Spanish Sociology and Anti-Semitism Between passed prejudice and key to civilization

There is a significant lack of sociological research in Spain about anti-Semitism. At the same time there are alarming anti-Semitic tendencies and anti-Jewish stereotypes which are above the European average. This article aims to explain this lack of sociological research about anti-Semitism in Spain. Therefore two types of explications are offered: on the one hand side some structural problems will be shown which sociology in general had since its beginnings and which complicate the understanding of anti-Semitism. Furthermore explications regarding the specific social and historic situation in Spain and of Spanish sociology in particular will be exposed. It will be shown that for its rationalistic character and with the exception of very few authors – who are considered marginalized for practical research – sociology in general has had enormous problems in understanding anti-Semitism. The specific historic situation, Francoism, the dispute about the historic memory and the delayed institutionalisation of sociology could also explain the lack of sociological interest in the topic especially in Spain. The article shows that the study of anti-Semitism is not only relevant for struggling against this burden of society in many of its variants. Furthermore, thinking about anti-Semitism can help sociology to recognise its own epistemological problems. It can serve to criticise and improve instruments of sociological research by showing the limitations of the sociological approach and to uncover the importance of interdisciplinary research for understanding specific social phenomena. In that sense, anti-Semitism, far from being a marginal subject, can be considered a key topic in the process of civilisation and it can help us to decipher the contemporary Spanish society.

Reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art in art education

This article focuses on the reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art as a creative process, seeking to analyse which effects of meaning the articulations between the visual and sound systems produce, and the meaning that children give to then. It describes a video art, identifying the languages that compose it and the relationships that link them. Such reading exercise had as corpus of analysis the Chair video art, by Masaru Ozaki, and counted with the theoretical and methodological support of the discourse semiotics, especially with studies on assembly procedures that articulate visual and auditory languages. Also, it presents a focal study with the meanings that a group of children gave to the video art. The findings indicate the importance of including the reading of audiovisual productions of contemporary art at school through the problematization of effects of meaning produced by the interrelation between different languages. And they suggest some subsidies that allow teachers from different areas of knowledge to reflect about the visuality in their pedagogical practice; the choice of the audiovisual materials taken to the classroom and other ways of seeing these texts edited.

El análisis de libros de texto: una estrategia metodológica en la formación de los profesionales de la educación

A pesar de la progresiva introducción de nuevos recursos en las aulas fruto del desarrollo de las TICs, el libro de texto sigue siendo uno de los materiales más utilizado y cuyo protagonismo en la configuración de la práctica escolar ha sido decisivo, por lo que debe ocupar nuestra atención en la formación inicial de los profesionales de la educación. Durante los cursos académicos 2012-13 y 13-14, hemos realizado en el marco de la asignatura de Análisis y diseño de materiales para la educación y la formación del tercer curso del grado de Pedagogía de la Universidad de Oviedo una práctica formativa de análisis de libros de texto escolares que nos ha permitido analizar contextualizadamente y desde una perspectiva teórico-práctica, cuestiones tales como: papel del profesorado en el desarrollo e innovación del currículum, papel de las editoriales en la interpretación del currículum oficial, análisis de tareas y mensajes en los manuales escolares, criterios para juzgar la calidad didáctica de los materiales, etc. El análisis cualitativo de treinta informes desarrollados por 120 estudiantes sobre diferentes libros de texto nos ha permitido identificar sus principales fortalezas y debilidades en varias dimensiones (aspectos formales, metodología, mensajes, implicaciones para la profesionalidad docente) y nos permite concluir que se trata de una experiencia formativa relevante en la formación inicial de cualquier profesional de la educación.

La narrativa indigenista en Argentina. Una doble denuncia

Desde tiempos de José Carlos Mariátegui, la crítica literaria indigenista viene articulando un discurso etnocentrista cuyo eje de producción se sitúa en Perú y los países vecinos, pero rara vez se ha mencionado una obra argentina que trate sobre las desigualdades que sufren los indígenas de ese país. Ni siquiera la academia argentina ha analizado ninguna novela desde la óptica indigenista.En un país cuyos gobiernos, desde el siglo XIX, han tratado de borrar cualquier traza de sangre indígena en su población, ya sea mediante la asimilación, exterminio o invisibilidad, y cuyas zonas de mayor asentamiento indígena se encuentran lejos del hegemónico Buenos Aires, las narraciones de problemas sociales ajenos quedaban encajonadas en el recóndito mundo de la literatura regional.Sin embargo, durante los años de eclosión del movimiento indigenista, escritores argentinos se hicieron eco de los sufrimientos y demandas de sus compatriotas indígenas por medio de novelas que sobrepasaron el peyorativo epíteto regionalista y que incomprensiblemente, han sido olvidadas.En este artículo, que forma parte de un estudio más amplio, se aborda el silencio crítico, se contextualiza la producción indigenista de la época y se analizan brevemente algunas de las obras.

The discursive capacity of graphic design

The relationship between rhetoric and graphic design is presented in this article. The comparison between a classical orator and a graphic designer, between a discourse and a piece of design comes from the connections between with the communication and creativity. We will see how an application of the fundamentals of rhetoric can open new doors to the professional practice, the education of graphic design and the same theory of the rhetoric of the image.By the analysis of a design is exemplified the points of union that show how the arguments, operations, figures of discourse and rhetorical phases are present in the creative process of graphic design and how designers, perhaps unconsciously, use techniques that were traditional. In other words, graphic design is a rhetorical construction.There is then a transposition of a discourse model created by linguistic signs to a discourse model consists of visual and typographic signs, causing design is seen as a discursivediscipline that goes beyond the aesthetic component.