Maria Fernandes-Jesus

University of Sussex · School of Psychology

Since 2018, there has been a notable increase in recognition of the global youth climate movement. Young activists have come into the spotlight through extensive street demonstrations, school occupations, and engagement in other collective actions with the purpose of promoting alternative visions of the future. Multiple scholars have delved into ac...

Minoritised youth voices are often underrepresented in climate action research. Despite the increasing interest in youth climate activism, there is still an overall lack of attention to the perspectives of young people struggling with discrimination, poverty, and other social injustices. In this article, we focus on a diverse group of minoritised y...

There have been multiple calls to examine the links between climate change and migration across different fields. This article reviews climate-related migration from a socio-psychological perspective. It examines the topics covered in existing literature, the geographical distribution of studies, and the theoretical and methodological frameworks ad...

Desde 2018, houve um aumento notável no reconhecimento do movimento climático jovem a nível global, e no estudo das suas dinâmicas (perfis, representações nos media, etc.). No entanto, há uma falta de pesquisa na exploração dos seus imaginários políticos. Através de uma Análise Crítica do Discurso mapeamos os imaginários de quatro grupos climáticos...

This chapter focuses on factors that facilitate community-based projects for providing effective and sustainable responses to the challenges faced by young people Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEETs) in rural areas and more specifically to promote their quality of life and social inclusion. In line with Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological m...

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that all emergencies, major incidents and disease outbreaks can have substantial mental health consequences, and it has demonstrated the proven need for additional care for populations in the wake of disasters. This book brings together practice and recent developments in pre-hospital emergency care, emergency medici...

Desde 2018, um pouco por todo o mundo, os jovens ganharam muita visibilidade como ativistas do clima. Através de manifestações em grande escala, ocupações de escolas e outras formas de ação coletiva, jovens ativistas climáticos estão a imaginar futuros alternativos. Por um lado, as visões de jovens grupos de ativistas climáticos sobre o que é polit...

This report describes and reflects upon an approach to embedding psychological literacy within the core Research Methods curriculum in a small university in the United Kingdom. Psychology students were involved in the 'Living Lab: Feeding the Campus' project, an interdisciplinary network of students and staff aiming to find solutions for local issu...

All over the world, young people have been leading and participating in multiple forms of climate activism. In this chapter, we discuss the main trends in contemporary literature, proposing new conceptual and methodological paths for centring youth voices in climate activism research. We first identify critical pitfalls in the field of youth partic...

Um sozial-ökologische Krisen zu verstehen und Antworten darauf zu finden, ist psychologisches Wissen notwendig. Die aktuelle Psychologie bleibt aber hinter ihren Möglichkeiten zurück. Indem die Autor*innen diverse Perspektiven aus dem weitgehend unbekannten Feld kritischer Umweltpsychologien einnehmen, zeigen sie Potenziale und Notwendigkeiten auf,...

The far-right recently entered the Portuguese parliament with the election of André Ventura, leader of the political party Chega. Since 2019, Chega has grown exponentially and has become the third political force. This study aimed to explore how Ventura represents different members of Portuguese society. We examine what meanings are reproduced to c...

This article explores the magnifying lenses of the COVID-19 syndemic to highlight how people racialized as migrants and refugees have been-and continue to be-disproportionally harmed. We use empirical evidence collected in our scholarly/activist work in Europe, Africa, South Asia, and the United States to examine migrant injustice as being produced...

As Conferências do Clima de Copenhaga (COP 15/2009) e de Paris (COP21/2015) constituíram importantes momentos de reformulação da mobilização climática. O crescente suporte de evidências científicas foi um grande estímulo para a discussão em torno das mudanças climáticas, assim o aumento do envolvimento do Movimento de Justiça Global na política cli...

Hybrid symposium on Community, Psychology and Climate Justice on 5-7 June 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Hosted by the University of Johannesburg, University of Cincinnati, and York St. John University. Selected papers will be invited to submit a chapter to an edited collection after the symposium.

Mutual aid groups have been a critical part of the Covid-19 response and continue to address the needs of people in their communities. To understand how mutual aid and similar community support groups can be sustained over time, we test the idea that using group-based strategies, such as interacting with other organizations, initiates psychological...

Young people around the world have become mobilized by the urgency to tackle the climate crisis. Increasingly gaining momentum, youth activist movements have been calling everyone’s attention to governmental inaction regarding the climate crisis and to the shortcomings of institutional political agreements (European Youth Forum, 2019). While for so...

Our paper aims to provide a short guide on how community psychologists can contribute to the improvement of rural young people's prospects. After briefly introducing the demographic trends of these young people in continental Europe for the past decade, we list the current challenges faced by rural European young generations, as well as the opportu...

This study sought to develop our understanding of how people legitimize opposition to immigration. Thirty‐eight interviews were conducted with people who self‐identified with far‐right anti‐immigration discourses, in Italy (N = 23) and Portugal (N = 15). Using reflexive thematic analysis, we developed four related themes. In the first theme, ‘They'...

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of mutual aid groups were established on social media and operated as platforms through which people could offer or request social support. Considering the importance of Facebook mutual aid groups during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom but also the lack of empirical re...

Alcohol control strategies vary between countries and reflect differences in drinking cultures. This study explored how perceived effectiveness of alcohol control strategies varies according to individual characteristics and country of residence. A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 1910 university students in Denmark, England, Germany,...

Our aim is to test the associations between collectivism, social support, sense of community, as well as agency with civic and political participation levels of NEETs living in The Azores, a group of islands forming a small and outermost archipelago. We surveyed 332 participants (M = 26.78; 69.30% women). We found that all factors, except for socia...

Soft skills retain a certain importance in fully understanding the NEET phenomenon: however, only few researchers have focused on them specifically. The aim of this work is two-fold: a) to detect the differences in terms of soft skills and psychological well-being between urban and rural NEETs; and b) to evaluate which of the soft skills analysed m...

Using the policy narrative framework, this article examines the pathways through which the development of policies (related to rural/small towns young NEETs in various EU countries) are based on evidence. To do this, we consider the Youth Guarantee (YG), an EU program (2014–2020) developed in several member countries with the aim of socioprofession...

Urban Green Spaces (UGSs) play a key role in people's well-being, particularly in highly urbanized contexts and possess several elements that may be attractive to visitors. This study focuses on the views and perceptions of visitors of two UGSs located in Lisbon and aimed to determine how they evaluated two different green spaces (Estrela Park and...

Mutual aid groups have flourished during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a major challenge is sustaining such groups, which tend to decline following the initial upsurge immediately after emergencies. The present study investigates one possible motivation for continued participation: the well-being benefits associated with psychological membership...

Mutual aid groups have been an indispensable part of the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have provided many forms of support, in particular grocery shopping which has enabled people to self-isolate if required. While community solidarity during emergencies and disasters is common, previous studies have shown that such solidarity beha...

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of mutual aid groups were established on social media and operated as platforms through which people could offer or request social support. Considering the importance of Facebook mutual aid groups during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK but also the lack of empirical papers regardi...

How do adherents to hegemonic discourses construe and respond to radical arguments by activists? To address the question, we examined how adherents to hegemonic climate change discourses react to a climate activist’s arguments. In interviews conducted with corporate actors of low-carbon transitions, we used a video excerpt to elicit critical reacti...

Background Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local neighbourhoods and communities, official public instit...

Mutual aid groups have been an indispensable part of the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have provided many forms of support, in particular grocery shopping which has enabled people to self-isolate if required. While community solidarity during emergencies and disasters is common, previous studies have shown that such solidarity beha...

Background Community engagement and volunteering are essential for the public response to COVID-19. Since March 2020 a large number of people in the UK have been regularly doing unpaid activities to benefit others besides their close relatives. Although most mutual aid groups emerged from local neighbourhoods and communities, official public instit...

As the climate crisis accelerates and disproportionately affects marginalised communities and countries in the global South, the need for power and social justice approaches is particularly important. Community psychology, with a long interest in the impacts of power discrepancies on the well-being of groups and communities, can offer theoretical a...

In this article, we focus on two demonstrations against climate change that took place in Portugal on the 12th of November 2016 and the 29th of April 2017. Two separate studies were conducted on the same protests. In Study 1, we conducted a quantitative study (N = 259), to examine the role of socio-demographics and socio-psychological predictors in...

Several individuals, groups, and organizations have been fighting against oil and natural gas drilling in Portuguese territory. The mobilizations intensified in 2015 in Algarve, and since then 13 concession agreements for oil and gas exploitation, extraction, and production have been canceled. Two concessions for gas drilling remain in Leiria, and...

Public consultations are increasingly used in projects with environmental impact, allegedly as a way to ensure that affected people and communities have their concerns recognised and addressed. There have been multiple criticisms of this form of public participation, with consultations frequently viewed as a tokenistic practice. In this study, we f...

O procedimento de consulta pública tem sido, cada vez mais, utilizado em projetos com impacto ambiental, supostamente como uma forma de assegurar que as preocupações e sugestões das pessoas e das comunidades interessadas e afetadas pelos projetos são tidas em conta. No entanto, esta forma de participação pública tem vindo a ser bastante criticada,...

This Action encompasses the creation of a European-led multidisciplinary network from countries showing higher NEET youth rates in rural areas. Rural NEETs’ Youth Network (RNYN) aims at developing a model of comprehension for rural NEETs’ social exclusion risk and protective factors based on the bioecological model. It focuses on three specific goa...

Background: To compare patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm from a survey of university students sampled from universities in Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. Methods: A total of 2191 university students (70% female, 90% white ethnic group, age range 18-25) completed the survey. Participants completed...

Objective: Many studies point to the negative impact of discrimination on the psychological and social functioning of ethnic minority persons. The realization of these studies across multiple European countries enables a systematization of this knowledge, which is our goal in the present work. Method: This study presents a systematic review and a m...

In this article, we assume an interdisciplinary approach to the study of why and how people transpose political considerations to their lifestyles. Our aims are threefold: to understand the meanings and perceptions of people engaged in lifestyle politics and collective action; to examine the motives guiding individual change; and to explore the lin...

This article aims to compare discourses about national and European policies on active citizenship and democratic participation, with a particular focus on youth and migrants. For this purpose we analysed official documents of public institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in order to assess how the process of Europeanization has infl...

As the need to address climate change is ever more urgent, many have emphasised the importance of community-level responses. The Transition movement has advanced community-based action to increase resilience for over a decade and has expanded significantly. Thus, it is a critical setting for examining community engagement towards climate change in...

Objectives. Extending individual planning of health behaviour change to the level of the dyad, dyadic planning refers to a target person and a planning partner jointly planning the target person’s health behaviour change. To date, predictors of dyadic planning have not been systematically investigated. Integrating cognitive predictors of individual...

The internet is considered as an important forum to empower and engage groups outside the traditional political systems. However, the 'digital divide' might imply several disparities and even reinforce exclusion of those with low economic and cultural capital. This article intends to question how democratic and inclusive this virtual public sphere...

Neste artigo analisamos visões, experiências e níveis de participação cívica e política de jovens imigrantes brasileiros/as em Portugal. Num primeiro momento, apresenta-se as visões dos/as jovens (5 grupos de discussão, N=29) sobre a participação, direitos políticos e principais fontes de influência. De seguida, com base nos resultados dos question...

In this paper we analyse views, levels and experiences of participation of young people of Brazilian origin living in Portugal. Using data collected through focus groups discussions (N=29) we present youth views and meanings about participation, knowledge about their political rights and main sources of influence. Additionally, using results from t...

This article aims to compare discourses about national and European policies on active citizenship and democratic participation, with a particular focus on youth and migrants. For this purpose we analysed official documents of public institutions and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in order to assess how the process of Europeanization has infl...

RESUMO Neste artigo analisamos visões, experiências e níveis de participação cívica e política de jovens imigrantes brasileiros/as em Portugal. Num primeiro momento, apresenta-se as visões dos/as jovens (5 grupos de discussão, N=29) sobre a participação, direitos políticos e principais fontes de influência. De seguida, com base nos resultados dos q...

The internet is considered as an important forum to empower and engage groups outside the traditional political systems. However, the ‘digital divide’ might imply several disparities and even reinforce exclusion of those with low economic and cultural capital. This article intends to question how democratic and inclusive this virtual public sphere...

In this paper we assume a broad conception of political psychological that recognizes its disciplinary, theoretical and methodological pluralism. As a result, we review research from diverse disciplines in the social sciences that either focus on the relationship between psychology and politics or emphasize the role of power, participation and oppr...

This paper intends to explore whether and how the quality of participation experiences is associated with political efficacy and the disposition of migrant and non-migrant young people to becoming involved. The sample includes 1010 young people of Portuguese, Angolan and Brazilian origin, aged between 15 and 29 years old. The results reveal that th...

The institution of the European Union has had important implications on educational policies throughout Europe, with a growing emphasis on ‘Citizenship Education’ since the mid-1990s. This can be interpreted as a response to phenomena such as the rise of ethnocentrism and xenophobia and of political disaffection of both older and younger citizens....

Neste artigo assumimos uma conceção ampla da psicologia política que reconhece o seu pluralismo disciplinar, teórico e metodológico. Os contributos analisados provêm de diversas áreas das ciências sociais, ora porque assumem a interface entre a psicologia e a política, ora porque reconhecem o papel do poder, da participação e da opressão nos proces...

This article aims to understanding civic and political participation of migrant youth and the importance of gender and age. Insights from focus groups conducted with Brazilian youth allow us to explore experiences of participation, meanings about integration, immigration policies, prejudice and discrimination. Results suggest that Brazilian migrant...

Este artigo procura compreender as formas, contextos e níveis de participação cívica e política de jovens imigrantes brasileiros/as em Portugal, atendendo às diferenças de género e de idade. Com base em grupos de discussão focalizada analisam-se as experiências, as percepções e os significados dos jovens brasileiros/as relativamente à participação,...