The few gender differences that emerged in this study offer little support for the cultural hypothesis. The findings make sense if local factors, such as services available for male and female youth and public response to street youth, are considered. It appears that street youth differ in their experiences depending on local circumstances, highlighting the need for caution in generalizing about the situation of street youth in different countries.

This study investigated how homeless Brazilian youth experience the street and examined factors linked to positive and negative feelings about the street. An opportunity sample of 35 boys and 34 girls aged 10-18 completed a structured interview and sentence completion task aimed at eliciting open-ended responses in a standardized manner. Analyses revealed great diversity in Youths' views of the street; moreover, in analyses controlling for age and gender, youth reporting feeling positive on the street differed from those who felt negative in reasons for leving home, family situation and daily survival. The findings support the value of the sentence completion task in exploring the subjective experiences of street youth.

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Resumo: Os desastres naturais estão, atualmente, entre os mais comuns tipos de trauma. O impacto sofrido pelos indivíduos e pela comunidade atingida gera inúmeras respostas emocionais, tornando imperativa a mobilização de esforços para lidar com o evento. Esses são entendidos como estratégias de coping utilizadas para adaptar-se a situações estressoras. Muitos modelos e classificações foram propostos para explicar este conceito, entretanto a maioria permanece com uma percepção individual do processo. O modelo multi-axial de coping de Hobfoll traz uma perspectiva social ao fenômeno, vinculando o indivíduo ao contexto em que está inserido. Nesse sentido, sugere-se uma alternativa de entendimento do coping de vítimas de desastres naturais, propondo o conceito de coping coletivo.Palavras-chave: Desastres naturais. Estilos de enfrentamento. Ambientes sociais. Dealing with natural disasters: The use of collective copingAbstract: Natural disasters are currently among the most common sources of trauma. Their impact on the community and its individuals cause a variety of emotional responses, which leads to an urgent need of mobilizing efforts to deal with such events. These efforts are understood as the coping strategies one uses to adapt to a stressful situation. Many models and classifications were proposed to explain this concept, but the majority remains with an individual perception of the process. The Hobfoll's multi-axial model of coping gives a social perspective for this phenomenon, linking the individual with his(er) context. Through this model, an alternative understanding of the coping process of victims of natural disasters is suggested: the concept of collective coping.

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