Looking for Determinants of Ontological Security in the Spain of the Crisis

The concept of ontological security has a remarkable echo in the current sociology to describe emotional status of men of late modernity. However, the concept created by Giddens in the eighties has been little used in empirical research covering various sources of risk or uncertainty. In this paper, a scale for ontological security is proposed. To do this, we start from the results of a research focused on the relationship between risk, uncertainty and vulnerability in the context of the economic crisis in Spain. These results were produced through nine focus groups and a telephone survey with standardized questionnaire applied to a national sample of 2,408 individuals over 18 years. This work is divided into three main sections. In the fi rst, a scale has been built from the results of the application of different items present in the questionnaire used. The second part explores the relationships of the scale obtained with the variables further approximate the emotional dimensions of individuals. The third part observes the variables that contribute to changes in the scale: These variables show the structural feature of the ontological security.

What do school principals do? Leadership practices in Spain drawn from PISA and TALIS international studies

Principals play a key role in schools. Their actions affect the efficacy of schools and indirectly on the students’ academic performance. Numerous studies describe the different activities that principals perform in their daily practice, grouping them in dimensions, not existing unanimity neither around the practices carried out nor the dimensions. In Spain, the new educational law, LOMCE, emphasizes the importance of looking into what international research says regarding the field of education to support the need for change and justify the ones that are being made, and develops an extended list of competences of the principal. This study is a synthesis of a narrative research with the following analysis unit: the results of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Study) international reports, and the data provided on school leadership and their practices, from which conclusions are inferred, comparing them with the competences stated in the LOMCE. The comparative analysis of the leadership practices presented depicts a still uneven and heterogeneous scenario, not existing agreement neither for the setting of boundaries for the leadership dimensions, nor for the number of practices that constitute them. Such a scenario points towards the need for further empirical research, in order to accurately obtain a homogeneous catalogue of the actions carried out by principal, that may open the door to the development of the role of principal, and to the improvement of effectiveness and performance of schools, as it is suggested internationally, and it is an objective of the new educational law.

Preliminary results of the roman camp of La Cabeza del Cid (Hinojosa, Guadalajara, Spain)

The recent archaeological works in Hinojosa, allowed us to discover a camp from Roman republic period. It is located in the center of the Celtiberian area and its study could open interesting perspectives to study this historical period. This paper shows the results of its preliminary studies.

The activity of the feminist online publications: challenges for the transmission of the feminist culture in Spain

Traditionally, big media corporations have contributed to hiding the women’s movement itself, as well as its main claims and topics of discussion (Marx, Myra y Hess, 1995; Rhode, 1995; Mendes, 2011). This has led the feminist movement to develop its own media generally print publications, usually, with a very specialized character and reduced audience. This is similar to what has occurred with quality main stream media, asthese publications have had to adapt themselves to a new communicatiion context, because of the financial crisis and  technological evolution. Feminist media has found in the Internet an excellent opportunity to access citizens and communicate their messages. , In view of this scene of change and renovation,  this article offers the results of a qualitative analysis focused on the experiences of four feminist online media sites edited in Spain: Pikaramagazine.com, Proyecto-kahlo.com, Mujeresenred.net and Laindependent.cat. Besides exploring the characteristics and content of these sites, the article pays attention to the virality of their contents spread through Facebook and Twitter. The onclusion estimates their social impact, insofar as they symbolize the specialization, diversification and dialogue promoted by the Web.