Family-based affirmative action? Subversion and resilience strategies of gay father families

The present doctoral dissertation is aimed at analyzing how and with what consequences gay father families and their children’s schools negotiate possible differences in the construction of family and gender at home and in the families’ social milieus. This objective fits in with the broader goal of researching how family-school interactons are influenced by the social context such as hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2002). The thesis is based on qualitative fieldwork carried out with 18 nonheterosexual parent families in Spain, comprising 30 interviews with 44 people. The principal participant group were 14 de novo (adoptive and surrogacy) gay father families with resident preadolescent children. The findings revealed that all the de novo families assumed open communication strategies at school with inclusive consequences: apart from incidental questions and reactions of surprise, the children did not suffer homophobic bullying. The analisis showed that the necessary condition for inclusion was not the open communication but rather illocutionary orientation (Habermas, 1984; Soler & Flecha, 2010), understood as the parents’ sensitivity to the attitudes of their children and schools. The schools received the families in an inclusive manner, which, however, was only receptive and not proactive, therefore some of the families (reconstituted ones), coerced by the social context, got excluded. Gender relations at home were predominantly androgynous, and outside home predominantly traditional, yet the children negotiated this difference with inclusive consequences. They participated in hegemonic collective practices, thus confirming the thesis on the similarity between homo- and heterosexual-parent families (Golombok, 2006). Consistently, also the families’ identity politics was “assimilationist” and non-queer. Admittedly, the analisis showed that such a politics was increased by social expectations. Still, the findings suggest that educational and other family policies should draw on broad agendas of gender and family diversity rather than on the politics of difference and the unique status of LGB families.

Adolescents i violència : l'escola, escenari de la violència entre iguals

El treball pretén abordar el fenomen de la violència escolar en edat adolescent, les causes que l'originen i com es reprodueix en el marc escolar, mitjançant l'anàlisi de la societat, la família, l'escola... i com influeix en els i les adolescents.

TDA-H más que un simple trastorno

El TDA-H es un trastorno que no solo afecta y dificulta al niño su aprendizaje, sino que sus relaciones sociales, su entorno se ven trastornados. Lo que provoca al niño con TDA-H un sentimiento de soledad y de inseguridad que afecta negativa y directamente a su autoestima, lo que acrecienta aun más su problemática. Por ello es importante que familia y escuela se alíen a la hora de luchar contra este trastorno, haciendo partícipe al niño en esta lucha, donde el trió familia-escuela-niñoTDA-H han de trabajar de manera simbiótica, para que el niño pueda superar todas las dificultades que este trastorno arrastra con él. El diagnostico temprano es imprescindible, pero se debe empezar a trabajar a partir de las primeras alarmas que se despierten y que suelen despertarse en la escuela. Esto aliviará e incluso esquivará algunos de los golpes que este niño TDA-H tendrá que ir superando, hasta iniciar su correcto tratamiento.

Anàlisi de la comunicació família-escola-serveis socio-educatius com a eina per a millorar l'èxit escolar. La situació de les famílies migrades a Catalunya: determinació de necessitats i propostes d'actuació

L’èxit escolar i personal dels nens i nenes escolaritzats en les primeres etapes de l’ensenyament obligatori passa per l’entesa de les seves famílies amb el professorat de les escoles a les que van i pel suport que els ofereixi l’entorn social en que estan immersos. Per entendre’s uns i altres els cal establir vies de comunicació eficients que permetin arribar al coneixement i al treball mutu. El projecte ACOFES (Anàlisi de la Comunicació Família-Escola-Serveis socio-educatius) ha buscat respostes a aquesta qüestió al voltant de cinc eixos: 1.Com es comuniquen els tres agents educatius que intervenen en l’èxit escolar: famílies, professorat i serveis socioeducatius municipals; 2.Quines són les vies de comunicació que fan servir i quina la seva eficàcia; 3.Què pensen les famílies, què necessiten a què es poden o volen comprometre’s respecte a l’escola i a l’educació dels seus fills i filles; 4.Què pensa el professorat de la comunicació amb les famílies, què necessiten com a professionals i a què pot o vol comprometre’s; 5.Quins són aquells factors que poden influir de forma més rellevant en la millora de les possibilitats d’èxit de tot l’alumnat fent, en darrer lloc, noves propostes d’intervenció en particular per ajudar a solventar les necessitats específiques de l’alumnat procedent d’altres cultures que s’escolaritzen a Catalunya.

Anàlisi de les eines TIC utilitzades a tres escoles bressol per a relacionar-se i comunicar-se amb les famílies i elaboració d'una guia per a l'elecció d'eines TIC com a mitjà de relació

A l’escola bressol el vincle entre equip educatiu i família és de gran importància i, en la societat canviant en la que vivim, és important cercar noves vies de comunicació. Aquesta recerca és un estudi de casos de l’ús de les TIC com a mitjà de comunicació entre escola i família a tres escoles bressol. Amb l’objectiu de descriure i analitzar aquestes eines s’utilitzen entrevistes, qüestionaris i anàlisi de documents com a instruments de recollida de dades. Els resultats mostren que les eines més utilitzades són el blog i el correu electrònic amb la funció d’informar a les famílies. Aquestes dades permeten identificar l’ús, la funció i els destinataris com a criteris necessaris per a escollir l’eina TIC més adient per a la relació família-escola d’un centre, i per elaborar una guia per a l’elecció d’eines TIC com a mitjà de relació entre els dos agents educatius.

Escuela y familias inmigradas: relaciones complejas

La relación familia-escuela se debe analizar teniendo en cuenta que no siempre se ha creído necesaria y que se trata de dos instituciones que han mantenido un desequilibrio de poder. En este marco las familias de origen inmigrado, menos conocedoras del sistema educativo, del funcionamiento de los centros y de las formas adecuadas de relación aparecen a menudo como poco implicadas e interesadas. El texto analiza, enmarcado en algunas consideraciones generales, a partir de tres trabajos empíricos propios, las relaciones que mantienen las familias de origen inmigrado y cómo lo perciben los docentes y los representantes de asociaciones de madres y padres de alumnos. Sintetizando, ponemos de manifiesto el modo como la dinámica existente en los centros educativos, más el conocimiento que van adquiriendo las familias, entre otros factores, influyen en la mayor implicación. Por el contrario, el desconocimiento y las dinámicas negativas crean barreras en ocasiones difícilmente salvables.

Approaching the experiences of young immigrants for the citizenship learning

This thesis seeks to answer the question: how do the participation experiences of young girl immigrant contribute to citizenship learning? Citizenship learning in youth comes from different contexts(family, school, friends and leisure and ambiguous) –where participation experiences take place–, combined with interpersonal relationships and personal dispositions (BiestaLawy& Kelly, 2009). So that, I want to know which are the young girl immigrants’ contextsand relationships and which kind of learning comes from each one. In addition, being young, girl and immigrant, are categories to take into account to understand their learnings.

Bringing Funds of Family Knowledge to school. The Living Morocco Project (“برغملا شيعلا”)

The purpose of the study, grounded in sociocultural theory, is to describe the funds of knowledge of a Moroccan family living in Catalonia (Spain) in order to document how teachers can use these funds of knowledge to make direct links between students' lives and classroom teaching. The funds of knowledge approach is based on a simple premise: regardless of any socio-economical and sociocultural "deficit" that people may or may not have all families accumulate bodies of beliefs, ideas, skills and abilities based on their experiences (in areas such as their occupation or their religion). The challenge consists in connecting these bodies of educational resources with teaching practice in order to connect the curriculum with students' lives. In doing so, qualitative research can be carried out using several techniques such as self portraits, self-definition tasks, assessment of family artefacts, documenting routines through photographs, or the analysis of a person's significant circle. The results in terms of teaching practices illustrate the variety of ways teachers can make connections between home and school in ways that assist learners in their academic development. In this article, we propose using the term funds of identity to complement the concept of funds of knowledge

Parental education and family characteristics: educational opportunities across cohorts in Italy and Spain

Drawing on data contained in the 2005 EU-SILC, this paper investigates the disparities in educational opportunities in Italy and Spain. Its main objective is to analyse the predicted probabilities of successfully completing upper-secondary and tertiary education for individuals with different parental backgrounds, and the changes in these probabilities across birth cohorts extending from 1940 to 1980. The results suggest that the disparities in tertiary education opportunities in Italy tend to increase over time. By contrast, the gap in educational opportunity in Spain shows a marked decrease across the cohorts. Moreover, by using an intuitive decomposition strategy, the paper shows that a large part of the educational gap between individuals of different backgrounds is “composed” of the difference in the endowment of family characteristics. Specifically, it seems that more highly educated parents are more able to endow their children with a better composition of family characteristics, which accounts for a significant proportion of the disparities in educational opportunity.

A glimpse into classroom interaction

How does classroom interaction contribute to language learning? This study aims at identifying and interpreting some patterns of teacher-student interaction within an EFL classroom. Different interactional patterns and strategies are examined through the self-observation of the teacher's own performance as a student-teacher during her practicum period in a secondary school

Immigration and the school system

Immigration is an important problem in many societies, and it has wide-ranging effects on the educational systems of host countries. There is a now a large empirical literature, but very little theoretical work on this topic. We introduce a model of family immigration in a framework where school quality and student outcomes are determined endogenously. This allows us to explain the selection of immigrants in terms of parental motivation and the policies which favor a positive selection. Also, we can study the effect of immigration on the school system and how school quality may self-reinforce immigrants' and natives' choices.

Ecological Footprint Inequality across countries: the role of environment intensity, income and interaction effects

Recently, White (2007) analysed the international inequalities in Ecological Footprints per capita (EF hereafter) based on a two-factor decomposition of an index from the Atkinson family (Atkinson (1970)). Specifically, this paper evaluated the separate role of environment intensity (EF/GDP) and average income as explanatory factors for these global inequalities. However, in addition to other comments on their appeal, this decomposition suffers from the serious limitation of the omission of the role exerted by probable factorial correlation (York et al. (2005)). This paper proposes, by way of an alternative, a decomposition of a conceptually similar index like Theil’s (Theil, 1967) which, in effect, permits clear decomposition in terms of the role of both factors plus an inter-factor correlation, in line with Duro and Padilla (2006). This decomposition might, in turn, be extended to group inequality components (Shorrocks, 1980), an analysis that cannot be conducted in the case of the Atkinson indices. The proposed methodology is implemented empirically with the aim of analysing the international inequalities in EF per capita for the 1980-2007 period and, amongst other results, we find that, indeed, the interactive component explains, to a significant extent, the apparent pattern of stability observed in overall international inequalities.

Ecological Footprint Inequality across countries: the role of environment intensity, income and interaction effects

Recently, White (2007) analysed the international inequalities in Ecological Footprints per capita (EF hereafter) based on a two-factor decomposition of an index from the Atkinson family (Atkinson (1970)). Specifically, this paper evaluated the separate role of environment intensity (EF/GDP) and average income as explanatory factors for these global inequalities. However, in addition to other comments on their appeal, this decomposition suffers from the serious limitation of the omission of the role exerted by probable factorial correlation (York et al. (2005)). This paper proposes, by way of an alternative, a decomposition of a conceptually similar index like Theil’s (Theil, 1967) which, in effect, permits clear decomposition in terms of the role of both factors plus an inter-factor correlation, in line with Duro and Padilla (2006). This decomposition might, in turn, be extended to group inequality components (Shorrocks, 1980), an analysis that cannot be conducted in the case of the Atkinson indices. The proposed methodology is implemented empirically with the aim of analysing the international inequalities in EF per capita for the 1980-2007 period and, amongst other results, we find that, indeed, the interactive component explains, to a significant extent, the apparent pattern of stability observed in overall international inequalities. Key words: ecological footprint; international environmental distribution; inequality decomposition

Social Determinants of Child Health in Colombia: Can Community Education Moderate the Effect of Family Characteristics?

Contextual effects on child health have been investigated extensively in previous research. However, few studies have considered the interplay between community characteristics and individual-level variables. This study examines the influence of community education and family socioeconomic characteristics on child health (as measured by height and weight-for-age Z-scores), as well as their interactions. We adapted the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) framework to the context of child health. Using data from the 2010 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), weighted multilevel models are fitted since the data are not self-weighting. The results show a positive impact of the level of education of other women in the community on child health, even after controlling for individual and family socioeconomic characteristics. Different pathways through which community education can substitute for the effect of family characteristics on child nutrition are found. The interaction terms highlight the importance of community education as a moderator of the impact of the mother’s own education and autonomy, on child health. In addition, the results reveal differences between height and weight-for-age indicators in their responsiveness to individual and contextual factors. Our findings suggest that community intervention programmes may have differential effects on child health. Therefore, their identification can contribute to a better targeting of child care policies.

Human-Computer Interaction with older people through ethnographical lenses: everyday interactions with ICT

Report for the scientific sojourn carried out at the School of Computing of the University of Dundee, United Kingdom, from 2010 to 2012. This document is a scientific report of the work done, main results, publications and accomplishment of the objectives of the 2-year post-doctoral research project with reference number BP-A 00239. The project has addressed the topic of older people (60+) and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which is a topic of growing social and research interest, from a Human-Computer Interaction perspective. Over a 2-year period (June 2010-June 2012), we have conducted classical ethnography of ICT use in a computer clubhouse in Scotland, addressing interaction barriers and strategies, social sharing practices in Social Network Sites, and ICT learning, and carried out rapid ethnographical studies related to geo-enabled ICT and e-government services towards supporting independent living and active ageing. The main results have provided a much deeper understanding of (i) the everyday use of Computer-Mediated Communication tools, such as video-chats and blogs, and its evolution as older people’s experience with ICT increases over time, (ii) cross-cultural aspects of ICT use in the north and south of Europe, (iii) the relevance of cognition over vision in interacting with geographical information and a wide range of ICT tools, despite common stereotypes (e.g. make things bigger), (iv) the important relationship offline-online to provide older people with socially inclusive and meaningful eservices for independent living and active ageing, (v) how older people carry out social sharing practices in the popular YouTube, (vi) their user experiences and (vii) the challenges they face in ICT learning and the strategies they use to become successful ICT learners over time. The research conducted in this project has been published in 17 papers, 4 in journals – two of which in JCR, 5 in conferences, 4 in workshops and 4 in magazines. Other public output consists of 10 invited talks and seminars.