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Il saggio presenta da un punto di vista culturalista e reticolare, I Distretti famiglia istituiti dalla Provincia Autonoma di Trento nel 2009. Intende analizzare, mediante analisi qualitative e di rete, come determinate forme di governance territoriale siano emerse da un programma di policy progettato da un PA centrale. Le analisi mostrano che la governance tende a prendere due forme: quella della intermediazione – che emerge dove la PA intermedia tra attori che non hanno foerti relazioni recipriche – e quella della mediazione dove gli attori sono più interrelati e la Pa diventa un nodo con un ruolo simile ispetto agli altri nodi .

The influence of the European Commission (EC) expert groups on policy coordination within the European Union has received a growing interest among researchers, who have assessed their role in polic...

L’autore presenta un’analisi di carattere teorico e metodologico delle semantiche fondamentali della relazione sociale. Dopo aver mostrato la definizione che delle semantiche fondamentali della relazione sociale fornisce la sociologia relazionale di Pierpaolo Donati, l’autore propone una strategia per la loro analisi empirica, attraverso la social network analysis, e ipotizza che lo studio delle semantiche fondamentali della relazione sociale contribuisca alla conoscenza della societa in modo equivalente rispetto all’utilizzo delle dimensioni analitiche della relazione sociale, che e possibile identificare attraverso lo schema AGIL, rivisto in chiave relazionale. L’ipotesi di ricerca e stata parzialmente corroborata - le dimensioni analitiche risultano leggermente piu efficaci - a partire dall’analisi della relazione tra i concetti di reticolo di supporto sociale e di civicness, svolta grazie ai dati raccolti nel corso di un’indagine su un campione di individui residenti in Italia.

La connaissance de ce qui est « social » ne peut pas prendre sa forme a partir des seules actions individuelles ou des systemes sociaux. Il convient donc de reflechir a un paradigme de recherche qui fonde son analyse sur les relations et les reseaux sociaux et sur la facon dont ces derniers sont integres dans l’experience des sujets. La sociologie pourrait ainsi mieux soutenir les politiques d’intervention sociale, en fournissant une connaissance relationnelle des contextes sociaux qu’elles visent a modifier. Le present article developpe une reflexion sur l’interactionnisme structural en tant que cadre epistemologique pour envisager une integration de l’analyse des reseaux sociaux et de l’entretien narratif destinee a l’etude des cas dans le domaine du travail social. Cette integration a ete exploree en s’appuyant sur des donnees empiriques. Le discours est en particulier focalise sur les potentialites de cette integration en tant que dispositif methodologique permettant de saisir le positionnement actif de l’usager dans l’ensemble de ses ressources relationnelles, formelles et informelles.

According to John Rawls, maximin, which requires that the economic situation of the most underprivileged should be maximized, is one of the fundamental principles of social justice. Based on three scenarios which attempt to place respondents behind a “veil of ignorance”, a French survey (PISJ, 2009) and an Italian survey (OSCF, 2016) conducted on representative quota-based samples show that support for this principle considerably outweighs support for strong equality and the maximization of total or average wealth. In addition, this choice transcends many sociodemographic or ideological divisions. The respondents were, however, much more undecided about which is more just: a society in which the poorest members are more numerous but richer or a society in which the poorest members are fewer in number but poorer. The robustness of the findings is confirmed by the similarity between the results from France and Italy.

This article presents some of the most relevant concepts in the different relational sociologies proposed, respectively, by Nick Crossley and Pierpaolo Donati, with the aim of finding similarities and differences between the two paradigms. The article shows that the two relational paradigms are quite different. The relational sociology theorized by Crossley inscribes the social reality within an "interaction frame of reference", whereas the relational sociology proposed by Donati suggests a "relational frame of reference". At the methodological level, however, both paradigms allow to study properly the social networks. Although starting from different epistemological perspectives, the two relational sociologies tend to analyze the social reality as a network structure of relations, promoting the use of social network analysis.

The central topic of this paper is the role of the elementary school in the process of integration of the children of immigrants. The paper presents: a) the sociological approach through which A. Wimmer has profoundly changed the debate on integration; b) the main results of some empirical studies that have attempted to measure the ability of integration of the elementary school using the network analysis’ approach; c) the methodology of our empirical research, which was aimed to investigate some of the characteristics of ties experienced in and out the class by the students attending the class V of the elementary schools of the Province of Trento, in classes composed for 25% or more of students with non-Italian citizenship; d) the main findings of the survey and some conclusions that confirm the validity of the approach used.

This paper provides a sociological overview of the concept of social capital and explores how it is related to the notion of health. The theoretical section of the study addresses the issue of an operational definition of social capital and conducts detailed analysis of the dimensions and forms of the concept that stand out in terms of importance in the field of health research. It also takes into consideration the most significant causal mechanisms identified between social capital and health outcomes. The empirical part of the paper features analysis of data on the connection between social capital and self-perceived health, collected during the first survey conducted in Italy by the Osservatorio sulle Strategie di Consumo delle Famiglie (Observatory on Consumption Strategies in the Family). The survey shows that community social capital, generally expressed in terms of family trust, may, depending on the subject's social milieu of origin, not play any role in determining the level of self-perceived health in Italy. Alternatively, it may play either of two roles, acting as a multiplier or a substitute with regard to positive causal processes determined by parameters of a socio-demographic nature.

This paper provides a sociological overview of the concept of social capital and explores how it is related to the notion of health. The theoretical section of the study addresses the issue of an operational definition of social capital and conducts detailed analysis of the dimensions and forms of the concept that stand out in terms of importance in the field of health research. It also takes into consideration the most significant causal mechanisms identified between social capital and health outcomes. The empirical part of the paper features analysis of data on the connection between social capital and self-perceived health, collected during the first survey conducted in Italy by the Osservatorio sulle Strategie di Consumo delle Famiglie (Observatory on Consumption Strategies in the Family). The survey shows that community social capital, generally expressed in terms of family trust, may, depending on the subject's social milieu of origin, not play any role in determining the level of self-perceived health in Italy. Alternatively, it may play either of two roles, acting as a multiplier or a substitute with regard to positive causal processes determined by parameters of a socio-demographic nature.

The paper presents an empirical research that investigates social capital using a specific theoretical and methodological perspective. The topic of the survey is the social support role played by social capital in a western industrialized country like Italy. Dimensions, structures, functions and contents carried by primary social networks are highlighted by empirical data. Specific attention is devoted to the observation of the different kinds of social support and the various ways of transaction across the different phases of family life cycle, and to the assessment of contingent public benefits related to social support engendered within primary social networks. The research was conducted with a representative sample of the population residing in Italy (n = 1.226), and it combines the survey research techniques with the social network analysis techniques.

The object of study of this essay is the distribution of social resources and the characteristics of personal networks that connect them, based on a probabilistic sample of the population residing in Italy (N = 1.226 cases). In the theoretical part of the study, the relations among concepts of social resource, personal network and social capital are taken into consideration. Using a mainstream approach, the following research hypotheses are discussed: (i) there is an increase in personal contacts useful for obtaining resources, in particular of family-related nature, among Italian residents in the South and on the Islands. (ii) The social capital of the Italian residents in the South and on the Islands is more bonding than that of residents in the North and Center of the Country. (iii) The social capital negatively influences generalized interpersonal trust in all areas of the Country. The results of the empirical research lead to accept the second hypothesis and to reject the first and the third.

This article provides an analysis of the main features of the personal networks capable of providing social support in Italy. The first part of the paper presents a theoretical and methodological discussion about the potentials and limits of the personal network analysis. In the second part, the author presents the method used in carrying out a survey on personal networks of a sample of the population residing in Italy. Through the use of the name generator, name interpreter, and name interrelator questionnaires, this survey enables to reconstruct the size, the contents, and the form of the personal networks of respondents. The contents analyzed are material resources, social credentials, contacts, and psychological support. The forms are studied through the concepts of structural holes and network closure. Moreover the personal networks are divided into the following social circles: relatives, friends, and acquaintances. The research was conducted on a sample of over 1.200 individuals. In the last part of the article the results of this research are presented and discussed. One of the findings of this research is that Italy is divided into two geographical areas, with respect to the presence of the personal networks of support: the inhabitants of Central and Northern Italy have personal networks much more extensive than the personal networks of the inhabitants of Southern Italy and of Italian Islands.

This article examines the working of complex intergovernmental policies that have brought about new opportunities and structures in European adult education since the 2008 global financial crisis. Drawing on political sociology, it restricts attention on the Renewed European Agenda for Adult Learning (2011), to examine its historical development, and how it bundles together various governance mechanisms, policy instruments, and social actors to govern the adult education policy domain through policy coordination. This points at regulatory politics as a distinctive quality of European governance in adult education. Then, through Social Network Analysis, it explores in depth one of its policy instrument (i.e., coordinated working groups/networks) and the form of network governance it creates. This analysis pinpoints at the comparative advantage of some organizations (i.e., the ministries of Latvia, Finland and Belgium), which partake in this form of network governance. This produces unpredictable contingency in EU policy coordination.