RICERCA ITALIANA     

The active human being as social capital. Research, intervention and formation for the development of individual and social competences

Università degli Studi di Torino

Abstract

The programme, starting from a prospective that conjugates objective and subjective data, psycho-social processes with the dynamics and characteristics of the context, proposes a multiplicity of purposes: 1) theoretical; 2) methodological; 3)"applicative".
1) As regards the theoretical objectives it is necessary to identify concepts widely used in the field of a prospective that has references in community psychology, environmental psychology as well as in a epidemiologic prospective. We refer to concepts such as social capital, personal competence, community competence, participation, social ties, individual and social empowerment. Some of these concepts as is well known refer to a "macro" prospective, aimed at studying social processes that characterise the contemporary urban contexts; the intention is that, starting from certain considerations raised by reference literature, of showing up some of the conceptual limits (that even the reference authors themselves raised), integrating an explanation of "macro" processes, with a reflection that links, as aforesaid, contextual data to that psycho-social.
The search for "strong" theoretical framework that lay down a base for solid "theory of practice" is still a present-day debate. A reflection that contributes to the broadening of the theoretic debate is one of the aims that the synergy among the five Units here involved proposes.
2) This theoretical reflection will be "translated" into indicators for the >>>

Principal Investigator

Norma DE PICCOLI Università degli Studi di TORINO

Research Objectives

Prevention interventions and the promotion of well-being have, in Italy, over the last few years become more and more frequent (also thanks to some laws that have made this possible). Interventions that are organised in most cases in routine life, for example at school, the village/town, neighbourhood, the city; it is important to understand in what way the setting influences the people who take part, as in the same way how these, in their turn, influence their contexts. Knowledge of the territory and contexts of life, the problems and existing resources, become necessary and indispensable in order to choose projects and activities to put into act. It is likewise fundamental, from this point of view, that the different operators and services that work in the same fields and territories, communicate with each other so as to reach the established objectives: this therefore means hypothesising training coherent to the reflection reported here. In addition the need to develop a "culture of evaluation" is making headway (even though in Italy it is not as easy as in other countries) this is because the necessity to evaluate change in the single person, and in the context in which they find themselves, produced by projects it is always more urgent. It is for this reason that it is necessary to refine conceptual instruments and methodologies in order to read and interpret the reality, not only limited to the single person, but that takes into consideration the different >>>

Timescale

24 months

National and international background

The study presented here has as its bases the lively debate between scholars who intend on contributing to the theoric and methodological development of community psychology. A discipline which is rather young and still in the consolidation phase, if compared to other psychological disciplines considered more solid from a scientific and theoric point of view. Today after about 40 years from the official birth of this discipline is it possible to affirm that it has its own conceptual and methodological identity? The answer is not of a unified voice, in fact if on one hand, we look at the theoric models and the proposed operational-methodologies that come from it, we will undoubtedly find concepts that characterise community psychology, such as empowerment, community development, social network, action- research, participation; on the other, its theoric-methodological set-up has meant elaboration in frontier areas that have not always been easily accessible, as asserted by Amerio (2000). Also Wolff who, in an article of 2000, retained that the place held by applied community psychology seems to be uncertain and as yet not well defined.
Levine and Perkins (1987) retained that community psychology is substantially "a way of thinking"; it would present itself, that is to say, not so much as a classically defined discipline, but as an ideology, a collection of values and attitudes "the attitude is of a commitment towards social change, ideology requires the adoption of a >>>