Abstract

VALADEZ FIGUEROA, Isabel de la A; FAUSTO GUERRA, Josefina  and  GONZALEZ GALLEGOS, Noé. The Group Process in a community-based nutricional educational Project. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2010, vol.36, n.2, pp.148-155. ISSN 0864-3466.

Introduction There has been recently said that the articulation of educational, health and feeding actions through community involvement is needed to solve the malnutrition problems existing in some Mexican communities. Objectives To analyze the group process, given the proposal of learning about and accepting the Medicago sativa (Alfalfa) as alternative food since it had studied before in humans as a food supplement with good results. Methods The nutritional educational project was implemented under the People´s Education methodology in Toluquilla, Jalisco, México, from March 2006 to October 2008. Qualitative ethnographic research that uses the conceptual technique called theorization and the Operational Group Theory. From the construct activity, three analysis units emerged, that is, the evolution of the group process, the operational reference scheme and the basic assumptions. The observation units were the group actions or moments from which five categories were obtained: location, awareness, crisis, resolution and consolidation. Results It was possible to visualize the structure of specific behaviours in the above-mentioned categories, and at the same time, to rescue a group process that alternatively went through the indiscrimination, discrimination and synthesis phases. In the first phase, the objectives of the task seemed to be confusing, then there was more understanding of the activities to be carried out and group integration started in the second one; in the last phase synthesis, the group took the task and acted as promoters before other persons and other communities. Conclusions The group process was similar to one dialectical spiral, with steps forth and back, in which every moment implied a behavioural structure or a function taken by the group or some of its members to finally succeed in doing the suggested task.

Keywords : Nutritional education; ethnography; group process; community.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )