Purpose: Understanding how transgender people, who committed criminal offenses and are detained in prison, produce a narrative representation of self within different prison contexts. More specifically, this study has been based on two sub-aims: On a paradigmatic level, it has been aimed at critically investigating how the discursive positioning among the Self and the Other might promote the internalization of positive and/or negative attitudes toward the self. On a pragmatic level, it intends to offer some suggestions for goals and strategies of psychological counseling with these inmates inside such highly institutionalized contexts. Method and Materials: In total, 23 in-depth interviews were conducted with transgender women detained in either female or male prison contexts in Italy and Brazil. The lexical, semantic, and semiotic structure of the transcribed interviews has been investigated by adopting the quali-quantitative software Iramuteq for performing statistical text-mining analysis. Frequency, correspondences, and distribution of the most representative utterances across the corpus of data have been accessed and critically analyzed. Results: The findings showed that transgender inmates in Brazil made repeated use of the adverb “not,” while the verb “exist” became the most representative word for the Italian sample. In Brazil, indeed, transgender women assumed masculine-driven behavior due to a common imprisonment with cis-gender men. On the contrary, transgender women in Italy are detained in protected sections, where they are allowed to wear female clothing and continue hormonal treatments. Surprisingly, transgender inmates in Italy suffered more violence in a female sector when compared to exclusively male jails. Conclusions: Transgender people represent a challenge for prison administration because it is not clear in which penitentiary context they should be detained. They should receive special attentions in order to face their special needs, which are radically different when compared to other typologies of inmates. Within penitentiary contexts, psychological counseling with transgender women should pay a special attention to the several psycho-social dimensions of this existential condition. In particular, psychological counselors should consider its inner complex articulation within different social, cultural and normative contexts.

One of the most relevant public health issues among pediatric injuries concerns foreign body (FB) aspiration. The risk perception of choking hazards (CH) and risk perception, in general, are complex multifactorial problems that play a significant role in defining protective behavior. Risk prevention policies should take this aspect into account. A lack of scientific knowledge of FB injury risk perception may be evidenced in Brazil and other newly developed countries. This study aims to characterize the differences and peculiarities in risk perception of CH between Italian and Brazilian populations. The risk perception among adults in Italy and Brazil between September and October 2017 was investigated in a survey. A Multiple Correspondence Analysis was carried out to identify the latent components characterizing the risk perception in Italian and Brazilian population samples. The most relevant dimension characterizing risk perception is the “Professional–educational status and the related perception of Risk” (13% of factorial inertia). The Italians identify batteries and magnets as the most dangerous choking risks (20% of responses). On the other hand, Brazilian people, mainly manual laborers (22%) with secondary or primary education (94%), perceive coins as the most dangerous items (30% of responses, p < 0.001). Socio-economic issues characterize the subjective risk perception of Italian and Brazilian survey respondents. In this framework, data-driven prevention strategies could be helpful to tailor intervention strategies to the cultural context to which they are addressed.

The current paper discusses the results of a study realized with 66 seekers of 12 psychosocial healthcare services (CAPS) in Brazil, by investigating their social representations. Throughout a quali-quantitative approach, unstructured interviews have been conducted and focused on two themes: one related to mental suffering and another to the CAPS itself. The data were processed adopting the Iramuteq software for text-mining-analysis. Out of the findings emerged four lexical classes due to the discursive representation of: (1) CAPS (39.7%); (2) social life (29.7%); (3) family (13.6%) and (4) medication and care (17%), where the utterance NÃO (NO) occupies a central position. Accordingly, the NO is associated with ‘not there’ and ‘not here’, contrasting the care provided outside the CAPS, represented as inhumane or inadequate, to that provided inside the CAPS, linked to feelings of ‘not being discriminated, mistreated and unrecognized’. The underlying social representations expressed in the interviews show an opposition between what was experienced outside and what was experienced inside the CAPS. The care received in CAPS units is the expression of a new psychosocial paradigm in a process of implementation, focused on participation and interdisciplinarity, as opposed to the biomedical paradigm focused on the disease.

The aim of the current study was to access the intersectional link between aging and different contextual determinants, such as social class, gender identity, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity, among others, elder adults are exposed to in contemporary societies. Accordingly, a systematic review of existing literature in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines, processed through statistical text-mining-analysis, has been carried out to understand how the production of scientific knowledge shapes sociocultural representations concerning the aforementioned reality. The findings showed a prevalence of studies investigating the development of elderly, with intersectional elements appearing only peripherally. However, although Psychology itself has not engaged much in this discussion so far, human sciences already began to understand aging as a heterogeneous, multifaceted and complex process of human development. It is worth noting, indeed, that scientific production focused on topics such as gender, race, nationality and sexual orientation are becoming increasingly prominent, suggesting to address special attention to these variables in future studies on aging. Contextual factors, circumscribing healthcare issues focused on aging, should be taken into account in order to overcome prejudices historically directed against elder adults. An increased longevity is, in fact, an achievement, and not a burden to be lived in precarious conditions of development.

The present study intends to shed light on the (inter)subjective and professional modalities through which prison workers manage to cope with the presence of incarcerated transgender people in Italy. Fourteen semi structured interviews were undertaken with prison-workers in three Italian jails. The transcribed interviews were processed through text-mining-analysis, and an in-depth investigation of these discursive sources was performed to access the sociocultural representation of prison-workers concerning transgender related issues. Findings showed different discursive positionings, which vary significantly according to the professional role and gender identity of the interviewees. Although specialized training aimed at improving knowledge on transgender issues and interpersonal skills had been previously provided to all prison-workers, non-transgender affirming behaviors and attitudes continue to be observed. However, they may be the product of the persistence of cultural biases belonging to the more general societal context. Specific training programs addressed to prison-workers are certainly necessary, but their real effectiveness should be constantly monitored and verified. At the same time, it seems that an effective improvement of the condition of transgender people within correctional facilities may only be obtained through paradigmatic changes concerning representations about gender nonconformity within the more general Italian culture and society.

This review analyzes Brazilian research on diversity and inclusion (D&I) in the workplace published between 1996 and 2020. We used a primary database that included three bibliographic indexes and a categorized spreadsheet of scientific articles on organizational behavior as a secondary database. We analyzed abstracts of eighty-one articles, selected from them, using the IRAMUTEQ software, considering the main areas of investigation, research criteria, sample characteristics, and methods. Qualitative methods—particularly semi-structured interviews and content analysis—were prevalent. Gender, people with disability (PWD), LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), age, and work position were the major diversity dimensions that were investigated. There is an overall lack of definitions and inconsistent methodological procedures. Future studies should consider contextual variables, focusing on the intersectionality between psychosocial and cultural factors. Enduring research benefits require considering the interdependence between organizational, subjective, and intersubjective levels of analysis. Our review broadened the understanding of how studies are designed to explain D&I in Brazilian organizations using the concept of inclusion and its international understanding. Similarities and dissimilarities between the Brazilian and international reviews were highlighted.