Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article relates the legacy of the Critical Theory, particularly that of Theodor Adorno, the problem of education for emancipation and not for barbarity or blind integration to society, and the education and training of health service workers, especially mid-level technical education, so as not to merely reproduce capitalism and its forms of injustice.

This report deals with the experience of the Technical School of Health of Tocantins in the educational process of technical training of community health agents. It presents how these agents were trained to work with the multidisciplinary health care team in a critical, reflective, and ethical reality changing professional approach. The report also highlights the development of actions of social integration, health promotion and the prevention of disorders in the family and community. Technical training of community health agents includes three modules, with a total workload of 1,200 hours. In the first module issues such as background, approach and design of the professional profile of the agent were contemplated; in the second, health promotion and disease prevention targeted at specific groups and prevalent diseases, and in the third, the promotion, prevention and monitoring of situations of Health Surveillance. The Technical School of Health of Tocantins opted for the decentralization of classrooms (69 classes) in 18 training poles, meeting the demand of the 139 municipalities in the state, facilitating the participation of 2,219 students/civil servants who have completed the entire training curriculum.

In the intersection between health, education and the control and prevention of infectious and parasitic diseases, ergodesign concepts and practices are considered fundamental elements in the generation of interfaces for learning materials in health, reflecting the relationship between user, tasks and environments. The authors conducted CD-ROM assessments based on ergodesign principles, with the aim of contributing to the access and dissemination of information relating to health and assisting in interactive learning for mid- and high-level health professionals. 21 digital materials about the two diseases, from national and international institutions, were surveyed. The materials were assessed through a checklist called the ergolist. It was found that the evaluated materials did not fully meet the evaluation criteria. The evaluation and production of information and communication technologies, such as educational and interactive CD-ROMs, based on ergodesign principles, can be a facilitating instrument in the dissemination of information and shrinking of frontiers between education and health.

This work aims to provide spaces for the training and education of teachers, adding the practices they developed to the school's political- pedagogical plan and to the views of the various forms and levels of possible curricular integration. The authors researched inter/multi/pluri/transdisciplinarity and the manner in which it could be achieved in the educational reality of a technical school.

In this paper, I argue that policies to promote quality of life at work currently adopted by enterprises can serve as a stopgap measure to relieve symptoms caused by the intensification of work, but failed to address the structural causes of the problems faced by workers. I reinforce this idea by arguing that the need to "humanize" work has a tradition of managerial concern. I demonstrate by reaffirming polysemy, the non-materiality and the relativity of the concept of 'quality of work life', that the latter is a management fad that has different meanings in managers and workers representations and that work currently does not provide conditions for workers to carry out the process of biopsychosocial adaptation necessary to guarantee life. I support the adoption of the concept of 'living conditions' because it refers to workers' control over working relations and working conditions as a possibility, which requires the understanding of the process of work knowledge production as socially constructed and shared representations.

With this article, we intend to discuss the text written by Padilha, a basis for debate on this issue of the magazine, and embrace the challenge of discussing some of the issues that emerge from the referred article. In this same movement we took the opportunity to point out some of our positions on the issue. We began by prioritizing the urgent need for a critical and affirmative perspective of the power of life in relation to the very frequent and powerful impediments and constraints (such as the process of turning the work in progress precarious), the subject of our second topic. To conclude the discussion, we briefly focus on the process of emergence of the issue of 'Quality of Life' and then the so-called 'Quality of Work Life' (QWL), and finally discussing what it is.

Hugh Lacey is Scheuer Family Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and Senior Research at the Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania, U.S.A.), where he taught forthirty years, and researcher collaborator in the thematic project: "Gênese e significado da tecnociência: relações entre ciência, tecnologia e sociedade", USP/FAPESP. Between 1969 and 1971 he was a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of the University of São Paulo and ever since he has developed an intense interaction with Bra-zilian Universities and Research Institutes, with many others visits. Some of his main research interests are: the interplay between facts and values, the relevance of the development of alternatives to technoscientific practices (e.g., agroecology), the precautionary principle and transgenics. To end this brief presentation, it is important to mention Professor Lacey’s numerous publications, some of which listed at the end of the interview, as well as some publications on his work made by Brazilian Researchers. A more complete list of this books and articles can be found on the web page of Associação Filosófica Scientiae Studia, <www.scientiaestudia.org.br>.

This study concerns the profile and activities carried out by nurses in the Psychosocial Care Centers (Caps). It is a qualitative study of the descriptive type. The research instrument used was the structured interview, conducted with 13 nurses of Caps I and II, belonging to the area covered by the Third Regional Health District of Rio Grande do Sul (3ª CRS/RS). From the interviews, information was obtained about the clientele of the Caps, the team's composition, and the activities the nurses carried out in the Caps. The nurses listed their activities in the routine of the Caps, and they were examined in reference to psychosocial rehabilitation within the psychiatric reform.

This article discusses the communication and work binomial from the perspective of ergology, that is, of human activity. It presents a brief retrospective of communication theories, analyzing the limited view of communication processes by hegemonic theoretical currents, and discusses concepts of communication and work, proposing a research approach that will allow better understanding of this binomial.

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