emotional climate is defined as the foremost emotional state that is quite steady during the time, and characterizes a social context, relating to underneath political and social functioning (de Rivera, 1992). Emotional climate, according to participants' tale, provides us an idea of the type of group, and the type of identification. Instead the emotional climates in the meetings with other groups, the trustful relationships, give us information about inclusiveness of the groups, and their flexible boundaries. In an unsafely climate, where distrust in the other individuals is widespread, a competitive attitude is more likely than a cooperative one, preventing a supportive interdependence. The civic and political organizations, even though they are unofficial, deserve to provide citizens with a useful way to overcome individualistic logic and to strive for collectivism. They allow them to cope with individual costs thanks to identification's experience, in both cognitive and emotional dimension. While chances to socialize with a group increase, the identification is promoted, so that the individual benefit becomes more and more similar to a collective, and the own ideals to the group (De Cremer et al., 2008). The social change becomes a principal objective, an ideal more and more internalized by active members of the group. On the other side, to be involved in group activities, even though the group has officially political and social objectives, doesn't mean necessarily to be included in an wider community, and doesn't entail a representation of an own group as a flowing and opened system. The paradoxal effects of participation are noticed as disempowerment (Rich et al., 1995), the suppression of minorities, inconsistent and undemocratic decisions making process, and the increase of chaos and conflicts. These effects are partially determined by in-group bias, those are well-known by the social psychology.The aim of this research was the exploration of reciprocal dynamics among local context, in an Italian city (Naples). In these dynamics, we include participation climate and individual empowerment in young people who are involved in different social groups. In particular, the aim was to explore the relationship between participants and groups, and how they promote their collective action in that community. For this purpose we considered the experiences in the group, the skills developed and their use in the local community. The participants were 45 young people with an average age of 23.30 years (range 18- 25 years). They live in Naples and in its surrounding province. 70% are university students and 30% of them are workers, 50% women and the remaining men. We used a type of theoretical sampling, or step by step sampling (Morse, 2003). The participants are members of formal groups: 13 of sport, 12 of cultural, 10 of religious and 10 of political groups. These groups have a mission to promote changes in their social context and cultural society, in fact they are involved to set up relationships of mutual collaboration in their community. The instrument used for data collection was the semi-structured interview about these subjects: group’s representation, sense of belonging, group emotional climate, relations with the local community. The interviews were audio recorded, with the consent of the participants. Each interview has an average duration of approximately one hour. We used Grounded theory methodology to analyze the interviews to explain some aspects of the phenomenal. We are supported by the software Atlas.ti, that helped us to organize dat

Participatory visual methods in the ‘Psychology loves Porta Capuana’ project

This article describes the use of participatory visual and multimedia methods as part of a participatory action research carried out in a highly degraded urban area of a metropolis. The project was developed by the ‘I love Portacapuana’ committee in collaboration with community psychology lab and 180 undergraduate psychology students of the University of Naples Federico II. The joint use of visual tools such as photographs and videos with Internet-based collaborative work groups – through social networks such as Facebook – has proved effective in interpreting the needs of local citizens. This process has also involved a thorough analysis in terms of strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats in the local context. Indeed, the integration of visual tools into the broader framework of community diagnosis has fostered an interactive dialogue between the local community, researchers and local authorities. This, in turn, has lead to the outlining of a series of intervention strategies for local urban regeneration

Helpless Mothers Dropping Out of the Workplace: The Italian Case of Voluntary Resignation

In the Italian social context difficulties in remaining in the labor market characterizes working mothers, leading them sometimes to resign from their jobs. The aim of this research is to explore narratives of those women dropping out of the workforce during pregnancy and soon after childbirth and their experiences in these circumstances. The study analysed 30 interviews with working mothers with an average age of 35.4 years, living in Naples, Italy, who “spontaneously” left their jobs. Grounded Theory Methodology allowed a deeper understanding of these women’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The content of the interviews was categorized into 4 macro-areas: (1) The role of the family and of the working contexts, (2) Mothering and caregiving (3) Identity conflicts, and (4) The consequences of resignation. A sense of helplessness towards fulfilling maternal expectations, role assignments, and employers’ requests ultimately led to the individuals’ response to the requirements of motherhood. The narratives highlighted how respondents feel powerless and oppressed by the burden of guilt and feelings of ambivalence towards both work and motherhood and how all these subjective feelings were supported and had been induced by external social factors (discriminatory business strategies, organizational time management, lack of support services, familial cultural models idealizing maternity)

Healthcare Professionals’ Perceptions and Concerns towards Domestic Violence during Pregnancy in Southern Italy

Background: Literature on pregnancy highlighted a large number of women abused by their partners, especially among low-income teenagers attending hospital for pregnancy check-ups. Pregnancy represents a key moment for diagnosing domestic violence. Method: This study explores health professionals’ perceptions and concerns about domestic violence against women in services dealing with pregnant women. The twenty-four interviewees were from an Obstetrical-Gynecological walk-in Clinic in the south of Italy. The textual data has been complementarily analyzed by means of two dierent procedures: Symbolic-structural semiotic analysis and Thematic content analysis. Results: What emerges is that the interviewees of the clinic do not regard the issue of domestic violence as a matter of direct interest for the health service. The clinic is seen as a place for urgent contact, but one where there is not enough time to dedicate to this kind of patient, nor an adequate space to care for and listen to them. Obstetricians and health personnel expressed a negative attitude when it comes to including questions regarding violence and abuse in pre-natal reports. Training for health and social professionals and the empowering of institutional support and networking practices are needed to increase awareness of the phenomenon among the gynecological personnel

Ending Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and Locating Men at Stake: An Ecological Approach

Interventions for ending intimate partner violence (IPV) have not usually provided integrated approaches. Legal and social policies have the duty to protect, assist and empower women and to bring offenders to justice. Men have mainly been considered in their role as perpetrators to be subjected to judicial measures, while child witnesses of violence have not been viewed as a direct target for services. Currently, there is a need for an integrated and holistic theoretical and operational model to understand IPV as gender-based violence and to intervene with the goal of ending the fragmentation of existing measures. The EU project ViDaCS—Violent Dads in Child Shoes—which worked towards the deconstruction and reconstruction of violence’s effects on child witnesses, has given us the opportunity to collect the opinions of social workers and child witnesses regarding violence. Therefore, the article describes measures to deal with IPV, proposing functional connections among different services and specific preventative initiatives. Subsequently, this study will examine intimate partner violence and provide special consideration to interventions at the individual, relational, organizational and community levels. The final goal will be to present a short set of guidelines that take into account the four levels considered by operationalizing the aforementioned ecological principles