No próximo dia 11 de Junho, Edurne Bartolomé Peral (University of Deusto, Spain), será a oradora convidada do Seminário do Grupo de Investigação SPARC. Este evento terá lugar na sala 1 do ICS-ULisboa e online.

Abstract: This seminar presents the results of the project Values, Scenarios and Attitude Formation on Beginning and end of Life Issues. It delves into the conditioning factors of Spanish citizens' positions on the issues of the beginning and end of life, at the same time as it investigates the critical scenarios and limits for moral judgement and the generation of attitudes. The project aims to continue the work initiated in the previous projecst in the line of research on attitudes and values of Spanish citizens in the areas of the beginning and end of life in a context of enormous and rapid medical, scientific and technological advances. The rapid availability and accessibility of technological and scientific developments and advances can sometimes clash with people's deepest moral and value-based approaches, as they touch on basic elements of existence such as the beginning and end of life. These advances raise possibilities for facilitating reproduction and also delaying motherhood in this social context where career projection becomes more relevant and gender roles are revised. Practices such as assisted reproduction techniques or surrogacy allow for such advances. In addition, COVID-19 has exposed us to practices such as medical triage (prioritising among patients when resources are scarce). This talk will deepen and advance the understanding of the domains of values and beliefs that at the individual level are influencing attitudes towards beginning and end of life issues. In this respect, it is also intended to identify those socio-demographic aspects that are impacting on the formation of these values and attitudes, such as age, gender, educational level or socio-economic status. Finally, it aims to study how collisions in value systems and in the boundaries and scenarios in which they can be justified and their grey areas of moral judgement are also becoming increasingly divisive in a context of cultural backlash, and the prevalence of principle and end-of-life issues in ideological debate, becoming more subject to ideological polarisation. This project is part of a collective line of research at the European level, which also aims to contribute new data and research results obtained in the Spanish context to a broader European context. 

Short bio: Edurne Bartolomé Peral is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto. She holds a degree in Sociology (Deusto) and Political Science (University of the Basque Country) and a PhD in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Deusto. Since 2002, she has worked in the field of political values and attitudes from a comparative perspective. She is the programme director of the European Values Study in Spain and a member of the EVS Executive Committee. She has been a visiting researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center (Wissenschafszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung), GESIS in Cologne, Jacobs University Bremen, the University of Michigan, University Loyola Chicago, University of Lisbon, and the University of California, Irvine, where she completed her doctoral thesis on political support in Europe. She is the author of numerous articles in journals such as Democratization, Methodology, European Societies, REIS, Politica y Gobierno, European Journal of Sociology, Politics and Governance, CIRIEC, amongst others, and has published book chapters with publishers such as Brill, Palgrave-McMillan, and Routlledge. She is the principal investigator on several competitive research projects at national and European level.