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

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The article provides some insights regarding the challenges involved in approaching male adolescents who have dropped out of school, from the perspective of health, considering that for decades they have been ignored as a focus of attention. It is relevant to understand their own dynamics in order to develop effective promotion and prevention strategies. A relational descriptive-analytical design was chosen, using a qualitative approach, with an intentional sample of 41 male adolescents. A semistructured interview with focused thematic areas was designed and the Grounded Theory model was used to gather and analyze the data. The results contribute to an understanding of the way a group of male dolescents view health, constructing a comprehensive general model based on their split health experience.

The purpose of this article is to identify and describe some of the variables that are considered as essential in order to promote an effective alliance between family and school. These variables were considered in the development of an educational program that includes a video and a set of activities designed to be used with parents in the school context. The different contents of the program were elaborated in such a way so as to expand parent's perspective with respect to their rol in their children's education, as well as to question and enrich their integration to the school system. Within this context, the educational program is oriented to increase parental competences so as to establish a more effective alliance with the school system which in turn, will have a positive effect in social, emotional and cognitive development of the child.

The aim of this study is to determine the changes in childrens self-perception, produced during a period of ten years, in relation to their culturally assigned roles. The study analyses the differences in the levels of self-worth of boys and girls from high, medium, and low socioeconomic levels in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th year of elementary school (General Basic Education, GBE) in the Metropolitan area of Santiago of Chile, observed between the years 1992 and 2003. In both evaluations the same measurements of self esteem and the same variables of stratification were utilized. The results conclude that a reversal of the results obtained in 1992 has been produced, in the sense that today the girls supersede the boys in their general levels of self-esteem as well as in various scales separately considered. Additionally, the possibility is discussed that socio-cultural changes produced during the 10 year period might have had an impact on the self-perception of the societys expectation of gender roles.

This research evaluated both the existence of pre-teenager gender differences under emotional problems and the existence of a differential vulnerability in girls showing these symptoms in an adverse family environment. A sample of 133 boys and girls, aged 11 to 13, was randomly selected from high social risk schools from Concepción, Chile. The emotional disorders were evaluated by means of surveys to the mother (Child Behavior Checklist, CBCL) and to the teacher (Teacher Report Forms, TRF) and also taking into account three self-report instruments (Youth Self Report, YRS; Cuestionario de Depresión Infantil, CDI; Cuestionario de Ansiedad-Rasgo, STAIC/R). Family adversity indicators presence was evaluated by means of a World Health Organization semi-structured interview to the mother. When considering self report, it was observed that girls report experiencing more emotional distress and depressive symptomatology than boys. Besides, girls who live in an adverse family environment significantly increase internalized behavior manifestations compared to boys under similar conditions. This indicates the existence of more vulnerability in girls to show emotional symptomatology in a negative family environment.

This paper presents the results of a pilot experience in which the effects of story-book reading in the production of narrative discourse were analyzed. A group of five year old children from low-income families from the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, took part in an intervention program in which a trained teacher daily read stories and interacted with the children about them. Results showed that at the end of the school year children had improved their narrative abilities and were able to produce stories in which they included the categories of the story structure, organized the information in episodic goal related structure and in a coherent sequence of episodes as in the most complex narrative forms.

The question about school violence continues increasing the worries of community members and researchers, since its establishment as a disciplinary problem three decades ago. However, a great part of the research in the area has focused in the statistical incidence of the phenomenon and the factors that determine it, leaving aside in a large part of them, the actors own representations. The present article seeks to respond to the query for the sense of the school violence, extracted from a qualitative study, which analyzed the speech and representations of Chilean high school students, considered aggressive and problematic by their educational institutions.

This article reports on a quantitative study which pretends to characterize, on their general and specific academic abilities in language and writing, logics and mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences, a population of 810 students perceived as academically talented by their teachers and nominated to be integrated to the first stage of PENTA-UC Program, and to establish some relations between contextual factors and the characterization made by teachers. Subjects belong to public schools from La Florida and Puente Alto. Out of them, 169 were finally appointed to PENTA-UC. Comparison of the two groups (169 vs. 641) shows they are similar in all evaluated dimensions except in the specific ability in logics and mathematics.

This studys general objective was to know and identify the strategies that school teachers (6º, 7º and 8º grade) implement to control child bullying. The schools chosen were two. They belong to Santiago Centres Commune. A qualitative method was used, with the grounded theorys approach. Thirty-four (34) participants comprised the sample. Data were obtained using focus groups and individual interviews. The most important results made possible to describe and to identify that decision-making strategies with educational characteristics have a direct incidence in the generation of positive and constructive school climates.