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.

Good practices in the Enred@te Pilot Project: a digital social network for older adults and Spanish Red Cross volunteers

The Enred@te initiative, created by Red Cross, the Vodafone Foundation and the TECSOS Foundation, emerged as an evolution of a previous project that developed and piloted a video-communication solution with older adults, using a system installed in their own televisions. Following the success of this first initiative, it was decided to advance toward a more flexible, robust, easy-to-use and high-quality solution, producing a social network accessible through tablets. Older adults can use the network to video-communicate with other older adults and stay informed on various topics of interest. Additionally, a new innovation incorporates the participation of virtual volunteers, a part of the network that promotes its use in an inclusive and participative manner. This solution was also piloted in 2014 with positive results and work to turn it into a service that can reach older adults through the Red Cross is currently on-going.

Questioning the merits and demerits of electronic communication in Social Work

This paper examines the social dynamics of electronic exchanges in the human services, particularly in social work. It focuses on the observable effects that email and texting have on the linguistic, relational and clinical rather than managerial aspects of the profession. It highlights how electronic communication is affecting professionals in their practice and learners as they become acculturated to social work. What are the gains and losses of the broad use of electronic devices in daily lay and professional, verbal and non-verbal communication? Will our current situation be seriously detrimental to the demeanor of future practitioners, their use of language, and their ability to establish close personal relationships? The paper analyzes social work linguistic and behavioral changes in light of the growth of electronic communication and offers a summary of merits and demerits viewed through a prism emerging from Baron’s (2000) analysis of human communication.