Vita e Pensiero

The evaluation of Structural Funds in Italy has supported both the diffusion of evaluation activities and the use of structured evaluation strategies and methodologies. MEANS’ Guides published in 1999 contributed to open the discussion upon some key points of evaluation practice: the link with the role of rationality in decision processes, the priority of accountability or learning aims of evaluation (and the consistency of the two in everyday practice), the importance of participated evaluation and its applicability in complex programs as those supported by Structural Funds’. The importance given to monitoring and mid-term evaluation has maybe weakened the attention paid to the implementation process, while the direct link of evaluation to results has sometimes produced a «objectives- results» approach, not much inclined to «open the black box» of the programs and see how they really works and how they are improvable. Also for these reasons the contribution of sociology to the evaluation activities has been wrongly considered a marginal one: on the contrary, in a globalised society social research used in evaluation is very important to develop the awareness of how public policies really works and to help citizens’ empowerment. In this way, social research helps also citizens, stakeholders and decision makers to assume right choices.

Evaluation research is for us of key importance because it constitutes the self-reflexive effort of social policies. This article shows how different approaches to policy making have been matched with different approaches to their evaluation, with the purpose of understanding how to implement policies supporting the well-being of the family. Specifically, we suggest that there is a need for relinquishing the traditional linear evaluation approaches, because they are too heavily based on a preconceived description of the social reality that does not leave space for the complex effects that social policies can have on family relations. We argue that there is the necessity of using complex models considering the family as an active subject, both in the planning and in the evaluation phase. We hypothesize the possibility of joining the contributions of the last generations of evaluation research, with the purpose of building a comprehensive evaluation tool based on the relational approach.

The article offers an interpretation of guidance process in a sociological perspective. From this point of view, it’s clear that any approach to guidance assumed a specific conception of the linkage between individual and society. Starting form this consideration the article delineates what characterizes guidance process in the post-modern society; a society more and more fragmentated and uncertain, in which the subject seems to have increasing freedom of movement and choice. In so doing, the article proposes a new guidance approach («character-forming guidance»), considered as an appropriate aid to help the subject in making his choices: choices who are both coherent with self realization aim and responsible; that is to say, choices who keep in count both the social context to which the subject himself belongs to and the relational dynamics implied in the construction of self identity (personal and social identity).

The article is the result of observation in action during the «Madonna del Monte» feast in Marta, a village on Bolsena Lake. Festival is really spectacular and offers interesting point of views and archaic elements. Its climax is the so-called «Passata», which means that social classes represented in the procession (Knights, Farm labourers, Countrymen and Fishermen) get in the church three times and also means the kiss by the so-called Peace. Feast ends distributing the classic «Ring-shaped bread» to be put on arm among the Passers-by.

Late modernity is characterized by a crisis of institutional power in term of civic action and civic behaviour. In general, the crisis of institutional ability to grant directives about social conduct has produced a strong disorder among subjects. Durkheimian condition of «anomie» is the authentic scenario of occidental society at the time of globalization. Present globalization is interlaced with crisis of social behaviour agencies and there is a trend considering historical model out-of-date. In this context charismatic power is finding a new place, out of any reference to supernatural gifts. The recognition of the bearer of charisma is here founded on a free choice by subjects. While main lines of political and civic institutions are weakly recognised, charismatic institutions have a moderate but increasing agreement. By this fact it is possible to change status of subject in sociological thought. However it is difficult to recognize subject as a simple rational choice actor or at the opposite as a whole socialized subject. The term of «persona» suggests a good issue across several types of rationality. It is this «persona» that accepts charismatic institutions, in spite of normative institutions, and chooses his membership out of instrumental rationality and out of behavioural socialization.

The following dialogue with Edgar Morin stresses his anthropological theory which offers a cross-disciplinar view of human identity. This approach becomes essential because of the nature of the object itself, that is a complex synthesis of antithetical elements: nature, culture and society. Putting every single discipline into a deep dialogue between each other Morin works out a theoretical framework which connects different fields of knowledge becoming the only method able to reveal and understand human complexity. This idea of complexity becomes also, in Morin’s thought, a useful keyword to describe contemporary global society, ruled by uncertainty. According to Morin, to survive in this inhospitable condition, umankind must build a planetary consciousness and learn to think itself as the citizenship of a unique planetary mother-country.

In the last few years there has been considerable attention on creativity seen from the point of view of several disciplines. This paper looks at the historical evolution of concept of creativity, by underlining its collective dimension (psychology and natural sciences especially contributed to this connotation). Until a decade ago, creativity was a marginal subject in sociological reflection, which from the initial stages has tended to focus mainly on the rational dimension of action. ‘Spread creativity’ is an effective key word to read some relevant phenomena of contemporary society: cultural economy, the rise of a new creative class, consumption as creative performance. In this context, I consider the condition of Italy, example of a ‘creativity without system’. Finally, I try to address the initial question: is creativity an expression of an individual genius or a social practice? The first definition is still maintained, but today the social dimension is prevailing. Recent studies actually underline the relevance of contextual components for creativity development. Creativity is an intersubjective value and contemporary societies are moved by a creative ethos. Creativity as a social motor requires further sociological inquiry, preferably carried out with qualitative and non-standard methodology.

Both Pareto and Weber wrote their fundamental works between 1890 and 1920. They dealt with the relationship between Sociology and Economics and other Human Sciences, especially Psychology and History, but their results were quite different. Indeed, the Italian engineer developed step by step a method which links logic and experience in order to achieve an objective and universal knowledge by a (neo-)positivistic standpoint, whereas the German jurist followed the Neo-Kantian philosophy of values and stressed the importance of the personal purpose. However, although Pareto supported a kind of abstractive procedure whose range is much bigger than Weber’s Idealty-pus, they ultimately agreed on the so-called “methodological individualism”, because of their commitment to marginalist Economics.