Understandings of transnational families in debates on Migration and development

International migration sets in motion a range of significant transnational processes that connect countries and people. How migration interacts with development and how policies might promote and enhance such interactions have, since the turn of the millennium, gained attention on the international agenda. The recognition that transnational practices connect migrants and their families across sending and receiving societies forms part of this debate. The ways in which policy debate employs and understands transnational family ties nevertheless remain underexplored. This article sets out to discern the understandings of the family in two (often intermingled) debates concerned with transnational interactions: The largely state and policydriven discourse on the potential benefits of migration on economic development, and the largely academic transnational family literature focusing on issues of care and the micro-politics of gender and generation. Emphasizing the relation between diverse migration-development dynamics and specific family positions, we ask whether an analytical point of departure in respective transnational motherhood, fatherhood or childhood is linked to emphasizing certain outcomes. We conclude by sketching important strands of inclusions and exclusions of family matters in policy discourse and suggest ways to better integrate a transnational family perspective in global migration-development policy.

La lectura como actividad de ocio en escolares asturianos de 6º de primaria

Este trabajo analiza los resultados de una investigación sobre hábitos lectores del alumnado asturiano de 6º de Educación Primaria en su tiempo libre. El estudio utiliza una muestra de 324 escolares de centros públicos urbanos, con edades comprendidas entre los 11 y 12 años, para analizar datos relativos a la actitud hacia la lectura, la importancia de ésta entre las actividades de ocio y la frecuencia lectora.Más de la mitad de los escolares manifiesta una actitud bastante favorable hacia la lectura, y ésta es una de sus actividades de ocio habituales, aunque dedican más tiempo a ver televisión, practicar deportes, usar el ordenador y escuchar música. La mayoría son lectores frecuentes, aunque los no lectores y lectores ocasionales ascienden hasta un 12,96%. Los escolares encuestados leen principalmente libros, seguidos de revistas y cómics, mientras que poco más de un tercio dice leer periódicos frecuentemente.Esta investigación revela también algunas variaciones en actitud hacia la lectura y frecuencia lectora según el centro educativo de procedencia que se pueden relacionar con variables de tipo socio-económico. Además, se observan diferencias entre niños y niñas, pues éstas superan a sus compañeros varones en interés y frecuencia lectora, además de manifestar también divergencias en las preferencias de materiales de lectura.

Item and task difficulty in a B2 reading examination: perceptions of test-takers and CEFR alignment experts compared with psychometric measurements

The article presents a study of a CEFR B2-level reading subtest that is part of the Slovenian national secondary school leaving examination in English as a foreign language, and compares the test-taker actual performance (objective difficulty) with the test-taker and expert perceptions of item difficulty (subjective difficulty). The study also analyses the test-takers’ comments on item difficulty obtained from a while-reading questionnaire. The results are discussed in the framework of the existing research in the fields of (the assessment of) reading comprehension, and are addressed with regard to their implications for item-writing, FL teaching and curriculum development.

The (in)visible scar. Representation of the body in blogs by women with breast cancer

In this paper we analyze the representation of the body in blogs by women with breast cancer. Taking into account both texts and images, we study the representation of the body on the basis of the body problems proposed by Frank (1995): control, body-relatedness, other-relatedness and desire. In the blogs studied we find a desiring and dyadic body, which is understood as part of a network of affection and care. The diagnosis of cancer can generate both dissociation, when the body is experienced as a threat, and association, a wish to be connected to it. In relation to control, a clear will of predictability is observed but traces of assumption of contingency also appear.

The influence of gender in the direction of Spanish cooperative societies on profitability and indebtedness: an empirical analysis

In this paper the claim for the market for a new business management to ensure the presence of women in decision -making to respond to new social needs addressed. Thus, this paper analyzes the influence of gender diversity of the directors on the profitability and the level of debt for a sample of 5,199 Spanish cooperatives. Unlike capitalist societies, these organizations have a number of peculiarities in their government, and that the partners are themselves major time, agents and customers. The study focuses on the Spanish context, where there is an open debate on the importance of women's business management, as in other countries, driven by the proliferation of legislation on gender equality, being, in addition, Spain, the pioneer in having specific legislation on Social Economy. The results show that cooperatives with greater female representation in theirs Boards have higher profitability. On the other hand, those Boards with a higher percentage of women show a lower level of indebtedness.