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We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

Purpose: This chapter focuses on the relations between aging and the perception about the families’ quality of life in a medium-sized Portuguese city. Departing from the descriptions of individuals living with at least one child under 14 years of age, particular emphasis is put on how young adults perceive and incorporate into their speeches the presence and role of non-cohabiting elderly, namely their parents and in-laws, as an expression of the quality of life they experience.

Design/methodology/approach: Data rely on episodic interviews conducted with both men and women with young children (3–14 years old), within a broader sociological research devoted to the study of family rituals. The data collected was analyzed using qualitative techniques of content analysis with the help of NVivo software (QSR). The data is presented recurring to contextualized narratives.

Findings: Data analysis allows to conclude that geography matters in the perception that young adults have when reflecting upon the role of the elderly surrounding them, either their parents or in-laws. The presence and coexistence of generations are perceived as “priceless,” a “fortune,” and a “privilege,” possible in a medium-sized city, where everything is close enough to thicken the informal intergenerational solidarities between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Behind the scenes, data, furthermore, discloses unpredictable tensions arising mainly regarding children’s education, rules, and behavior.

Originality/value: This chapter contributes to shed light into the daily life of elderly people who are still independent and active, and the seemingly invisible presence and unimportant role they play in their children and grandchildren’s lives.

This research discusses the financial perspective of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), in general, and identifies the level of dependency and diversification of revenues, in particular. The Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) was used as an indicator for calculating the concentration of the income for each NGO. The main sources of income reported were donations, government grants, financial income, service provision, sales and other incomes. The sample of case studies analyzed are Centre for Advanced Studies of Social and Environmental Promotion (CASSEP), Federation of Bodies for Social and Educational Assistance (FBSEA), Ecological Research Institute (ERI) and Amazon Environmental Research Institute (AERI). These organizations have been used as case studies (Yin, 2019) because they received resources from the Amazon Fund in Brazil for at least one year during the research period of 2014–2018. The composition of the revenue for this period was analyzed according to the Procedures Manual for the Third Sector published by the Federal Accounting Council of the Brazilian Accounting Foundation (FAC-BAF) and by the Association of Attorneys and Promoters of Justice of Foundations and Organizations of Social Interest from Brazil. These NGOs had low revenue diversification in the research period, so there was a high dependence on resources from international organizations, predominantly from countries in Europe. The joint analysis of the two main revenue sources – government grants and grants – substantially raises the level of dependency. As results of the empirical analysis, it can be seen that CASSEP had the highest revenue collection in the research period. This NGO maintained a high dependence and concentration of resources in all years analyzed, which points to the need of revenue diversification. This research concludes with comments on instances of competition to receive resources between NGO, which lead to an inefficient allocation of resources to all NGO. Also, it discusses the effects of COVID-19 on revenues of the NGO analyzed, as well as the recent corruption scandals in Brazil, but it is only one research that demands more study to be generalized.

In the twenty-first century, the family has been turning towards a greater plurality of training paths, situations, family and parental arrangements. However, despite changes in legislation, values, representations and practices, the word family remains inexorably associated with the heterosexual bi-parental model. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge of the family dynamics of non-heterosexual people, mainly concerning the process of transition to parenting, in relation to family changes in Portuguese society. To do so this study aims to analyze four in-depth interviews¹ with young adults, women and men who have a homoconjugality relationship and a project of parenting in mind.

Based on a qualitative methodology the study intends to discuss issues related to the challenge of heteronormativity, equality within the couple, projects and gender representations of parenthood and in particular what it means for the men and women interviewed, to be a father and to be a mother in a same sex couple and how they project themselves as fathers and mothers.

The study discusses all these issues always in relation to the biographical trajectories, the history and life as a couple and the structural and individual resources, such as school and professional qualifications. It also analyzes the main difficulties experienced in revealing their sexuality to the significant others and the difficulties / strategies they anticipate in relation to the parenting project.

The authors conclude that female interviewees show greater independence of a male figure in relation to their parental projects and anticipate less difficulty in their parental skills compared with the gay man interviewed.

To analyze the dynamics of parenting in same-sex couples, this study also points out to the need to construct a model of analysis capable of articulating structural factors, such as job insecurity and heteronormativity, biographies and individual resources and profiles of conjugal interactions.

Duchamp caused a revolution in the art of the twentieth century with the readymade concept, and simultaneously he opened Pandora's Box, which converted art into a simulation and made it dependent on discursive practices. This degenerated into a deconstructive vulgate when, from the 1960s onwards, an ‘aesthetic of banality’ was accentuated and the media institutionalized the ‘guerrilla’ between the practices and the discourses. Art ‘wrecked’ in a regime of hyper-reality of the image, and the art paradigms and criteria shifted from aesthetics to the law of the financial markets. At the same time, the proliferation of coexisting cultural ideas and a revolving cultural miscegenation ended up splitting the kingdom of the art. In the art world today, there is a cleavage between artists: on one side, the adepts to the heteronomy (a line that was born with ready-made products), those who, following dominant rules, work for the market and the organizations; on the other side, those, more passionate, for whom art is a hermeneutics for self-knowledge. Meanwhile, Picasso's aura returns to the art scene, in a panorama that until now was adverse to him.

This chapter analyzes a specific form of contemporary art, the one that is created and exhibited in the community, conceived and visualized outside of the art market and independent of the agenda of creative industries and art galleries. The motivation, purpose and meaning of such art practices, for both the artists and the community, are discussed and examples of community art projects are analyzed in order to understand how art became, in this first quarter of the twenty-first century, such a valued collective asset, so accessible and present in the daily life of the common man. Two Portuguese case studies have been chosen as illustrations: the first one is a funding programme of projects focussed on artistic practices for inclusion (the PARTIS programme, by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation) and the second is a self-financed and self-curated artistic collective, Pescada n^º 5.

This chapter will focus on the development of children's literature in the western world. The topic will be discussed with reference to the historical development of children's literature, previous sample works and the concepts of childhood, which have been changing day by day. As it is known, the first literary texts presented to children are verbal. With the spread of the printing press, written literature and changing social perceptions led to the emergence of a separate literary idea for children. Tales, myths, legends, nursery rhymes, and children's songs, as well as the alphabet books and the texts in holy books, which are among the first oral products, are considered the first texts that children encounter. However, the spread of the idea of humanism enables the questioning of the position of the child in society. In this way, works that are suitable for the world of imagination have started to be produced, considering the interests, needs and perceptual differences of children. The Aesopian fables in the 17th century, the Works by J.J. Rousseau in the 18th century for children and his liberal perspective, Robinson Crusoe by D. Defoe and Gulliver's Travels by J. Swift are among the basic works of children's literature. The perception of children and childhood that changes in every century is reflected in literary works.