A reassessment of family reunification in Europe. The case of Senegalese couples

Contemporary policy makers in most European destination countriesexpress a great concern about reunification of migrants’ families. Newrestrictions multiply in almost all countries, on the grounds thatmigrants would take advantage of a too lax system and that it wouldfoster an influx of non-desirable migrants. So far, quantitative evidenceis scarce on migrants’ practices in matter of family reunification.Taking advantage of a unique longitudinal dataset that includesSenegalese individuals surveyed both at origin (in Senegal) and inEurope (France, Italy and Spain), we perform event-history analyses toshow three things. First, couple separation is very often a long lastingsituation. Second, when separated because of international migration,wives and husbands do not only reunify in Europe but quite commonlyin Senegal. And third, those who reunify in Europe are those who arethe most adapted or adaptable to the European culture and economy.

Social capital and cognitive attainment

We review the different meanings that researchers have given to theconcept of social capital, differentiate four types – bridging, bonding,linking, and overheads –, and discuss their different functions as public,club, and common goods.For each form of social capital we distinguish its productivity (acollective characteristic) from the factors that account for individual’sdifferential access to its returns, and propose alternative ways formeasuring each.We show the utility of our theoretical and measuring approach byanalyzing the impact of the each form of social capital on 15 year-oldstudents’ cognitive attainment across OECD countries, using 2006 PISAdata.The results show that students’ cognitive attainments are a direct functionof the richness or productivity of each form of social capital and ofstudents’ degree of access to each.

Predictors of political orientation among US-born Mexican Americans: cultural identification, acculturation attitudes and socioeconomic status

With each passing election, U.S. political campaigns have renewed their efforts in courting the “Latino vote,” yet the Latino population is not a culturally homogenous voting bloc. This study examined how cultural identifications and acculturation attitudes in U.S. born Mexican Americans interacted with socioeconomic status (SES) to predict political orientation. Individuals who held stronger Mexican identity and supported biculturalism as an acculturation strategy had a more liberal orientation, while belonging to a higher SES group and holding stronger assimilation attitudes predicted a less liberal orientation. Mexican cultural identification interacted with SES such that those who held a weaker Mexican identity, but came from a higher social class were less liberal and more moderate in their political orientation. Weak Mexican identification and higher SES also predicted weaker endorsement of bicultural acculturation attitudes, which in turn, mediated the differences in political orientation. The acceptance of one’s ethnic identity and endorsement of bicultural attitudes predicted a more liberal political orientation. In light of these findings, political candidates should be cautious in how they pander to Latino constituents—referencing the groups’ ethnic culture or customs may distance constituents who are not strongly identified with their ethnic culture.

Membership and internal democracy. Immigrant organisations in the city of Oslo

Immigrant organisations in the City of Oslo receive support from the government for their daily operation. In order to receive such support, each organisation must be membership-based and have internal democratic procedures. This paper raises the question of how we can understand this combination of support for ethnic based organisations and requirements of membership and internal democracy. It explores the usefulness of two partly overlapping ways of understanding this policy and discusses their interrelationship. Firstly, within the context of the crisis of multiculturalism, the paper discusses whether this combination is based on the aim of strengthening the organisations’ procedural commitment to liberal-democratic principles. Secondly, the paper analyses whether requirements of membership and internal democracy can mainly be understood within the framework of the Nordic model of voluntary organisation. By comparing the policy at three empirical levels, the paper concludes that this combination can mainly be understood within the framework of the traditional historical Nordic model, but that there is an ambiguity in this policy related to minority rights.

The Point system of selection of immigrants in Quebec

The present paper is aimed at identifying what are the effects of the Point System of Selection of immigrants in Quebec. I defend that the distribution of points results in a different composition of immigrant stocks in terms of origin mix and not in terms of labour skills. To do so, I carry out a longitudinal descriptive analysis on the national composition of immigrants in Quebec and two other significant provinces (Ontario and British Columbia), as well as an analysis of the distribution of points in Quebec and in the rest of Canada.

Intertwined cultural demands of immigrants and minority nations

Since at least the last two decades of the 20th century, the normative debate on multiculturalism has been one-dimensional. It has deployed arguments related to cultural demands either linked to feminism and sub-cultural identities, immigration or national minorities. Little attention has been given to the relations between these dimensions, and how they effect each other in putting forward demands to the nation-state. The purpose of this article is to analyse the interaction between cultural demands of immigrants and minority nations. The basic objective of this paper is to give an overview of different reflections coming from three basic contributors: J. Carens, W. Kymlicka and R. Bauböck.

Representació televisiva i percepció adolescent de les sèries dirigides als joves. Estudi de la sèrie “Física o Química”

El projecte de recerca present pretén plantejar les bases contextuals i metodològiques adients per realitzar una investigació.S’analitza la relació entre la representació televisiva que fan les sèries dirigides als joves i l’apropiació que en fan els adolescents d’aquests missatges. La sèrie objecte d’estudi és Física o Química.Es parteix d’un enfocament pluridisciplinar: combinació d’anàlisi qualitatiu i quantitatiu. Així mateix, la recerca utilitza dues bases d’anàlisi: anàlisi de continguts i anàlisi de recepció.

Implantació d'una xarxa de telecomunicacions a Catalunya

Aquest projecte està centrat a analitzar els diferents escenaris i tecnologies per a proveir Internet i serveis de connectivitat entre ciutats internacionals (Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida, Girona i Milà). Així es defineixen tres tipus de xarxes dissenyades per a satisfer els requisits dels nostres clients. Aquests clients són usuaris residencials i petites empreses, hospitals icompanyies d'assegurances internacionals. Tots ells requereixen de diferentample de banda, seguretat i tecnologies, per a cadascun d'ells, s'ha desenvolupat un anàlisi extens que detalla la xarxa lògica i física.Finalment, hem realitzat una simulació per ordinador utilitzant OPNET amb elpropòsit d'avaluar la xarxa física dissenyada prèviament. Els resultats obtinguts van ser presentats i analitzats.

Diseño, implementación y evaluación de un juego pervasivo basado en puzles dentro del edificio Tànger (UPF)

Las nuevas generaciones de estudiantes se caracterizan en que han crecido inmersas en la tecnología digital, hecho que ha cambiado sus costumbres y preferencias en la forma de estudiar. Así que es necesario ingeniar nuevas técnicas de aprendizaje y buscar un complemento al poco atractivo y desmotivador material físico tradicional. Una de las alternativas que se plantean es utilizar juegos educativos como herramienta de aprendizaje, aportándonos innovación, motivación y un aprendizaje activo que no nos aportan técnicas más tradicionales.Esta metodología basada en el uso de juegos educativos puede afectar positivamente en un campo de educación perjudicado como es el área de las ingenierías del área de Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC), donde cada vez son más los jóvenes que deciden no estudiar carreras técnicas. Ante esta situación, aplicar juegos educativos puede ser una buena solución. Este proyecto consistirá en diseñar e implementar un juego educativo enfocado a aprender sobre algunos conceptos que se tratan en los grados de ingeniería informática, telemática y sistemas audiovisuales de la Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF). En concreto, el juego que se ha diseñado e implementado se caracteriza por seguir un modelo conceptual que define qué elementos han de contener un tipo concreto de juegos basados en puzles. Además, aprovechando las ventajas que aportan los estándares educativos, utilizaremos la especificación de IMS Learning Design, como parte de la implementación del juego. Por otro lado, nuestro juego será diseñado para dispositivos móviles y, por consiguiente, consistirá en un juego pervasivo en el que los estudiantes se tendrán que mover por el edificio Tànger de la UPF para poder resolver los diferentes problemas planteados. Finalmente, el juego será evaluado con diferentes estudiantes y serán analizados sus resultados para extraer las conclusiones oportunas.