In/formal sex education: learning gay identity in cultural and educational contexts in Mexico

This paper addresses how educational and cultural contexts incorporate lessons around sexuality, particularly sexual and gender identity, and how these contexts impact on identity construction of gay men in Mexico City. We analyse the experiences of 15 gay men reported through semi-structured in-depth interviews and how they incorporate sexuality through socialisation with primary social institutions in Mexico's contemporary educational political context. The sample was divided into three generations, and was selected through maximum variability. Results show that men incorporate negative meanings around same-sex sexuality, and themselves from institutions such as school and family. Men are able to deconstruct these meanings through interactions with educational tools such as the Internet and interactions with gay friends. These results are discussed using post-structuralist perspectives to understand how identity is fluid and changing constantly, as well as the need to incorporate stigma-free curricular content in educational contexts.     

Children’s education and mental health in Spain during and after the Civil War: psychiatry,psychology and “biological pedagogy” at the service of Franco’s regime

Abstract

This article analyses the child psychiatry and psychology developed during the Spanish Civil War and immediate postwar period. The aim is to demonstrate that, despite the existence of a certain degree of disciplinary continuity in relation to the pre-war period, both disciplines were placed at the service of Francoism. This meant that the association of psychology and psychiatry with pedagogy in order to educate/cure children played a key role in legitimising the child intervention policies of Franco’s regime, and this strategy was best reflected in Vallejo Nágera’s proposal regarding “biological pedagogy”. Finally, it analyses how psychiatry and psychology were used outside the school context to re-educate and control an infant population trapped between two worlds as the result of the Civil War.     

The challenges of a high-performance student athlete

To become a top athlete requires time, commitment and carefully planned training. Optimum adaptation to training requires the careful balancing of stress and recovery. The student athlete has to balance all these demands with the additional requirements of an academic programme. This can bring unique stresses and challenges. This research aims to investigate the challenges of combining high-level sport with academic demands. Nine elite student athletes (three females, six males) took part in semi-structured interviews around how the student athletes balanced their training and sporting demands with the academic demands of their course of study. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using grounded theory. The results suggested that the athletes had each developed their own distinct approach towards training management. Most of the subjects had experienced setback in their study and athletic performance due to overtraining or burnout. The findings highlight the need to empower and educate not only the athlete but also the coach on the impact of overtraining. Key findings from this study were the need for open coach–athlete communication, in-depth planning and the need for adequate recovery.     

The Collective that Didn't Quite Collect: Reflections on the IALS

The concept and methodology of IALS obviously represent progress for literacy research. Nevertheless, this survey presents serious limitations. It prioritises the handling of data-based information as opposed to experiential and contextualized information, ranking at a higher position those who handle the first kind of information. The survey ignores how people solve problems in their life context. The competence of people cannot be understood merely through outside observation and a questionnaire situation. In the case of Poland, the interpretation of data manifests an ethnocentric Western attitude, tending to reduce cultural differences to a cultural deficit. Two IALS-inspired surveys conducted in Spain and Portugal mixed quantitative and qualitative methods in order to take into account the social relations in their cultural context. This article questions the role of research, which cannot be limited to the objectivation of reality, but should help to transform and improve it. The alternative model proposed is named "investigation action."     

Urban Teachers’ Perspectives of Strengths and Needs: The Promise of Teacher Responsive Professional Development

The Urban Review - This study examines urban high school teachers’ perceptions (N?=?50) of their strengths and needs in supporting diverse students in their classrooms....     

Dimensions of digital literacy based on five models of development / Dimensiones de la alfabetización digital a partir de cinco modelos de desarrollo

Abstract

Digital literacy has been an emerging and increasing priority in many governments’ educational and assessment policies since the first decade of the twenty-first century because it is a priority in citizenship training. The difficulty with understanding and developing it comes from its changing, transversal and flexible nature; for this reason, the fundamental objective of this research is to offer an exhaustive study of the concept by analysing the main models of digital literacy in the international context in order to offer a holistic model that incorporates the contributions from all of these initiatives. The theoretical study presented herein provides an objective, rigorous perspective on the main models of development of digital literacy: the DIGCOMP Project (European Commission), the Krumsvik model (Norway), the TPACK model (USA), the JISC model (UK), the ISTE Standards (USA) and the P21 model (USA). The conclusion offers an innovative proposal of four dimensions that should define digital literacy today, taking into account the five initiatives studied, which could be very worthwhile for researchers, educators and policymakers.     

School counsellors in cultural diversity contexts. An analysis of their practice / El orientador escolar en contextos de diversidad cultural. Un análisis de su práctica

This article includes the assessments made by four counsellors of their work in cultural diversity management in Huelva (Spain). Using interviews and focus groups, together with other qualitative research techniques, we examined the counsellors’ intervention models and the relationships they maintain with other members of the educational community to address issues raised by the presence of immigrant students in their respective schools. The results of the experiment emphasize the predominant use of a clinical intervention model, along with limited and isolated collaborations with teachers and other education agents (administrators, social workers, families). However, in recent years, the institutional consolidation of counsellors in schools and their commitment to prevention and collaborative work creates opportunities for a new, more participatory intervention model that would better manage cultural diversity.     

Disadvantaged Identities: Conflict and Education from Disability,Culture and Social Class

This project reflects on the way in which students in a situation of social risk construct their identity. Based on the reflections and theories originating from research conducted on individuals and collective groups in a situation of social exclusion due to disability, social class or ethnicity, this paper will analyse the conflicts these students have to deal with when constructing their identity. It also examines the challenge that education has to face to turn those conflicts into opportunities that will help to build life projects with which they can freely identify. For this reason, from a critical perspective, the school’s role in constructing identity will be analysed, as will the way in which it affects children and adolescents from minority groups. In the same way, we will study and put forward some different channels aimed at providing more equal educational attention to those identities that are depreciated in neoliberal society.     

University–industry relations in Bolivia: implications for university transformations in Latin America

This article examines the implications of how academics respond to the debate on the production of knowledge and its transfer to the productive sector, for the transformation of Latin American universities. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of 349 lecturers from Bolivian public universities, which inquired into aspects of university–industry relations (UIR). Although the results indicate that lecturers are in favour of relations with firms, there are several barriers to such relationships, such as lack of institutional support, generally unfavourable atmosphere in universities, and an industrial structure comprising few firms in knowledge-intensive sectors and firms with low absorptive capacity. In the context of Bolivia, unlike what occurs in developed countries, UIR have been configured around scientifically unimportant activities—technological support and internship schemes to place students in firms—which has had a negative effect on the consolidation of research, an academic activity, to which lecturers devote little of their time. The results of our study show the tensions that exist in efforts to change the university model; there is a reluctance to intensify the commercialisation of research results, and a lack of enthusiasm for introducing complex relationship mechanisms, such as the creation of hybrid structures.