Social inclusion and life satisfaction of care leavers

RESUMEN En este artículo se ofrece los resultados del análisis de una muestra de los contenidos o materiales didácticos digitales para la Educación Primaria existentes en un portal web denominado Eco Escuela 2.0 impulsado por la administración educativa (Consejería de Educación del Gobierno de Canarias), caracterizado por el acceso y uso libre por el profesorado. El propósito principal es realizar un análisis de materiales dirigido al final de la etapa de educación primaria en diferentes materias. La metodología empleada del estudio consistió en el análisis de contenido. Con esta finalidad se ha elaborado un instrumento-guía para el análisis de la muestra. Los resultados de la investigación detectan actividades que pretenden favorecer la resolución de problemas, la experimentación o la simulación. Su diseño es aceptable aunque mejorable en calidad: algunos elaborados por docentes por lo que carecen del atractivo visual de otros materiales más comerciales. La mayoría son cerrados y no modificables, creados para unos contenidos y fines concretos aunque sí adaptados a diferentes ritmos de aprendizaje. En general, no ofrecen actividades finales y en varios, estos terminan con la realización de tareas grupales entregables, elaboración de materiales, discusión de ideas o la exposición del trabajo. La diversidad cultural o funcional de género no está presente en estos materiales y aunque el acceso a estos materiales es bueno, se debe mejorar la optimización para todo tipo de pantallas de dispositivos móviles.

Adoption and foster care are important forms of family life that challenge traditional understandings of kinship, parenthood, and family relationships. Examining how these family forms are socially represented is essential for understanding public attitudes toward child protection and children’s right to grow up in a family environment. This study analysed social representations of adoption, foster care, and child protection among university students and adults from the general population. A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 182 participants including Social Work students, participants with a Law background, and adults from the general population without a specific academic background in the legal or social sciences. Data were collected using a researcher-administered open-ended questionnaire and analysed using IRaMuTeQ software. Similarity analysis and Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) were used to identify the main discursive structures underlying participants’ representations. Social representations frequently emphasised caregiving capacity, emotional stability, and secure relationships when participants discussed family suitability. Biological relatedness also remained present, indicating the coexistence of biological and caregiving-based meanings of family, without implying that one had fully displaced the other. Profile-specific associations were also identified: Social Work students were more strongly associated with discourses concerning parental competence, child development, and protective intervention, whereas adults from the general population were more strongly associated with family diversity, family harm, and the complexities of child protection decisions.

The growing diversification of family structures has increased the prevalence of stepfamilies, yet implicit representations of stepfather and stepmother figures remain understudied, particularly among adolescents and emerging adults. This study examines these representations, considering the influence of gender, developmental group, and prior stepfamily experience. A cross-sectional, ex post facto quantitative design was used with 372 participants aged 15–25 (198 women, 174 men), divided into adolescents (15–18 years) and emerging adults (19–25 years). Participants completed an adapted questionnaire measuring implicit representations across three dimensions: structural-conjugal, affective-relational, and parental-functional. Exploratory factor analyses confirmed the instrument’s three-factor structure for both stepfigures. Both figures were primarily associated with the parental-functional and structural-conjugal dimensions. Women assigned greater relevance to the affective-relational dimension of the stepmother figure. Participants without stepfamily experience showed more idealized representations of both figures across the affective-relational and parental-functional dimensions. Minor differences between developmental groups emerged only for the parental-functional dimension of the stepfather figure. Implicit representations of stepfathers and stepmothers remain shaped by sociocultural processes linked to gender, parenthood, and care, reflecting persistent differential expectations regarding emotional availability and relational functions within reconstituted family contexts.