7 Beeszzz Essay

FUNKTIVE
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
(professional essay)

13/12/2012
VIA University College, Viborg
Social Entrepreneurship, 2012

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Content

Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 2
Lifeworld and systems perspective (Agnieszka, Iva) ................................................................ 3
How can activities influence the habitus and the field? (Andrea, Izaro) ................................... 5
E. H. Schein (exposed values artifacts basic assumptions) (Vlad) ....................................... 7
Organizational culture (Alexandra) ............................................................................................ 9
Summary .................................................................................................................................. 11
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 13


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INTRODUCTION
Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to societys most
pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and
offering new ideas for wide-scale change.
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During our student exchange in Denmark we became to be the social entrepreneurs.
We have learnt about innovative process and we have been working with different challenges.
In the maxi innovation process we had to show how social entrepreneurship can improve
health in society. Dealing with challenge given us by Move it organization about including
inactive children in the leisure activities, we have tried to improve kids health in a wide
range.
Our project called Funktive was created by us to develop social, physical and mental
health in the school area. We wanted to include all children with different ages, backgrounds,
problems and give them the possibility to feel comfortable in the group, playing social games
together.
In this way, doing funny physical activities with schoolmates, childrens motivation
and self-confidence can increase and they can also feel more integrated in the school. What is
more their body condition and physical health will be improved automatically.
Of course, there are many hard issues and our solution for the challenge cannot be the
perfect idea which can solve all of the problems, deep-rooted in the families background, but
this is what we have learnt: if you do not try you will never know what happens and even if
you fail, you fail to success sooner.
In this essay we would like to analyze the three different perspectives of seeing our
challenge according to theories of Jrgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu and Edgar H. Schein to
understand the complexity of the challenge which we have been dealing with.

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http://www.ashoka.org/social_entrepreneur

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LIFEWORLD AND SYSTEM S PERSPECTIVE
According to Habermas in our challenge we faced two distinct spheres: lifeworld and
system. In the Move it project we can see the system which takes over control the lifeworld,
and that is why we came up with our project called Funktive to improve social life and health
among children in families and schools. There were elements of the system like school, Move
it organization, Municipality, sports clubs and also families or volunteers from the project
Move it. The elements of lifeworld take place also in families and in the school: among
teachers and pupils and among schoolmates.
The system takes over control lifeworld, especially when there are families with social
and financial problems, which do not have a sufficient support or motivation for children.
That is why the Move it project was created to include non-active children from these families
to the society and improve the healthy lifestyle. There is a collaboration between Move it
organization and the school teachers, who inform Move it (in most cases they call them)
which children are non-active. Then, Move it contacts the families of these children. They
have meeting at their homes and during 1 hour the coordinators from Move it try to explain
the family the importance of being active and convince the kid to be a part of their project.
They want to organize the childrens leisure time (which is a part of a lifeworld)
showing them pictures with different activities to choose one. In this way Move it influences
and takes control on the family life saying what is the best for their children. The parents
could in this case feel less powerful or less responsible, because their family life is interrupted
from outside coordinators are for them just strangers and it is hard to make a social
connection with them and get to know real childrens needs, especially after one hour visit.
The kid cannot feel really integrated, he becomes just an element of the system surrounded by
school, Move it organization and sports clubs. Then there arise questions such as: Is it correct
when the system tells us how we should live and what is the best for us? And why does the
system want to guide us where to go? Is there any hidden purpose of the system? There is
no clear answer but we can just discuss that without the support from the system (Move it is a
system based organization and here could be also another organizations offering leisure
activities) children would not get such a big care which they can receive only from both
elements: system and lifeworld. Families could probably also hardly deal alone with their own
social problems. Therefore it is sometimes better to take a help from educated specialists, in

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our case these are coordinators from Move it organization, but it could be also coaches or
artists from different fields of interests.

Behind the Move it project there stands the Municipality, which financially supports
the project and also indirectly decides how the money will be spent. There are some rules and
regulations which organization Move it has to fulfill to be financed by them. And we can just
suppose, that the purpose of Municipality is not only to develop childrens skills and improve
the individuals well-being, but maybe they have another more important purpose attending
the future. They are aware of the fact that healthier citizens are better for the common good,
because instead of paying for the expensive health care, medicines, surgeries, they prefer to
apply the preventing policy. The healthier citizens mean for example better workers for the
community in the future.

In our project Funktive we want to create an environment where children could have
fun, be active playing social games together etc. To reach this we would like to improve
school lifeworld to help children with making stronger relations between each other. In this
way children can feel more integrated in community of the others and also motivated by
schoolmates.
The lifeworld is a concept for the everyday world
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and school is definitely a part of
childrens daily life. It is also a place where system and lifeworld overlap each other. In the
contrast project Move it which cooperates with the school in system level, we would like to
intensify the lifeworld level, it means relations among pupils.
Nowadays we can observe a common phenomenon in our society that there are
tendencies of colonization lifeworld by system. This colonization could lead to harmful
effects that system can have on social life and on individual members of society.
3
In our
project Funktive we would like to avoid these negative effects like disintegration, alienation
because especially in Denmark because of the welfare system people can feel lonely without
a big support from family. The reason is that people can fully rely on the welfare system and
their social bonds are less tightened. When we did our workshop at primary school (and also
our practice) we got the feedback from children that usually they do not feel integrated in
group in the class, like unity. But after playing our social games with them they felt an

2
Finlayson J. G.: Habermas, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, p. 51.
3
Finlayson J. G.: Habermas, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, p. 57.

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improvement. That is why the system has to create a space for lifeworld where it could be
empowered.
We consider that the lifeworld is also a motivation from volunteers (organizers of
social activities). They can become a childrens idol or an important person who can be
followed by children. During these (after) school activities volunteers can support children
and break their fears of being not accepted in a group.
It is important to mention that volunteer could be also a parent of any child or for
example an older schoolmate, so not just high educated person. We think that this
environment consisting of the well-known surroundings and well-known people could make
children feel more secure and that is why we hope they could maintain doing social activities
also in the future. On the other hand, for some children, it is important that they are part of a
club, community, which they regularly attend. They could feel empowered by belonging to a
community and this is maybe for some of them the biggest motivation.

HOW CAN ACTIVITIES INFLUENCE THE HABITUS AND THE FIELD?
The children of our challenge are people that need to be more active and sociable with
other kids and in general, with the society. These children have different habits and status as
they come from different backgrounds, such as economic, social, psychological or family
problems. Therefore, they need more motivation to spend interesting and satisfactory in their
leisure time and that is why our aim is focused on including all children into activities. Not
just non-active children from the active ones, but put them together with the idea of inclusion.
How can we affect the habitus of these kids?
The child's personality is influenced by the action of various factors, such as family,
school, etc. and that is why it is necessary these factors form the child as best as they can.
Children obtain social experience due to various factors. Social experiences contribute to the
shaping of dispositions and assumptions of the child. Bourdieu argues that these dispositions
gradually determine our behavior without realizing it. The actual process of formation of
these dispositions and assumptions takes place throughout our lives. The beginning of this
process is also very important, because these two personality tendencies that affect our
everyday life, specify how we see the world; it is clear from our lifestyles but it is not easy to
change them. Therefore, it is always essential to look for ways that can positively impact on

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children, especially when they are in an environment that can make a negative effect on their
initial social experience. The behavior can also be influenced by the current context in
society, social and historical conditions in society.
Our range of social activities should therefore positively influence the social
experience of children. They should develop a range of skills and abilities. During the
implementation of activities, children have the opportunity to acquire different values from
their peers or implementers of activities. Changes of childs habits through social activities
can positively affect another group and this is the family of the children. In regard to the
atmosphere and climate change in families, again it will work on the development of those
kids.

If social activities have a good impact on behavior of people maybe they can
positively influence on relations in the society. Each person occupies a position in the group,
which is changeable . Applying social activities we can reform position of children and their
families in the community.
The main field in this project is focused on the school. This area is very important for
the pupils as a part of their everyday life. In the environment inside school, children usually
dont have enough opportunities to work actively during classes as they are attending in a
passive way (sitting down and listening to the teacher). Apart from that, schoolmates are in
the same classroom almost whole the school time, so they cannot cooperate with the other
peers. These aspects are some of the reasons that those kids become non-active.
With the purpose of raising the extracurricular activities, our idea is to include all
children and young, active or inactive. These activities would be based on social games, and
in this way, would not be any competitiveness, but including games for different children.
Moreover, the motivation would be higher according to the students, not only in terms
of the activities, but about school in general. They would slowly develop new social skills and
thereby, they would be empowered to be able to involve by themselves without any fears.
With these games we would like to create an active environment and a setting where
children and youth could be safe; they would be able to act in an independent way and could
also create more capital. In this case we could talk about the social and also cultural capital.
These children would be socially active, they would have more relations and they would open

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to the whole society. In the same way, they would be culturally active since they would
demonstrate more interest in different events.
On the other hand, coming back to the families, those with low or less activity within
the school, would open their curiosity and they would also integrate in different projects
which are held in the school.
Families largely affect the acquisition of cultural capital in the process of
socialization.
The family passes to child crucial abilities, skills, attitudes and values.
A child may be more successful in school if the family spends time together and if the
child feels social support from family. Parents are the first role models for them. They show
the child how to spend their free time. The school develops the child's cultural capital.
Therefore, it may affects the child and the parents. Children, as has been said, come from
uninspiring environment. Therefore, social activities should improve their verbal dexterity,
self-presentation, the ability to verbalize their thoughts. Meeting with other children from
another family environment with different expressive capabilities, can contribute to the
development of greater verbal openness. Children will not be afraid of expressing their
opinions and attitudes. They can train various situations that can happen to them in real life.
Parents may participate in the selection of activities, see their kids having fun and developing
communicative, personal skills and talk about them with volunteers who carry out activities.
They can also discuss with other parents about activities and thus obtain new information and
new insights into how children develops.

E. H. SCHEIN (EXPOSED VALUES ARTIFACTS BASIC ASSUMPTIONS)
1. We followed the same lines and basic idea like those from who this project started, to
improve the exposed values of each kid, to create social stability and to promote a healthier
way of life.
Analyzing from the beginning which kind of expose values to follow for realizing the
project, we decided that for us the best are:
- health promotion
- create social abilities

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- crime prevention
- create motivation
- start the activity up and maintain the activity interest

In this way we try to promote a healthier way of life ( Physical Mental Emotional )
by including kids with adaptation problems in groups which offer them the possibility to
create this kind of social abilities ( Communication Self-confidence ) that will help them to
understand and give the motivation they need to develop those social abilities. Following this,
at the end, the Goal will be to re-bring into the normal socialization and develop limits each
kid, this way preventing crime and putting in value into the benefit of society, the intellectual
potential of those persons which in other ways, without receiving proper help in the right
moment, they wouldnt manage to find their way in the society.
2. Regarding the artifacts ( Schools; Clubs *sport, **artistic; Houses
Municipality), the main development place for the project idea are Schools and Clubs (*sport,
**artistic) without forgetting the importance of time spent in family and the role of the
municipality into the life development of each kids.
Following to make those activities inside public learning institutions, well use their
material base in order to give each kid the possibility of feeling free, safe and motivated when
he / she is doing the activity.
In this way well create the proper environment for social development of the kids to
get used to trust others and work as a team in short terms and in long terms, to assure unity
into the future society.
Municipality by giving moral and financial support for the project, they give us the
power to give the minimum equipment for each kid and in this way to offer the continuity of
those activities at home.
Our project basic assumptions are the same like in Project Move It (State,
Municipality, Civil Society).
3. We have the same goal but we follow a different perspective of how to attract and
approach kids to our activities. The implication of the State and Municipality are from
legislative and financial perspective. Those institutions try to prevent or in the worst case to
reintegrate in normal social limits excluded kids by using as low founds as possible. In this
way, by leading the kids from the start of their adaptation problems on the path, will prevent
spending society founds on reeducation and reintegration in the case of becoming delinquents.

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By preventing this on one way this founds can be used in other more useful ways for the
society, on the other hand and most important, it gives the possibility of each person to
develop himself ( mentally physically career social) which reflect like a boomerang on
the society.
A stabile society if constructed from healthy persons and the aim of the society is to
form and educate his persons and then to use their recourses for a continuing develop.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
We wanted to implement another culture inside school, to create another mentality,
to develop from their artifacts others espoused values and beliefs, we wanted them to see a
different perspective, a different goal, and maybe in the end to change their perception and
their assumptions.

I. Social perspective
Including children with a disability in early childhood project such as ours sets a
precedent for inclusion as the norm, and reduces the possibility of later prejudice and negative
attitudes toward people with a disability. The practice of inclusion encourages children's
awareness of individual differences and the great diversity among people.
The aim of our project was to include all children into the activities, not just divide
non-active children from the active ones, but put them together (INCLUSION). We also
wanted to explain that it is more about SOCIAL CONTACT (building relations, having fun
not just competing). We wanted all children and also youth, to feel comfortable and
motivated with the activities and also with themselves. In this way besides thinking about
their difficulties at home they can enjoy every moment and forget about their problems.
We organized the workshop in the Bgeskovskolen School and from there we
observed their behavior. That also can be seen as an artifact and we wanted to implement a
new concept in their routine. It was more about including children in different social games
after school or during breaks. These are some of the feedbacks we receive:
I thought your games were very funny, and it was challenging and a lot of fun. It has been
lovely to try to collaborate with your class, and especially the activity "BOMB" was very good
for the class to become a unity.

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It was really funny that game with the ball (bomb). It was a good experience to try
something new. I will for sure take this experience with me.
We can use some of the activities in physical education.
We organized the workshop at the school which helped us to see how our idea works
in reality. From the feedback given by the teacher and the children, we learned that we can
change their espoused beliefs and also they could implement our idea in their schedule. The
program they had was an academic one and werent giving so much importance or time to
physical education, or social games and by the workshop we perform, they saw the benefits
and developed their perception and feeling.
We also realized how much importance social perspective has when it comes to the
non-active children they need moral support, motivation and most of the time inclusion in
everything they do.

II. Institutional perspective
In order to succeed with our project, we had to contact many institutions. The benefit
out of it was the knowledge transferred from an institution to another, the development of
mutual trust between the research institutions and the beneficial to the establishment of long-
term strategic partnership.
We contact 25 schools and 2 of them answered to our emails and they welcomed us in
the school. For making the workshop, we also contacted the Viborg Athletic Team and they
were willing to cooperate with us. We were most of the time in contact with the coordinators
from the project Move it, giving us enough information about the challenge and about the
environment that we should create for the non-active children.
Our main collaboration was with the organization Game Boosters which had valuable
experience connected with our idea. It is a good example of success in this area.
We implemented didactic games which were part of our idea to the organizations
project. Because of this, all schools will have our propositions and can easily use them in
every time they want without any financial costs.


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III. Individual perspective
Volunteering gives individuals the chance to explore avenues that would not usually be
opened to them. This experience enables an exchange of cultural and social contact between
volunteers and children.
Living in a different culture, whether nationally or internationally, their challenge
required maturity and strong interpersonal and cross-cultural skills. The importance of
children as volunteers include the following; promotes healthy lifestyle and choices, enhances
development, teaches life skills, improves the community and encourages a lifelong service
ethic.
We needed experienced volunteers that would be able to motivate all the kids with our
social games. We talked with the Physical Education students from VIA University and they
were also willing to collaborate with us and also we were able to gain some volunteers from
the Game Boosters project and they will be responsible to present and do games in the future.

SUMMARY
All of the theories emphasize the importance of social contact between people which
can influence on our taste, values, choices, behavior and actions later in life. That is why the
school and home are the basic places where the process of socialization has the beginning.
In this process childrens habitus is creating the mostly, the environment, parents,
close surroundings deeply affect child and his mind and development. Good habits are
essential in our everyday life. Children have to learn how to interact with others in a healthy,
positive, and productive manner to operate successfully in society. In order to prepare
children to be successful in the future, it is crucial that we as adults stimulate social
interaction, social skills, and teach how healthy interact with others.
Nowadays modern ways of life are creating problem of disease that either did not exist
a few decades ago or now they are more common than in the past. The steering media of
money and power become uncoupled from the lifeworld from the spheres of family and
culture. The children very often do not have the good authority who can follow, who can help
them to face his problems and get through his daily difficulties.

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It is normal that a child cannot be perfectly adapted to his environment that his life will not
involve struggles, failures and suffering. That is why he needs to be well prepared for future
life.
But even the welfare system cannot provide the citizens personal assistance most of
the time and takes care of their social life. Therefore people should take actions and activities
into their own hands and take responsibility for it. In modern society the focus should be
shifted from State to Civil Society. People as individuals should cooperate on a level of
citizens (micro), local communities and institutions (mezzo) and also state (macro). Maybe in
our case when parents will be more involved in the childrens development and collaborate
with each other, the children more integrated in the school and the teachers can encourage
pupils to be more active through promoting the healthy lifestyle, the seed of our idea would be
planted and grow up positively influences on the families life and further.


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bourdieu, P.: Habitus and Field, page 517-528, In: Ritzer, George and Goodman, Douglas J.:
Sociological Theory, Sixth edition, MsGraw Hill, 2003.
Finlayson, J. G.: Habermas. A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.
Nielsen G.: Childrens Daily Physical Activity- Patterns and the Influence of Sociocultural
Factors, PHD thesis, Department of Exercise and Sport Sciences University of Copenhagen,
2011.)
Schein, E. H.: Organizational Culture and Leadership, Joss-Bass, 2004.
[online] [13.12.2012] http://www.gameboosters.dk/gameboosters/
[online] [13.12.2012] http://viborg.dk/moveit
[online] [13.12.2012] http://www.ashoka.org/social_entrepreneur
[online] [13.12.2012] www.ehu.es/SusanaTejada/asignat/autola/gaiak/4gaia.pdf
Zkladn koncepty Pierra Bourdieu: pole kapitl - habitus [online]. Katedra Sociolgie, FF
ZU v Plzni. [11.12.2012]. 2011. Available at: http:antropologie.zcu.cz/zakladni-koncepty-
pierra-bourdieu-pole-kapital-habitus

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