LIBRI DI IVO COLOZZI

Uno dei problemi che coinvolgono oggi le società occidentali è come permettere più differenziazione sociale, assicurando al contempo una maggiore integrazione sociale. I concetti di innovazione sociale e di sussidiarietà rappresentano due chiavi di volta per affrontare e sciogliere il dilemma. Partendo da questa idea condivisa, gli autori approfondiscono l’analisi dei concetti, presentano esempi della loro applicazione a livello locale e offrono suggerimenti per la loro implementazione.

La ricerca, svolta nel territorio bolognese, analizza il fenomeno del gioco d’azzardo con un approccio biomedico, riservando scarsa attenzione alla dimensione sociale del giocatore eccessivo. La riduzione della prospettiva sociologica limita l’identificazione dei fattori sociali che possono proteggere dai comportamenti di dipendenza, e fa sì che si tenda a porre il peso della responsabilità della dipendenza da gioco non sui produttori e gestori delle macchine che la creano, ma sui soggetti che vengono risucchiati dall’azzardo.

The starting point of research is whether for sociologists it is possible, remaining in their role as social scientists, derive from the analysis of a particular social problem a prescriptive guidance, i.e. guidance on what you should do or would be fair to do to solve it, or if this can be done, but on the condition to pass from being a social scientist to that of moral philosopher or politically engaged citizen. The problem comes from the so-called law of Hume, and is referred to in English sociological literature as Is-ought problem. The paper discusses briefly the positions on the issue of three "classics": Durkheim, Weber and Marx. Then it presents the positions of some of the modern and contemporary sociologists who have studied the issue. Finally, it proposes a typology of different sociological positions and a number of arguments justifying overcoming the division between description and prescription and questions the two basic options that the absolute majority of sociologists shares, i.e. relativism and moral non-cognitivism.

The essay examines the way in which the last Quality Research Assessment VQR 2004-2010 was performed in Italy. The critique of the "absolute" separation of the products of research from the processes and structures implementing them, prevents the Assessment from being a reflexive tool for the scientific community and indicators from being useful to the scientific activity. The essay incorporates specific and collective reflections taking place in the Italian Sociological Association and in other scientific associations of the Area 14 of the National University Council. Referring to these insights, the author underlines the contradictions and overlapping of the proposed evaluation criteria and the way in which they were operationalized and assembled into a single index. In this light, proposals for improvement are developed for the next Research assessment; in particular, the author suggests the use of Cantril scales and indicators constructed on the basis of "circumstantial" evidences, which will assign greater responsibility to the evaluator, who must thus document and properly explain the rationale for judgments.

The paper proposes first a «guide» to the practice of refereeing, presenting some prominent examples of «how» are evaluated the products submitted for publication in journals. The examples allow understanding what are the procedures used and the profiles on which assessment is required (originality, structure, data correctness, accuracy of references, etc.). Are then presented some of the most significant problems that the vast literature on peer review has highlighted, in particular: how effective it is, that is able to detect misconduct (falsification of data, plagiarism, etc.), how much is fair, that is able to avoid the creation of systematic discrimination against certain groups of researchers or nonconventional shapes and innovative research, how efficient, ie not responsible for slowing the spread of new research and overloading the best researchers.

The article aims to analyze which aspects of the Italian welfare system are influenced (shaped) by the dominant religious culture, i.e. Catholicism. It also investigates whether the mechanism through which this influence has been able to shape the social legislation is represented by religion-inspired political parties or by the capacity of the religious culture to directly influence the value system of the majority of the Italian population. In the latter case even lay political parties and governments did contribute to implement in their social policy choices orientations referable to the dominant religious culture. Our argument unfolds through the following steps: 1) a short reconstruction of the Italian welfare state model; 2) an outline of the main principles of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church on welfare issues and social policy topics; 3) an account of the prevailing values on social issues according the Italian population; 4) an evaluation of how much both the principles and the values are incorporated in the present Italian welfare state system; 5) some final remarks on the mechanism through which the Italian Catholic Church has contributed to determine the social protection system.

Quale rete sviluppare per superare la crisi del welfare sanitario: la probabile risposta di Achille Ardigò - Ardigo’s interest for the topic of the opportunities offered by the development of information communication technologies in the field of health services is referred to the question of the overcoming of the crisis of "transation" between welfare system and life’s worlds. Moruzzi, who has developed Ardigo’s approach on this topic, writes that Internet may be the link between micro and macro if it will be able to differentiate itself by the national health service and to create, thanks to the development of new technologies, a new cooperation between public and private (profit and non profit) actors at the service of the sick person (subsidiarity). In the Introduction to Moruzzi’s book, instead, Ardigò says that the development of the social networks of care is more important than the development of new technologies.

Keywords: development, welfare system, health service, technologies, social networks, Ardigò.

Parole chiave: sviluppo, sistema di welfare, servizio sanitario, tecnologie, reti sociali, Ardigò.

Avendo sullo sfondo la tradizione che affonda le sue radici nel pragmatismo americano e nell’interazionismo simbolico di Mead, il volume propone un’analisi della relazione tra riflessività personale e dimensione dialogica del sé. Tenendosi lontani dagli scogli del sociologismo e del postmodernismo, i saggi presentati intendono ritrovare una giusta collocazione a un sé che è incastonato nelle relazioni sociali e linguistiche, ma che sempre le eccede attraverso la riflessività.