Since it is a matter which is closely linked to the children who live and work in the street, and a subject that has been studied and discussed at national and Latin American Seminars, we consider it convenient to use the texts from our files to divulge what appears to be a consensus concerning the role, aspirations and goals of these children and of the Street Educators.

Lastly, we thank Professor Paulo Freire for supporting and motivating the Street Educators’ task, as well as the educators themselves, whose participation in the development of this study was invaluable.

The obstacles to overcome are significant. However, having gained an ally with the qualities of Paulo Freire brought faith, courage, and assurance to the group.

Despite its expanse and geographic variety, overall, the region, which geographical extends from Mexico to Patagonia including the Caribbean countries, faces a severe social and economic crisis that effects the population most vulnerable strata.

During the past few years the rural-urban migration has increased, dramatically affecting the excessive growth of the marginal areas in large cities, and in particular in the capital of each country, where human groups settle in search of betterment and basic services that were already overflowing and insufficient before their arrival.

This situation is aggravated, on the one hand, by the considerable increase in the cost of food, while purchasing power experiences a rapid and gradual decrease; and on the other hand, by the threatening shadow of high unemployment rates and the number of concealed jobless or the growing insertion into the informal economy.

Although the problem attains different degrees in the various countries or regions, this almost generalized situation, severely affects the traditionally critical conditions of abandoned children, of those in high risk situation, as well as of children of the street, children on the street, or of children in conditions corresponding to any other designation used.

In view of these facts, since 1983 UNICEF has been undertaking a series of actions to support governments, the church, private institutions, and the community, in an effort to find and strengthen alternatives to rescue and foster these children. With its Regional Programme for Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances, UNICEF is promoting and developing actions aimed at increasing people’s awareness of this situation.

Time is of the essence in finding a solution to these problems and four countries, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador have initiated a pioneer effort and are carrying out experimental care projects for children. These projects are consolidating and, at present, constitute models that are applicable in other countries of the region.

James Clear nos brinda fantásticas ideas basadas en investigaciones científicas, que le permiten revelarnos cómo podemos transformar pequeños hábitos cotidianos para cambiar nuestra vida y mejorarla. Esta guía pone al descubierto las fuerzas ocultas que moldean nuestro comportamiento —desde nuestra mentalidad, pasando por el ambiente y hasta la genética— y nos demuestra cómo aplicar cada cambio a nuestra vida y a nuestro trabajo.

Después de leer este libro, tendrás un método sencillo para desarrollar un sistema eficaz que te conducirá al éxito.

Aprende cómo:

1. Darte tiempo para desarrollar nuevos hábitos.
2. Superar la falta de motivación y de fuerza de voluntad.
3. Diseñar un ambiente para que el éxito sea fácil de alcanzar.
4. Regresar al buen camino cuando te hayas desviado un poco.

El éxito no es un objetivo o una línea de meta que tienes que cruzar. Es un sistema de mejora, un proceso interminable que se tiene que refinar… Si tienes problemas para cambiar tus hábitos, el problema no eres tú. El problema es tu sistema. Los malos hábitos se repiten una y otra vez no porque no quieras cambiarlos, sino porque tienes un sistema equivocado para el cambio.

For beginning students, vocabulary often appears as just a daunting collection of definitions to be memorized for the next quiz. What students often miss is that such words are far more than mental hurdles to clear, far more than jargon invented by professionals to distinguish themselves. Taken as a whole, the language of a discipline is a map that identifies a territory of study and provides points of view from which to look at it. Learning a new discipline is like traveling to a foreign land, and technical language is a guide to significant sights to look for and how to pay attention to them.

As such, language plays a key role in drawing attention to different aspects of reality, and in the process it shapes the reality that you perceive and experience. The first time you walk through a field of wildflowers, for example, you may see only a soft sea of colors blending into an undifferentiated whole. But what happens if you take along someone who knows one flower from another, who bends you down to see the details of each? Strolling through country fields will never be the same again. Now you will know the distinct individuality of each variety of flower and how they come together to make this thing you experience as a field. You will find yourself saying, “I never saw that flower before,” when in fact, of course, you saw it a thousand times; what you never did before was to notice it.

Noticing is a great deal of what technical language is about. When we learn the word for a concept — such as system — we can then think about that concept in relation to other concepts — such as family — and thereby understand both in a different way than before. In many ways, this is what thinking is about: noticing and making connections. Whether word labels refer to colors, types of flowers, types of political systems, or theories of social change, they are essential for noticing, connecting, thinking, and understanding.

The language of sociology is what sociologists use to study social life in all its diversity and complexity — to see how this system works differently from that or how one pattern of small group interaction differs from another. It is this language that takes us beyond merely seeing what is all around us, to noticing, to paying attention in ways that enable us to understand social life in a more systematic way. The word culture, for example, points to a collection of things, symbols, ideas, and practices that shape life in a social system such as a society. Culture includes the languages people speak, the foods they prefer, the rules they live by, and the values that shape their choices. Once culture becomes part of our active vocabulary, we are more likely to notice the distinction between an individual’s personality and the culture in which they participate.

We can become more aware that there is something larger than ourselves that we and other people participate in, an “it” to be understood in its own right. From here we can realize that we cannot understand the behavior of individuals without paying attention to the culture of the society in which they live. Instead of merely seeing destructive individual personalities as the cause of social problems, for example, we also notice the many ways in which a society can reward or otherwise promote destructive behavior. In short, we start to notice that everything individuals experience or do always takes place in and is shaped by a cultural context.

One main theme is that of the world in change. Sociology was born of the transformations that wrenched the industrializing social order of the West away from the ways of life characteristic of preceding societies. The world that was created by these changes is the primary object of concern of sociological analysis. The pace of social change has continued to accelerate, and it is possible that we stand on the threshold of transitions as significant as those that occurred in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sociology has prime responsibility for charting the transformations that have taken place in the past and for grasping the major lines of development taking place today.

A second fundamental theme of the book is the globalizing of social life. For far too long, sociology has been dominated by the view that societies can be studied as independent unities. But even in the past, societies have never really existed in isolation. In current times, we can see a clear acceleration in processes of global integration. This is obvious, for example, in the expansion of international trade across the world. The emphasis on globalization also connects closely with the weight given to the interdependence of First and Third Worlds today.

Third, the book takes a strongly comparative stance. The study of sociology cannot be taught solely by understanding the institutions of any one particular society. While we have slanted the discussion toward the United States, such discussion is always balanced by a rich variety of materials drawn from other cultures. These include researches carried out in other Western countries, but we also refer often to Russia and the Eastern European societies, which are currently undergoing substantial changes. The book also includes much more material on Third World countries than has been usual hitherto in introductions of sociology. In addition, we strongly emphasize the relationship between sociology and anthropology, whose concerns overlap comprehensively. Given the close connections that now mesh societies across the world with one another, and the virtual disappearance of traditional social systems, sociology and anthropology increasingly become indistinguishable.

A fourth theme is the necessity of taking a historical approach to sociology. This involves more than just filling in the historical context within which events occur. One of the most important developments in sociology over the past few years has been an increasing emphasis on historical analysis. This should be understood not solely as applying a sociological outlook to the past, but as a way of contributing to our understanding of institutions in the present. Recent work in historical sociology is discussed throughout, and provides a framework for the interpretations offered within most of the chapters.

Fifth, particular attention is given throughout the text to issues of gender. The study of gender is ordinarily regarded as a specific field within sociology as a whole—and this volume contains a chapter that specifically explores thinking and research on the subject (Chapter 8). However, questions about gender relations are so fundamental to sociological analysis that they cannot simply be considered a subdivision. Thus, many chapters contain sections concerned with issues of gender.

A sixth theme is the micro and macro link. In many places in the book, we show that interaction in micro-level contexts affects larger social processes and that such macro-level processes influence our day-to-day lives. We emphasize to readers that one can better understand a social situation by analyzing it at both the micro- and macro-level.

A seventh theme is the relation between the social and the personal. Sociological thinking is a vital help to self-understanding, which in turn can be focused back on an improved understanding of the social world. Studying sociology should be a liberating experience: the field enlarges our sympathies and imagination, opens up new perspectives on the sources of our own behavior, and creates an awareness of cultural settings different from our own. Insofar as sociological ideas challenge dogma, teach appreciation of cultural variety, and allow us insight into the working of social institutions, the practice of sociology enhances the possibilities of human freedom.

Sociology is by its very nature controversial. However, for a considerable period after the Second World War, particularly in the English-speaking world, there was a broad consensus about its nature and tasks and about those of the social sciences as a whole. There was, it could be said, a middle ground shared by otherwise competing perspectives, a terrain on which intellectual battles could be fought out.

During that period sociology was an academic growth area, a subject with a burgeoning reputation, even if it remained distinctly unpopular in many circles. It was dominated internationally by American sociology, and in social theory the influence of Talcott Parsons was marked. The prestige enjoyed by Parsons’s ideas can be exaggerated retrospectively—many found his taste for abstraction and obscurity unattractive, and he had his fair share of critics and detractors.

However, The Structure of Social Action, first published in the late 1930s but widely known only in the post-war period, was in more than one way a key work in the formation of modern sociology. In it Parsons established a systematic pedigree for social theory, based upon an interpretation of European thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The work of Durkheim, Max Weber and Pareto loomed large, but Marx played a very slight role indeed. The writings of the 1890–1920 generation had supposedly gone beyond Marx in all important respects, sifting out what was valuable and discarding the dross.

The book also set up an approach to social theory of a very definite type, combining a sophisticated version of functionalism and a naturalistic conception of sociology. 

Cesare Beccaria, que con su pequeño maravilloso libro De los delitos y de las penas, había suscitado—la víspera de la revolución francesa—un tan grande y clamoroso entusiasmo, igual entre los enciclopedistas que entre los príncipes reinantes en España, en Austria, Rusia…, murió, pocos años después, en medio de la indiferencia pública, casi olvidado.

Pero la idea de sus premisas tenía en sí misma la fuerza incoercible de la verdad humana, y por esto, después de treinta o cuarenta años de aparente olvido, alcanzó el triunfo completo y todas las legislaciones penales de los pueblos cultos se inspiraron en ella.

Lo propio ha acontecido y acontece respecto de la idea de la escuela positiva. Después del clamor de oposiciones y polémicas, de admiraciones y aplausos que produjo su primera afirmación, transcurrieron veinticinco años, en los que parecía que había caído en el mayor abandono.

La realidad, sin embargo, ha desmentido esta apariencia.

Toda nueva doctrina, después de la primera fase de la afirmación, más o menos tumultuosa, cruza por otra fase de germinación, como el grano que depositado en el seno de la madre tierra debe pasar un período de embrión antes de mostrarse como yerba y como espiga.

Los hechos criminosos, excesivamente cotidianos, los procesos sensacionales han continuado, todos los días, reclamando la atención pública sobre la teoría de la escuela positiva, confirmándola y arraigándola cada vez más en la pública conciencia.

Así ha ocurrido que en muchos países se han realizado las reformas penales (frente a los códigos monumentales) inspirándose en el íntimo pensamiento de la nueva escuela.

Los manicomios criminales, la condena condicional, los Tribunales especiales para los menores, etc., son la prueba de esta difusión progresiva de la nueva doctrina en el campo de la realidad penal.

The Handbook of Forensic Sociology and Psychology examines the roles of sociologists and psychologists as expert witnesses and consultants in different civil, criminal, and immigration cases. It will show how forensic sociology and forensic psychology principles, theories, and methods can be used in a variety of areas such as personal injury, child custody, and employment. In addition, forensic sociologists and psychologists testify as expert witnesses and provide technical consultations on diverse issues ranging from personal injury and premises liability to political asylum and environmental disasters.

Based on their research and training in specialized areas of sociology and psychology as well as in quantitative and qualitative research methods, sociologists and psychologists assist attorneys and law firms by offering expert testimony about different aspects of litigation. Social and behavioral scientists can assist organizations and policy makers in developing appropriate organizational, individual, family, and other settings.

As consultants, they can help attorneys and law firms by conducting experiments, constructing juror questionnaires and interview protocols for the voir dire, designing case-specific juror profiles, conducting mock trials, assisting in preparing strategies and research for depositions, and observing trials and providing feedback during trials.

Unter Inhalt versteht er die individuellen Antriebe, Zwecke, Interessen oder Gefühle der Menschen (wie Trieb, Glaube, Erwerb). Die Form hingegen ist die Art und Weise, wie die Individuen miteinander in Wechselwirkung treten. Gesellschaft entsteht laut Simmel erst dort, wo aus diesen Wechselwirkungen feste Formen der Vergesellschaftung hervorgehen. Gegenstand der Soziologie ist somit nicht die Summe aller menschlichen Handlungen, sondern die reine Untersuchung dieser interaktiven Formen.

Die zentralen Themen und Kapitel des Werkes

1. Das Problem der Soziologie und die Frage nach der Gesellschaft: Im ersten Kapitel fragt Simmel transzendentalanalytisch: Wie ist Gesellschaft möglich? Seine Antwort beruht auf seelischen Prozessen und Vergesellschaftungsformen, bei denen Individuen einander wahrnehmen, kategorisieren und so gemeinsam soziale Realität konstituieren.
2. Die quantitative Bestimmtheit der Gruppe: Simmel analysiert die geometrische Dimension sozialer Beziehungen. Er vergleicht die Zweierbeziehung (Dyade) mit der Dreierbeziehung (Triade). Während die Dyade von beiden Partnern direkt abhängt und keine abstrakte Übermacht bildet, führt das Hinzukommen eines Dritten zur Entstehung echter Gruppenstrukturen, in denen Rollen wie der Unparteiische, der lachende Dritte (tertius gaudens) oder das Prinzip divide et impera auftreten.
3. Macht, Über- und Unterordnung: Überordnung ist für Simmel keine einseitige Zwangsausübung, sondern eine Form der Wechselwirkung, da auch der Untergeordnete auf das Verhalten der übergeordneten Instanz einwirkt.
4. Der Streit als integrative Kraft: Streit und Konflikt sind keineswegs nur destruktiv. Für Simmel besitzt der Streit eine positive, synthetisierende Funktion: Er stellt Beziehungen zwischen gegnerischen Parteien her, schafft klare Grenzen und festigt den inneren Zusammenhalt von Gruppen.
5. Das Geheimnis und die geheime Gesellschaft: Das Wissen und Nicht-Wissen voneinander prägt soziale Beziehungen. Geheimnisse schaffen Distanz und Exklusivität, strukturieren aber auch Vertrauen und Hierarchie.
6. Die Kreuzung sozialer Kreise: In modernen Gesellschaften unterscheidet sich das Individuum dadurch, dass es nicht mehr nur in einem einzigen, geschlossenen Kreis lebt. Stattdessen befindet sich der Einzelne am Schnittpunkt vieler verschiedener sozialer Kreise (z. B. Beruf, Hobbys, Familie, Politik). Diese Überschneidung fördert die moderne Individualität und persönliche Freiheit.
7. Raum, Sinnessoziologie und der Fremde: Simmel beschreibt, wie Raum und Sinne soziale Distanz oder Nähe erzeugen. Besondere Bekanntheit erlangte sein Exkurs über den „Fremden“: Dieser ist nicht der Wanderer, der heute kommt und morgen geht, sondern derjenige, der heute kommt und morgen bleibt – eine Figur, die gleichzeitig Nähe und Distanz verkörpert und dadurch eine spezifische Objektivität besitzt.

Fazit und Wirkung

Simmels Werk bietet ein mikrosoziologisches und beziehungsanalytisches Instrumentarium. Statt starrer Systeme beschreibt er das soziale Leben als dynamisches Gewebe aus Interaktionen. Sein begrifflicher Ansatz der Wechselwirkung und der formalen Soziologie prägt die Sozialwissenschaften bis heute maßgeblich.

Why Did Sci-Net Emerge?

To understand Sci-Net, you first need to understand what happened to Sci-Hub.

For over a decade, Sci-Hub operated by automating access to scientific journals using login credentials donated by sympathetic academics around the world. The system was elegant in its simplicity: a username and password were enough to unlock millions of articles hidden behind paywalls.

That changed in 2022, when major publishers — including Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society — implemented two-factor authentication (2FA) across their platforms. With 2FA, logging in requires confirming a link sent to the account’s registered email, something that cannot be automated. This single security update effectively cut Sci-Hub off from any paper published after 2022.

To be clear: Sci-Hub still works. It continues to handle nearly one million download requests per day and holds a database of over 88 million documents (100 terabytes). But if you’re looking for anything published in the last few years, you’ll hit a wall. That’s the gap Sci-Net was built to fill.

How the Model Evolved

Sci-Hub has always depended on community support to survive — financially and operationally. In its early days, donations came in via SMS, though high carrier fees made that unsustainable. Later, Yandex.Money (now YooMoney) became the main payment channel, followed by PayPal, which gave the project a brief window of global reach.

That window closed in 2013 when PayPal froze Sci-Hub’s account due to legal pressure from copyright holders. Services like Cloudflare and Twitter/X have also pulled the plug at various points.

Crypto as a Lifeline

Cryptocurrency has consistently been the one channel that stayed open. Bitcoin donations provided a modest but reliable income stream from the beginning. When Bitcoin’s value surged in 2017, those early donations turned into meaningful capital that kept Sci-Hub running for years.

Alexandra Elbakyan had previously attempted to create an official Sci-Hub token to fund projects aligned with the DeSci movement — Decentralized Science — which uses blockchain and Web3 technologies to support open science initiatives. That first attempt didn’t succeed. But the idea didn’t go away.

The Rewards Model

The crypto rewards model isn’t new. One well-known example is Brave browser’s Rewards program, which pays users in Basic Attention Token (BAT) for viewing non-intrusive ads. The principle is the same: active participation earns real value.

After considerable groundwork, the official $Sci-Hub (SCI) token launched in June 2025, with a total supply of 888,888 tokens running on the Solana network. With that in place, Sci-Net became possible.

What Is Sci-Net?

Sci-Net is a community-driven platform where users can request academic papers and books they can’t access elsewhere. It runs on a reward system: you post a request with a bounty in $Sci-Hub (SCI) tokens, and another member of the community fulfills it.

How It Works

Here’s the basic flow:

1. A user needs a paper they can’t access.
2. They post a request on Sci-Net, attaching a reward in SCI tokens (minimum: 1 token).
3. The system checks whether the paper is already in Sci-Hub’s database using its DOI. If it is, the request is closed automatically. If not, it goes live on the platform.
4. Another user picks up the request and has 30 minutes to upload the document.
5. The requester reviews the file and approves it. Once approved, the reward is released to the uploader — and the paper is added to Sci-Hub’s database, where anyone can download it for free.

This peer-to-peer loop solves the post-2022 paper gap while simultaneously expanding Sci-Hub’s repository over time.

A Note on Privacy

Sci-Net takes anonymity seriously. You don’t need an email address to sign up. On top of that, before any paper becomes available for download, the platform’s algorithm scans the PDF and strips out watermarks — those hidden identifiers that reveal the IP address or institution name of whoever originally downloaded the file.

How to Join Sci-Net

Unlike Sci-Hub, Sci-Net requires an account. And to create one, you’ll need an invitation code — which is where things get slightly technical if you’re new to crypto.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

Step 1 — Install the Phantom Wallet

Download and install Phantom from phantom.com. It’s available as a mobile app and a browser extension. The official Sci-Net documentation recommends Phantom as the primary wallet.

Step 2 — Buy Solana (SOL)

Inside the Phantom app, purchase at least 0.035 SOL (roughly $5 USD) using one of the available payment methods: MoonPay, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. This is the base currency you’ll need for the next step.

Step 3 — Swap SOL for $Sci-Hub (SCI) Tokens

Once you have SOL in your wallet, swap it for $Sci-Hub (SCI) tokens — either directly inside the Phantom app or through sci-net.xyz/exchange. These tokens will serve as your currency within the Sci-Net platform.

Step 4 — Generate Your Invitation Code

Go to sci-net.xyz/invite and click the QR button. Scan the QR code with your Phantom wallet app and follow the prompts to complete a small transaction. Your invitation code will appear on the same page shortly after.

Important: The QR code expires in 8 minutes. If you don’t use it in time, simply generate a new one.

Step 5 — Create Your Account

Head to sci-net.xyz/join and enter your chosen username, a password, and the invitation code from the previous step. That’s it — no email required.

You’re now part of the Sci-Net community. The SCI tokens you purchased can be used to request papers or earned by fulfilling other users’ requests.

Generating the Code from Other Wallets

The invitation code generator originally only worked with Phantom. Following an update announced by Alexandra Elbakyan on X (@ringo_ring), it now supports any wallet that can hold $Sci-Hub (SCI) tokens. Detailed instructions are available at sci-net.xyz/invite/create.

Using Bitso?

If you already use Bitso — one of the most popular crypto exchanges in Latin America — you can buy Solana there and send it to your Phantom wallet. Keep in mind that Bitso doesn’t list the $Sci-Hub (SCI) token directly, so you’ll still need Phantom to complete the swap and generate your invitation code.

References

• Baydakova, A. (2021). Blackballed by PayPal, Scientific-Paper Pirate Takes Bitcoin Donations.
• Elbakyan, A. (2024). From Black Open Access to Open Access of Color: Accepting the Diversity of Approaches towards Free Science. Preprints.
• Elbakyan, A. (2025). The Tokenomics for Open Science.
• Sci-Net Telegram: t.me/scinetesting

Originally published in Spanish: Sci-Net, la evolución de Sci-Hub — Sociología Contemporánea.

The post Sci-Net: The Next Chapter of Sci-Hub first appeared on Sociología Contemporánea - Desde 2004.]]> https://sociologiac.net/2026/07/02/social-work-for-sociologist-heugten-and-gibbs/ https://sociologiac.net/2026/07/02/social-work-for-sociologist-heugten-and-gibbs/#respond Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:11:26 +0000 https://sociologiac.net/?p=24490 Social Work for Sociologist is seeking to bridge the disciplinary boundary between social work and sociology in today's multicultural world. It is innovative in explaining how social work theory and practice perspectives and skills throw new light on understanding and acting on the big sociological issues.

The post Social Work for Sociologist Heugten and Gibbs first appeared on Sociología Contemporánea - Desde 2004.]]> Social Work for Sociologist has been written for students and practitioners of sociology. It aims to introduce them to some important concepts from social work, concepts of which these readers may be unaware, to their detriment. The book emerged out of discussions that took place among the editors and authors over the course of several years. It is a product of the combined efforts of educators, researchers, and practitioners in social work and sociology.

The diverse international contributors share concerns about social problems such as poverty, substandard housing, and violence, and all are committed to improving cultural understanding, social justice, and human rights. The contributors hold academic qualifications in sociology and/or social work, and they are experienced as educators and as human service practitioners.

Many have witnessed debates in which sociologists or social workers are stereotyped by others, suggesting that, for example, sociologists are theoretical purists who will not act to promote public interests, or that social workers are value-driven ideologues intent on imposing their interpretations of ideal family lives. The contributors to this book do not believe that these dualistic typologies are accurate reflections of the complex considerations that they apply in their research, teaching, and human services work.

After many decades of following divergent paths, social workers and sociologists have recently been coming back together to deal with complex, intractable social problems. In the world of work, interdisciplinary collaborations seek to address major issues such as poverty, violence, and human rights violations.

Within universities, previously separate academic departments of sociology and social work are joining or colocating. Although combinations of previously separate disciplines into joint departments are sometimes prompted by fiscal considerations resulting from cutbacks affecting the social sciences internationally, working together has helped them recognize their common aims and interests. They have been stimulated and inspired by their debates about theory and practice.

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