Personal Life Projects Research Articles

Misbehaviour on Retreat: Rule-Breaking and the Labours of the Self

Current scholarship tends to frame retreat-going, and the practices carried out therein, as emblematic of late-modern forms of self-work, understanding retreats as part of broader personal life projects of self-mastery and self-knowledge. For this article, I draw on empirical data to suggest that, although work on the self is typically the central concern for retreat-goers, they also question or outright reject the discipline of the retreat space by breaking its ‘rules’. Borrowing insights developed in the context of organisation studies, I describe two kinds of such ‘misbehaviour’ on retreat. First, I explore how retreat-goers misbehave in regards to the rules around intimacy, since sexual and erotic desire is usually discouraged but nonetheless features in retreat-goers’ experiences. Then, I explore examples of collective misbehaviour and suggest that retreat-goers often work together to ensure the retreat’s success by collaboratively breaking the rules through practices like gossip. This article contributes an understanding of how wellbeing practices might be usefully made sense of as social accomplishments, situated within the greater swathe of everyday life. But I also map out one way in which the concept of ‘misbehaviour’ might be applied to activities outside of the workplace.

GENIALES TIC, con orientación a las competencias blandas

Resumen 
 Este artículo describe los resultados de una investigación evaluativa mixta con énfasis en lo cualitativo, que tiene como objetivo general de investigación, analizar los efectos del Proyecto Educativo mediado por TIC, GENIALES-TIC, en el desarrollo de competencias blandas de directivos docentes y docentes de la Institución Educativa Técnica Agropecuaria de Sincerín (INETASIN)...
 Se analizan los efectos teniendo como base el modelo de Guskey, en relación con los objetivos específicos del proyecto. Tiene en cuenta la reacción de los participantes ante el Proyecto, los aprendizajes respecto al reconocimiento de talentos e inteligencias múltiples, el fortalecimiento del carácter y de la Inteligencia Emocional y la definición de sus proyectos de vida. También, se evalúan los efectos en la Institución Educativa, en el clima laboral, los cambios realizados en su Proyecto Educativo Institucional (PEI), en la aplicación de los nuevos aprendizajes en el aula de clases y en el aprendizaje y motivación de los estudiantes.
 El Programa fue evaluado como excelente por los directivos docentes y docentes con una calificación promedio de 4.86/5.00 y comentarios muy positivos que indican gran valoración del Programa.
 Con respecto a los aprendizajes, se puede destacar que evidencian más conocimientos, actitudes y comportamientos relacionados con las competencias trabajadas. Reportan mejoras en el clima institucional; han realizado ajustes al Proyecto Educativo Institucional PEI, para incorporar las competencias del Proyecto. Manifiestan la intención de focalizar más la atención en los talentos de los estudiantes y agregar una asignatura para trabajar las competencias blandas desde preescolar hasta secundaria.

Attachment and depression: The mediating roles of personal life projects and emotional intelligence

Attachment patterns between parent and child have been shown to make a great contribution to individuals’ well-being including positive mood and depressive symptoms. Even though the relationship between difficulties in parental attachment and depression has been well demonstrated, there is still a need for understanding the mediating factors of this relationship. In this regard, the aim of the present study was to examine the mediating effects of personal life projects as a narrative construct, and emotional intelligence on the relationship between attachment to parents and depression using structural equation modeling (SEM). For this purpose, 512 high school students (218 female, 294 male) with the mean age of 15.71 (SD = .97) were recruited. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire package including measurements of parental attachment, personal life projects, emotional intelligence, and depressive symptoms. Findings provided empirical support that personal life projects and emotional intelligence together fully mediate the relationship between attachment to parents and depression. Results further showed that attachment to parents contributes to personal life projects both directly and also through emotional intelligence. The implications of the findings for clinical work and the enhancement of well-being are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.

Two (Different) Types of Human Rights Duty.

In this paper I introduce a (new) distinction to human rights theory, between two types of genuine obligations corresponding to human rights: a) obligations that require us to rule out specific considerations for treating people in a certain way, such as the obligation not to consider Jane’s skin colour when deciding whether she should be permitted to enter a shop or the obligation not to take political expediency as a relevant consideration to whether political opponents should be silenced, and b) an obligation to give some weight to different interests, those interests people have in enjoying certain conditions and those of people who must carry burdens to create these conditions, when deciding what must be done for rights holders. For example, we must weigh the interest Jane has in seeing certain improved access to health care secured versus the interests of other members of Jane’s society in not facing significantly-increasing tax burdens, or seeing reduced social opportunities for their ends, as these will impact on their abilities to pursue their own personal life projects. Both types of interest matter, so to resolve how much health provision Jane is entitled to have we need to know how to weigh them against each other – we need an index. These different types of obligations, with their basis in different forms of reasoning, cut across categories of human rights and can both exist for any one human right. Accepting the distinction also means accepting that we must pay attention to how a human right is given content in the form of obligations. It also re-introduces conceptions of distributive justice as a necessary component in solving how conflicting interests should be weighed and providing an “index” for such weighing.

Gendered differences in international graduates’ mobility, identity and career development

ABSTRACTAlthough there is an abundance of research on international students’ experiences of adapting to a new learning and living environment in their receiving countries and at universities abroad, their post-study transitions have rarely been studied. This paper reports primary research on Asian international postgraduate students, following their graduation and return home and their considerations of how their study experience and feelings on return relate to their imagined future plans. In theoretical considerations of the role of the students’ mobility and their identity capital in the broader process of becoming and personal development, Côté’s identity capital model helps identify notable resource differences among international postgraduates. The analyses focus on how the postgraduates perceived the role of their educational mobility, what their experiences meant to them as well as their range of passive and active approaches to personal growth and life projects. The gender perspective seems to be particularly important in relation to post-study transitions, career development and trajectories. The discourse of return is related to becoming an adult, but this process is different for females and males. Male postgraduates seem to enjoy greater freedom in developing professional careers, whereas females more often face greater challenges to career development, curtailed by family pressures and social conventions.

Związki intymne jako autorskie projekty życia – próba konceptualizacji ponowoczesnych wzorców relacji

Kuryś-Szyncel Karolina, Jankowiak Barbara, Związki intymne jako autorskie projekty zycia - proba konceptualizacji ponowoczesnych wzorcow relacji (Intimate Relationships as Personal Life Projects - an Attempt to Conceptualize Post-modern Relationship Patterns). Studia Edukacyjne nr 37, 2015, Poznan 2015, pp. 257-273. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISBN 978-83-232-2967-4. ISSN 1233- 6688. DOI: 10.14746/se.2015.37.15 Today's reality requires an individual to respond creatively to the challenges of the changing world and a liquid reality. Nonconformism and individualism are socially promoted. Still, many people want to live in an intimate relationship with a person close to them. There are visible changes of the individual life and anticipations about intimate relationships. Modern studies describe a lot of alter- natives to the heterosexual marriage. The test results relating to the formal structure of compounds in the vast majority show no difference in the quality and durability of various forms of relation- ships. There is no in-depth analysis of the informal of relationship's structure. In this article, it was assumed that an intimate relationship is a kind of life project through which people struggle with post-modern social reality. Via intimate relationships, partners can enhance personal creative poten- tial and more creatively confront the events of life and face the challenges posed by developmental and life tasks. The theoretical analyses indicate the need to examine contemporary patterns of rela- tionships. Perhaps those patterns will provide adequate socialization patterns. It was assumed that the relationship pattern includes: characteristics of partners, characteristic of the features of the formal and informal structure.

Quando la Generazione Erasmus incontra la Generazione Precaria. La mobilità transnazionale dei giovani italiani e spagnoli

Uno dei più importanti risultati del processo di integrazione europea è la costruzione di uno spazio transnazionale in cui i cittadini europei possono muoversi liberamente. La mobilità favorisce dinamiche di europeizzazione dal basso –o di europeizzazione orizzontale–, e lo sviluppo di pratiche cross-nazionali e amplia le risorse individuali e relazionali a disposizione dei giovani per progettare i propri percorsi professionali e di vita. La Generazione Erasmus definisce giovani socializzati a un humus culturale transnazionale e fortemente identificati con l’Europa. Nell’attuale contesto di crisi economica, a sperimentare la mobilità sono sempre più i giovani altamente qualificati dei paesi dell’Europa del sud, quale strategia individuale cui ricorrere per trovare risposta ai problemi connessi alla precarietà, alla disoccupazione, alla sotto-qualificazione degli impieghi. Il risultato è che la mobilità può assumere il volto di un obbligo, più che di una scelta e, più che dinamiche di europeizzazione orizzontale, può favorire una “fuga dei cervelli” dai paesi del sud ai paesi del centro e del nord Europa. L’articolo, focalizzandosi sui giovani italiani e spagnoli, si chiede cosa succede quando la Generazione Erasmus incontra la Generazione Precaria, analizzando cause ed effetti della mobilità, sul piano micro e macro sociale e sul piano politico.

Didáctica pertinente en educación superior: un ejercicio desde la teoría de la complejidad en la profesión de trabajo social

The requirements of our globalized world and the advancement of the teaching science show didactics as a fundamental category defined as the scientific discipline with principles, laws, theoretical and methodological frameworks, creatively modeling the pedagogical intervention in the academic environment. The implementation of the research Teaching focused on the development of superior thinking and meaningful learning in students of first semester of Social Work Program, set the goal: Qualify the personal life and student projects from the acknowledgement of potentials of the subjects, for the development of competences meaningful to life. This is a research experience that has been developed since 2009 at Simon Bolivar University in the District of Barranquilla. The didactics was based on the development of superior thinking cognitive-process-centered, for the processing of information, creativity, readings of the reality of contexts, expounded/voiced subjectivities of life projects of students, the incorporation of TIC, in order to approach a humanizing and contextualized pedagogical practice. The critical theory was used in this research as a part of its epistemological basis for understanding and building a new academic scenario. The methodology used is the action with techniques such as mind mapping, dialogues, and stories of life, field works, and contents analysis, among others. The data analysis was guided by the hermeneutics as a possibility for the understanding and interpretation of the events that occurred in the classroom.

FASE DE DESINVESTIMENTO DA CARREIRA DOCENTE DE PROFESSORES DE EDUCAÇÃO FÍSICA

O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a fase de desinvestimento profissional de professores de Educação Física. Neste estudo de casos de histórias de vida participaram quatro professores de Educação Física, com mais de vinte e cinco anos de intervenção profissional no magistério público estadual de Florianópolis. Na coleta de dados foram utilizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas, as quais foram analisadas por meio da técnica de análise de conteúdo. As evidências encontradas retratam o desinvestimento amargo pautado pelo descaso governamental, sendo que o desinvestimento sereno é retratado pelo período de afastamento da docência, o qual os docentes poderão investir em seus projetos pessoais.

Burnout syndrome among internship medical students

Burnout syndrome among internship medicalstudentsAna T R de Abreu Santos, Suely Grosseman, Edme´aF de Oliva Costa & Tarci´sio M de AndradeContext and setting During our experience of15 years teaching a paediatrics internship in a publicfederal university in Brazil, we have recognised insome of our medical students the presence of psycho-emotional conflicts concerning the educationalmodel and interpersonal relationships within medicalschool. These conflicts seem to influence the healthof future professionals, the quality of theirrelationships and the care they deliver to patients.Although ours is the first medical school to have beenestablished in Brazil, it does not have in place asystematic service to promote and care for the mentalhealth of undergraduates. The provision of such aservice is especially important in view of thecurriculum reform taking place in line with theNational Curriculum for Medical EducationGuidelines defined by the Ministry of Education andthe subsequent inclusion of a more humanisticapproach.Why the idea was necessary Systematic research wasundertaken to enable us to better understand themental health needs of students. During the study, wehad the opportunity to work more closely with ourschool’s board of directors. This has strengthened thepossibility of developing a project to establish aprogramme of institutional support for the mentalhealth of medical students, focusing onthe promotion and support of mental health,the prevention of possible illness occurrence in thecourse of a future career, and eventually resulting inthe provision of more effective care to the population.What was done With the approval of our institution’sethics committee, a survey was conducted duringJanuary–December 2010 to assess the incidence ofsymptoms of burnout syndrome (BS) and associatedfactors among interns at medical school (n = 303).We used qualitative and quantitative methods. Twofocus groups were conducted with 18 students andtwo questionnaires (a specific questionnaire [SQ] andthe Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey[MBI-SS]) were administered to and returned by234 subjects (77.2%). Results were subsequentlyanalysed.Evaluation of results and impact The MBI-SS showedhigh scores on emotional exhaustion (63.2%) andcynicism (53.8%), as well as low professionaleffectiveness (50.9%). The prevalence of BS was14.5%. Characteristics of students likely to sufferBS included: being a fifth-year intern; being single;being male; being childless; living with parents; nothaving one’s own income; desiring to leave college;having a good academic record; considering oneselfas insufficiently skilled to be a doctor, and nothaving developed mental illness before or duringmedical training. These results are in agreement withthe contents of the focus groups, in which issues thatarose included: the participants’ medical training(e.g. the high requirements of the course, thedifficult path to academic qualification, insecurityabout having skills sufficient to practise medicine,interpersonal relationship difficulties, the need topostpone personal life projects); psycho-emotionalsuffering related to the physical and mental health ofinterns (e.g. physical illness, changes in behaviour),and feelings of extenuation, anguish, injustice, stressand frustration. These findings may contribute tothe development of BS in this population. Based onthe initial report of these findings to the board ofdirectors, a decision was made to build an effectivepartnership with the medical school to put in placean institutional support unit for medical students.In the future, further studies will be carried out tosupport the comparison of findings on equivalentparameters after the implementation of the unit.

Antiretroviral therapy and reproductive life projects: Mitigating the stigma of AIDS in Nigeria

As millions of people infected with HIV in Africa are increasingly able to live longer and healthier lives because of access to antiretroviral therapy, concerns have emerged that people might eschew protective practices after their health improves. Extending beyond the notion of sexual "disinhibition," researchers have begun to analyze the sexual behavior of people in treatment through the perspective of their marital and childbearing aspirations. This article explores the reproductive life projects of HIV-positive men and women in southeastern Nigeria, showing how actions that contradict medical advice are understandable in the context of patients' socially normative desires for marriage and children. Based on in-depth interviews and observations (June-December 2004; June-July 2006; June-July 2007) of people enrolled in the region's oldest treatment program, we argue that broadly held social expectations with regard to reproduction are experienced even more acutely by HIV-positive people. This is because in Nigeria the stigma associated with AIDS is closely tied to widespread perceptions of social and moral crisis, such that AIDS itself is seen as both a cause and a symptom of anxiety-producing forms of social change. Specifically, in an era of rapid societal transformation, Nigerians see sexual promiscuity and the alienation of young people from traditional obligations to kin and community as indicative of threatened social reproduction. For people who are HIV-positive, marrying and having children offer not only the opportunity to lead normal lives, but also a means to mitigate the stigma associated with the disease. Four ethnographic case studies are provided to exemplify how and why social and personal life projects can trump or complicate medical and public health priorities. These examples suggest that treatment programs must openly address and proactively support the life projects of people on antiretroviral therapy if the full benefits of expanded access to treatment are to be realized.

(Handicapped) Caregiver: the social representations of family members about the caregiving process

This study aimed to analyze what looking after physically disabled persons with spinal cord injury by trauma means to their caregivers and family members. The analysis of the testimony of eight caregivers, obtained in open interviews, which was methodologically based on the Social Representations Theory (SR), pointed out two main routes: coping with the suffering process in care practice and the troubled waters that permeate this suffering process. These two routes, characterized as SR Central Core and Peripheral System, respectively, consisted of themes like the way of looking at impairment, affectivity, religiosity, social-economical changes and (lack of) technical and institutional support. The results show a handicapped caregiver dedicated to look after someone who is physically disabled, considered incapacitated, and who leads his or her chores with distress and privations, based on guilt and religiosity, supported by ambiguous affection and affected by deteriorating social-economical changes and (lack of) technical and institutional support to practice an activity that implies so many peculiarities. The transformation alternatives of these caregivers' daily life principally lead to a symbiosis of disability with the patient - to live for the physically disabled - or yet, for a few, a sketch to restart personal life projects - to live with the physically disabled.

Beyond Resources and Patriarchy: Marital Construction of Family Decision-Making Power in Post-Mao Urban China

This paper takes as its starting point recent claims by Beck-Gernsheim (2002) that we are living in an era of “post-familial families.” Beck-Gemsheim (2002) argues that our lives are no longer structured as they once were by tradition, class, religion and kin. Instead the family has become a transitional phase as individuals strive for fulfillment of personal goals and personal life projects. The demographic evidence to support these claims is clearly evident in relation to changing patterns of family formation and dissolution, as well as the movement of married women into paid employment. But what is less evident is a decline in traditional patterns of gender stratification within families. This paper uses recent national data from Australia to examine the relationship between post-familial status, as indicated by marital status and employment, and time spent on housework. The results show that gender is still a clear predictor of time spent on housework, but that within gender there is evidence that gender inequality may be declining in non-traditional households.

Moral Failure and Agent-Relative Prerogatives

When do one's own personal life's projects (a nice, expensive meal for two in a French restaurant) override one's duties to assist others in immediate need (persons whose per capita annual income is less than that single meal)? Dale Dorsey examines arguments that claim personal projects can override duties to assist, but finds them lacking. For example, he rejects the widely held view that one's duties to assist others to meet minimally decent standards of living are overridden when threat of failure of one's own projects is of comparable value to the losses of others to be assisted. Dorsey crunches numbers and compares luxuries to needs and maintains that duties to assist those very much worse off than one's self are never overridden, when those to be assisted are living at levels below minimally decent standards.