This grounded theory methodology (GTM) study examines the process of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in coming to accept a transgender or gender diverse (TGD) child. Data comes from interviews with 38 Latter-day Saint parents of TGD children and 130 Facebook posts from the same population. Data was analyzed using GTM in coding and theory construction. A model of Latter-day Saint parents' process in accepting a TGD child and the factors that impact that process is presented. The results indicate that coming to accept a TGD child tends to engage Latter-day Saint parents cognitively, emotionally, socially and spiritually, and is a developmental process. We identified four stages of parents' process: assimilation of new perspectives, deconstruction and disequilibrium, reconstruction and accommodation, and acceptance; as well as typical emotional responses in each stage. We found that factors which impacted parents' process included parents' pre-process characteristics and contexts, religiously defined meaning making, social embeddedness, external resources, community building, and spiritual autonomy. Additionally, we found that parents' commitment to their child's wellbeing and connection with their child (i.e., attachment) motivates their process and that their personal spiritual experiences tend to guide it. Parents in the study expressed that their process was both deeply challenging and profoundly spiritually meaningful. Theoretical grounding, clinical implications and recommendations for working with this population are given, as are future directions for research.

School communities are supposed to be safe places for children where they can build healthy and positive relationships; protected places where children not only gain knowledge, but also learn about themselves. However, research indicates an increase in violent behaviour within school communities. The serious nature of violence in South African schools is evident in reports of physical and sexual abuse, gang-related activities and children bringing and using weapons at schools. The violence is not limited to violence between children but also involves interschool rivalries where gang conflicts have become part of the problem. Despite the measures taken by the DoE, violence in schools is still escalating and educators in some schools can spend more time on solving issues relating to violence than being involved in the process of effective teaching. Consequently violence in schools might become a threat to the provision of effective education for children. Current South African research on bullying behaviour tends to follow a linear, individualistic approach as a means to understanding the phenomenon of bullying. Research conducted within the South African context tends to focus on the individual behaviour of children involved in bullying incidents with the need to address the aggressive behaviour of the bully, the need to protect the victim and describing concerns for the bystanders. The concern of such a linear approach is that research does not place enough emphasis on the relationships of members in school communities and the contexts in which bullying behaviour occurs. To address this gap in the knowledge regarding our understanding of bullying behaviour from a relational perspective, the researcher explored the relational experiences of secondary school children who were involved in bullying incidents in three secondary school communities in South Africa. A systemic developmental approach developed by Cairns and Cairns (1991) and adopted by Atlas and Pepler (1998) as well as a complex interactive dynamics systems approach informed this study. The purpose of this study is to contribute to efforts to find solutions to the escalation of bullying behaviour by exploring the relational experiences of children who were involved in bullying incidents in the context of secondary school communities in South Africa. It is anticipated that an exploration of the relational experiences of these children might facilitate a deeper understanding of the dynamics that emerge in the interactions between the various members in school communities and an understanding of how these interactions contribute toward the escalation in bullying behaviour. In order to obtain a deeper understanding regarding the phenomenon of bullying, a qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore the relational experiences of children involved in bullying incidents within three secondary school communities. Within the first phase of data collection thirty three participants (between grade 8-11), who were purposely selected, completed a written assignment. The written assignment included a short essay based on their experience of a bullying incident and twenty incomplete sentences that were open-ended in nature. In the second phase of data collection the researcher conducted semi- structured interviews with six of the participants who participated in the first phase of data collection. The semi-structured interviews allowed the researcher to ask further questions to obtain a deeper understanding regarding their relational experiences of bullying incidents in their school community. Based on the responses of the participants, three themes were identified: (1) Relational experiences of interactions between teachers and children based on the experiences of children where they spoke about interactions that suggested reciprocal disrespect between children and teachers, incongruence between teachers and learners, teachers attempting to control the behaviour of children and lack of interest displayed in children by their teachers; (2) Relational experiences of interactions between children that included subthemes of assertion of power to obtain status amongst peers, exclusion based on group membership, competiveness amongst groups and violating the trust of friends; (3) Relational experiences of interactions in conflict situations where participants described their bullying experiences and suggested that teachers display apathy in these forms of conflict situations. The participants also reported that children tend to instigate and reinforce conflict. Learners also often choose to remain silent out of fear for retaliation and that teacher-parent disputes exist regarding the managing of conflict situations between children. The relational experiences of the children assisted to inform our understanding of the interactive dynamics that underpin bullying behaviour. In view of the findings of the study, recommendations are made for practice, policy development and suggestions for future research are also offered. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

School communities are supposed to be safe places for children where they can build healthy and positive relationships; protected places where children not only gain knowledge, but also learn about themselves. However, research indicates an increase in violent behaviour within school communities. The serious nature of violence in South African schools is evident in reports of physical and sexual abuse, gang-related activities and children bringing and using weapons at schools. The violence is not limited to violence between children but also involves interschool rivalries where gang conflicts have become part of the problem. Despite the measures taken by the DoE, violence in schools is still escalating and educators in some schools can spend more time on solving issues relating to violence than being involved in the process of effective teaching. Consequently violence in schools might become a threat to the provision of effective education for children. Current South African research on bullying behaviour tends to follow a linear, individualistic approach as a means to understanding the phenomenon of bullying. Research conducted within the South African context tends to focus on the individual behaviour of children involved in bullying incidents with the need to address the aggressive behaviour of the bully, the need to protect the victim and describing concerns for the bystanders. The concern of such a linear approach is that research does not place enough emphasis on the relationships of members in school communities and the contexts in which bullying behaviour occurs. To address this gap in the knowledge regarding our understanding of bullying behaviour from a relational perspective, the researcher explored the relational experiences of secondary school children who were involved in bullying incidents in three secondary school communities in South Africa. A systemic developmental approach developed by Cairns and Cairns (1991) and adopted by Atlas and Pepler (1998) as well as a complex interactive dynamics systems approach informed this study. The purpose of this study is to contribute to efforts to find solutions to the escalation of bullying behaviour by exploring the relational experiences of children who were involved in bullying incidents in the context of secondary school communities in South Africa. It is anticipated that an exploration of the relational experiences of these children might facilitate a deeper understanding of the dynamics that emerge in the interactions between the various members in school communities and an understanding of how these interactions contribute toward the escalation in bullying behaviour. In order to obtain a deeper understanding regarding the phenomenon of bullying, a qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore the relational experiences of children involved in bullying incidents within three secondary school communities. Within the first phase of data collection thirty three participants (between grade 8-11), who were purposely selected, completed a written assignment. The written assignment included a short essay based on their experience of a bullying incident and twenty incomplete sentences that were open-ended in nature. In the second phase of data collection the researcher conducted semi- structured interviews with six of the participants who participated in the first phase of data collection. The semi-structured interviews allowed the researcher to ask further questions to obtain a deeper understanding regarding their relational experiences of bullying incidents in their school community. Based on the responses of the participants, three themes were identified: (1) Relational experiences of interactions between teachers and children based on the experiences of children where they spoke about interactions that suggested reciprocal disrespect between children and teachers, incongruence between teachers and learners, teachers attempting to control the behaviour of children and lack of interest displayed in children by their teachers; (2) Relational experiences of interactions between children that included subthemes of assertion of power to obtain status amongst peers, exclusion based on group membership, competiveness amongst groups and violating the trust of friends; (3) Relational experiences of interactions in conflict situations where participants described their bullying experiences and suggested that teachers display apathy in these forms of conflict situations. The participants also reported that children tend to instigate and reinforce conflict. Learners also often choose to remain silent out of fear for retaliation and that teacher-parent disputes exist regarding the managing of conflict situations between children. The relational experiences of the children assisted to inform our understanding of the interactive dynamics that underpin bullying behaviour. In view of the findings of the study, recommendations are made for practice, policy development and suggestions for future research are also offered. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Problématique: Les modèles de développement à la participation sportive (MDPS) suggèrent que comparativement à la spécialisation hâtive dans une activité physique (AP), la diversification sportive durant l’enfance favorise la participation à l’AP à long terme. Toutefois, peu de documentation scientifique appuie les propos des MDPS. Étant donné l’importance de pratiquer l’AP à tous les âges de la vie, les MDPS pourraient aider à guider les interventions en AP, s’ils étaient confirmés. Les objectifs de cette étude sont donc de 1) décrire les profils de participation aux sports durant l’adolescence chez des jeunes qui ont spécialisé tôt et des jeunes qui ont pratiqué une diversité de sports, et 2) explorer des prédicteurs d’être non participant, participant récréatif ou participant de performance durant l’adolescence. Méthodes: Les participants de l’étude MATCH (n=802), une étude de cohorte prospective sur 5 ans, ont été utilisés comme l’échantillon à l’étude. Durant la première année de l’étude, des enfants âgés de 10,7 (écart-type : 0,7) ans ont rapporté la quantité d’activité physique organisée et non organisée à laquelle ils participaient. Les jeunes ont ensuite été catégorisées dans des profils de participation aux sports chaque année, telles que décrites par le MDPS. La probabilité que le profil de l’année 1 soit maintenu pendant les cinq années de suivi a été déterminée en utilisant des risques relatifs. L’âge, le sexe, la puberté, le revenu et le profil de participation durant l’enfance ont été explorés comme facteurs prédictifs de profil à l’adolescence en utilisant des analyses logistiques polynomiales. Résultats: La diversification sportive, comparativement à la spécialisation hâtive, augmente les chances d’une participation récréative (1.55, 1.18 – 2.03) (RR, IC à 95%) durant l’adolescence et protège contre la non-participation (0.69, 0.51 – 0.93). La spécialisation augmente les chances d’être participants de performance durant l’adolescence (1.65, 1.19 – 2.28), mais ne protège pas contre la non-participation (1.01, 0.70 – 1.47). Ceux qui étaient non-participants à l’enfance étaient presque 2 fois plus de chance d’être non-participant dans les sports durant l’adolescence (1.88, 1.36 – 2.62). L’âge, le sexe, le profil de participation durant l’enfance et le revenu étaient des prédicteurs du profil de participation durant l’adolescence. Conclusion: Conformément avec les MDPS, le profil de participation aux sports durant l’adolescence est associé à celui durant l’enfance. La pratique diversifiée d’activités physiques (AP) durant l’enfance est donc recommandée afin de favoriser une participation à l’AP à long terme. Des interventions devraient être mises en places chez les jeunes qui sont non-participants aux sports et à l’activité physique durant l’enfance afin d’augmenter les chances qu’ils soient actifs durant l’adolescence. / Abstract: Background: Compared to early sport specialization, early sport sampling during childhood increases the likelihood of lifelong participation in physical activity, according to the Developmental Model of Sport Participation (DMSP). However, there is very little quantitative support for this assertion. Given the importance of physical activity participation throughout the lifespan, the model could be used to inform and physical activity guidelines for youth if confirmed. Specifically, the objectives of this thesis were to 1) describe the natural course of sport participation over five years among children who are early sport samplers or early sport specializers, and 2) explore sport profile (i.e. performance participation, recreational participation and non-participation) predictors during adolescence. Methods: MATCH, an ongoing mixed methods prospective cohort study, participants (n = 802) were classified in sport profiles in the first year (and every year thereafter) of the study based on the quantity of unorganised and organised physical activity in which they participated and definitions offered by the DMSP. Tracking of childhood (year 1) sport profile was assessed using relative risk ratios. Age, sex, income, puberty status, and childhood sport profile were identified as potential predictors of adolescent sport profile and were tested using multinomial logisitic regression. Results: Compared to specialization, sport sampling during childhood increased the likelihood of recreational participation (1.55, 1.18 – 2.03) (RR, 95% CI) during adolescence and decreased the likelihood of non-participation (0.69, 0.51 – 0.93). Early specialization increased the likelihood of performance participation (1.65, 1.19 – 2.28) but did not protect against non-participation (1.01, 0.70 – 1.47) through follow-up. Non-participants had nearly twice the likelihood of remaining non-participants compared to other study participants (1.88, 1.36 – 2.62). Age, sex, income and childhood sport profile predicted sport profile during adolescence. Conclusion: Confirming the assertions made by the DMSP, childhood sport profile predicts adolescent sport profile. Sampling during childhood is recommended to facilitate long term physical activity participation. Interventions should aim to increase physical activity levels amongst insufficiently active children to increase the likelihood of being active during adolescence.

Faculty in higher education overtly teach content and skills to their students in their courses. However, faculty teach and demonstrate a tacit curriculum in their interactions with their students as well. This study examined how faculty believe they articulate and personally demonstrate these tacit goals and objectives to their students. This study examined the interview responses of ten female university English instructors. The faculty were questioned regarding the values, moral principles, ethical standards, and academic goals that they believe they demonstrate and enforce among their students. In addition, faculty were asked if they believed if the elements changed over time as faculty gained teaching experience or if they changed according to the students' academic rank. As the data from this study was coded, a grounded theory of the tacit curriculum in higher education emerged. This grounded theory can best be seen as a developmental model through which female English Department faculty progress as they gain classroom teaching experience. Faculty in this study progressed through three stages in their development as teachers; Show-Off Lecturer, Audience Respecter, and Mentor/Teacher, and developed a tacit curriculum as they gained teaching experience. These stages correspond with movement from novice to expert status in teaching. The presence of this developmental model lends credence to the phenomenological model of human learning developed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus and supports Polanyi's concepts of the personal and tacit dimensions of human knowing. This responses in this study indicate that as faculty develop teaching skill, they also develop tacit moral aims to their teaching. It is unclear if the development of these moral aims are deferred until tenure is obtained or if the process of their development just takes about the same time as the tenure process. In addition, while there is no way to exclude all other influencing factors in the faculty member's lives, the data in this study suggests that experience is central in the development of the faculty's tacit moral curriculum.

No description available.

This study examined the orientations to cultural difference of sojourner educators in the Foundation Program at Qatar University to determine if orientations were correlated with select demographic and experiential variables, including gender, age, time overseas, education level, formative region, ethnic minority status, job position, length of time in Qatar, intercultural marriage, default language, formal teacher training, and overseas development organization experience. This study used a sequential mixed-method design. Perceived and Developmental Orientations were measured using the Intercultural Development Inventory© (V.3), which produced a measure of each respondent’s orientation to cultural difference. Focus group interviews were conducted to engage participants in explaining and interpreting the findings. Five focus groups of three to six participants each were conducted. Most of the teachers were found to operate from within the transitional orientation of Minimization, although individual scores ranged from Denial to Adaptation. On average, the educators were found to overestimate their orientations by 31 points. A positive correlation between orientation and formative region was found, with participants from North America showing the highest orientation. Statistically significant differences emerged for orientations when comparing Middle East and North African (MENA) and North American formative regions. Formative region was found to account for 4.8% of the variance in orientation and is a significant fit of the data. Focus groups participants speculated that (a) core differences regarding multiculturalism in MENA and North American cultures help explain the results, (b) aspects of the workplace culture and both the broader MENA and local Qatari culture encourage a sense of exclusion, and (c) external events further complicate cross-cultural relations. The study findings add to the literature by providing baseline orientation data on sojourner educators in post-secondary education in the GCC region, and by confirming some of the findings of similar studies. The study provides practitioners with suggestions for staffing and professional development. Future research should focus on the measurement of orientations in broader samples of educators, changes in orientation over time in Qatar and other cultural contexts, differences in orientation among short-term vs. long-term expatriates, the impact of employment systems and societal structures on orientations in sojourner educators, the impact of educator orientation to cultural difference on student achievement, and the design of effective cross-cultural professional development for educators.

políticos em muitos países do mundo e, em tais contextos, a competência intercultural é tida como uma característica desejável para todos aqueles que, cada vez mais, cruzam as fronteiras entre culturas. A partir da nossa experiência pessoal em nível linguístico-identitário e profissional, enquanto professora de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira, entendemos que a reflexão explícita sobre a comunicação intercultural mereça um lugar na sala de aula de Língua Estrangeira. Com base nesses pressupostos, é objetivo da nossa pesquisa salientar a vertente intercultural do ensino-aprendizagem na sala de aula de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira e, especificamente, verificar se uma atividade didática, construída a partir dos pressupostos do Modelo de Desenvolvimento de Sensibilidade Intercultural MDSI (BENNETT, 1993) e de outros modelos interculturais, pode, de fato, estimular a sensibilidade ou a competência intercultural não apenas em nível cognitivo, mas também perceptivo. Deseja-se, ademais, verificar se o exercício \"Descrição, Interpretação e Avaliação\" (Description, Interpretation and Evaluation Exercise DIE) (BENNETT; BENNETT, 1988), que visa a promover a compreensão e a diferenciação entre os três conceitos citados, incentiva a tomada de consciência dos juízos de valor dos sujeitos da pesquisa, fazendo vir à tona sua relatividade pessoal e cultural. Em um plano mais geral, almeja-se registrar efeitos e reações dos aprendizes em contato com tal atividade didática. Em nível metodológico optamos pelo método qualitativo que, de acordo com Donna Mertens (1998), pertence ao paradigma de pesquisa interpretativo/construtivista (interpretive/constructivist) e que remete, portanto, à mesma teoria epistemológica que fundamenta o MDSI. A atividade didática criada foi experimentada junto a duas turmas de alunos de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira no âmbito da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo. Os dados recolhidos na experimentação parecem demonstrar que o exercício DIE permitiu alcançar os propósitos da pesquisa, pois os alunos, em linhas gerais, conseguiram: (a) captar e diferenciar os elementos descritivos, interpretativos e avaliativos nos textos propostos na atividade didática; (b) entender sua natureza ao mesmo tempo pessoal e cultural; (c) em parte, aplicar e interpretar de forma pessoal e criativa o exercício DIE ao tema proposto na atividade didática elaborada para a realização da parte empírica da pesquisa. Em nível mais geral, os alunos compreenderam que o principal foco da atividade didática (não explicitado antecipadamente) foi tentar apreender elementos da cultura subjetiva italiana e que os procedimentos por meio dos quais isso ocorreu (o DIE e a empatia) são ferramentas que podem ser utilizadas em diferentes contextos culturais. / The concepts of \"difference\" and \"identity\" are now a leitmotif in social and political debates in many countries worldwide. In this context, the intercultural competence is considered to be a desirable feature for those who, more and more frequently, are crossing borders between cultures. From my personal both in terms of language and self-identity and from the professional experience, as teacher of Italian as a Foreign Language, I understand that the explicit reflection on intercultural communication deserves a place in the foreign language classroom. Based on such assumptions, the main goal of this research is to highlight the intercultural dimension of teaching and learning in the Italian language classes, and more specificically to verify if a teaching activity, inspired by the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity DMIS (BENNETT, 1993), and other intercultural models, can indeed stimulate the sensitivity and the intercultural competence, not only at a cognitive level, but also at a perceptual level. In addition, we would like to check whether the exercise called the Description, Interpretation, and Evaluation Exercise - DIE (BENNETT, BENNETT, 1988), which aims at fostering the understanding and the differentiation the three concepts mentioned, encourages awareness of the judgments of value in the subjects in this research, highlighting their personal and cultural identity. More generally, we aim at registering the effects and reactions of the learners in contact with such an activity. At a methodological level, we chose the qualitative method that according to Donna Mertens (1998) belongs to the interpretive/constructivist research paradigm and, therefore, refers to the same epistemological theory behind DMIS. The teaching activity developed during this research was applied to the two different groups of students of Italian as a Foreign Language in the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo. The data collected in the trial seems to show that the exercise DIE allowed us to achieve the purposes of the research, once the students, in general, had success in: (a) understanding and being able to distinguish the descriptive, interpretive and evaluative elements in the proposed texts during the teaching activities; (b) understanding their own nature as being \"personal\" and \"cultural\" at the same time; (c) in part, to applying and interpreting in a personal and creative way the DIE exercise, which was proposed as an activity designed to carry out the empirical part of this research. On a broader sense, the students were also able to understand that the main focus of the activity (which was not explicit beforehand) was to attempt to grasp elements of the Italian subjective culture. It is noteworthy that the procedures by which this occurred (the DIE and \"the empathy\") are tools that can be used in different cultural contexts.

With the abundance of literature focusing on parental influence in sport, it is important to identify family dynamics that extend beyond parents to include siblings. In this study, sibling influence was explored though interviews with previously identified elite youth female athletes (N=4) and their sibling (N=4) of the same sex who participated in the same sport. The purpose was to discover how siblings influence sport participation and how parents influence sibling relationships, retrospectively. Three categories emerged from the data: positive experiences participating in the same sport, negative experiences participating in the same sport, and perception of the parental role. The participants’ descriptions coincide with observational learning and both deidentification and divergence processes. The data adds to the probable sibling and parent experiences proposed in the Developmental Model of Sport Participation and provides insight for athletes, parents, and coaches on how to manage sibling relations in sport. / October 2015

políticos em muitos países do mundo e, em tais contextos, a competência intercultural é tida como uma característica desejável para todos aqueles que, cada vez mais, cruzam as fronteiras entre culturas. A partir da nossa experiência pessoal em nível linguístico-identitário e profissional, enquanto professora de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira, entendemos que a reflexão explícita sobre a comunicação intercultural mereça um lugar na sala de aula de Língua Estrangeira. Com base nesses pressupostos, é objetivo da nossa pesquisa salientar a vertente intercultural do ensino-aprendizagem na sala de aula de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira e, especificamente, verificar se uma atividade didática, construída a partir dos pressupostos do Modelo de Desenvolvimento de Sensibilidade Intercultural MDSI (BENNETT, 1993) e de outros modelos interculturais, pode, de fato, estimular a sensibilidade ou a competência intercultural não apenas em nível cognitivo, mas também perceptivo. Deseja-se, ademais, verificar se o exercício \"Descrição, Interpretação e Avaliação\" (Description, Interpretation and Evaluation Exercise DIE) (BENNETT; BENNETT, 1988), que visa a promover a compreensão e a diferenciação entre os três conceitos citados, incentiva a tomada de consciência dos juízos de valor dos sujeitos da pesquisa, fazendo vir à tona sua relatividade pessoal e cultural. Em um plano mais geral, almeja-se registrar efeitos e reações dos aprendizes em contato com tal atividade didática. Em nível metodológico optamos pelo método qualitativo que, de acordo com Donna Mertens (1998), pertence ao paradigma de pesquisa interpretativo/construtivista (interpretive/constructivist) e que remete, portanto, à mesma teoria epistemológica que fundamenta o MDSI. A atividade didática criada foi experimentada junto a duas turmas de alunos de Italiano como Língua Estrangeira no âmbito da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da Universidade de São Paulo. Os dados recolhidos na experimentação parecem demonstrar que o exercício DIE permitiu alcançar os propósitos da pesquisa, pois os alunos, em linhas gerais, conseguiram: (a) captar e diferenciar os elementos descritivos, interpretativos e avaliativos nos textos propostos na atividade didática; (b) entender sua natureza ao mesmo tempo pessoal e cultural; (c) em parte, aplicar e interpretar de forma pessoal e criativa o exercício DIE ao tema proposto na atividade didática elaborada para a realização da parte empírica da pesquisa. Em nível mais geral, os alunos compreenderam que o principal foco da atividade didática (não explicitado antecipadamente) foi tentar apreender elementos da cultura subjetiva italiana e que os procedimentos por meio dos quais isso ocorreu (o DIE e a empatia) são ferramentas que podem ser utilizadas em diferentes contextos culturais. / The concepts of \"difference\" and \"identity\" are now a leitmotif in social and political debates in many countries worldwide. In this context, the intercultural competence is considered to be a desirable feature for those who, more and more frequently, are crossing borders between cultures. From my personal both in terms of language and self-identity and from the professional experience, as teacher of Italian as a Foreign Language, I understand that the explicit reflection on intercultural communication deserves a place in the foreign language classroom. Based on such assumptions, the main goal of this research is to highlight the intercultural dimension of teaching and learning in the Italian language classes, and more specificically to verify if a teaching activity, inspired by the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity DMIS (BENNETT, 1993), and other intercultural models, can indeed stimulate the sensitivity and the intercultural competence, not only at a cognitive level, but also at a perceptual level. In addition, we would like to check whether the exercise called the Description, Interpretation, and Evaluation Exercise - DIE (BENNETT, BENNETT, 1988), which aims at fostering the understanding and the differentiation the three concepts mentioned, encourages awareness of the judgments of value in the subjects in this research, highlighting their personal and cultural identity. More generally, we aim at registering the effects and reactions of the learners in contact with such an activity. At a methodological level, we chose the qualitative method that according to Donna Mertens (1998) belongs to the interpretive/constructivist research paradigm and, therefore, refers to the same epistemological theory behind DMIS. The teaching activity developed during this research was applied to the two different groups of students of Italian as a Foreign Language in the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of the University of São Paulo. The data collected in the trial seems to show that the exercise DIE allowed us to achieve the purposes of the research, once the students, in general, had success in: (a) understanding and being able to distinguish the descriptive, interpretive and evaluative elements in the proposed texts during the teaching activities; (b) understanding their own nature as being \"personal\" and \"cultural\" at the same time; (c) in part, to applying and interpreting in a personal and creative way the DIE exercise, which was proposed as an activity designed to carry out the empirical part of this research. On a broader sense, the students were also able to understand that the main focus of the activity (which was not explicit beforehand) was to attempt to grasp elements of the Italian subjective culture. It is noteworthy that the procedures by which this occurred (the DIE and \"the empathy\") are tools that can be used in different cultural contexts.