C. Wright Mils revisited: Society and Power

C. Wright Mills has been forgotten by sociological theories however there is no doubt about how much he contributed to the field of Epistemology. He successfully participated in the American Sociology of Knowledge and, at the same time, he  upheld the tradition of the Conflict Theory, including the sociological dimension into one of the most questioned political subjects of his period. Undoubtedly,  Wright Mills was morally committed to the value of reason and freedom. His central issue was to analyse the real possibilities for a particular individual within  a particular social order to become a free man capable of reasoning. He wondered how someone could be able to transcend his daily nature through reason and  experience and to act accordingly to his power. The power and political processes were constant in his works, since he claimed that any political process was a  struggle for power and prestige, for authoritative positions, both within each nation  and among the different states. On the other hand, he  bserved that the social  structure in the United States of America was not completely democratic, since the  course of action depended on the decision of a small group of wealthy, powerful individuals. These concentrating spaces of power amongst some economic, military  and political corporations were supported by their underlying ideology, a fact that became clearer when referring to international affairs. Nowadays, in a world of  structural antagonisms, wars and rebellions, the need for looking at the work  of intellectuals like Mills re-emerges. Mills showed us a way in which a complex entity as power can be understood, and, at the same time, the need to consider the  course of history, its mechanics and process.

Melancholy and power, knowledge and propaganda : discussing the contribution of the bologna process to higher education research in Europe. 'Melancolía y poder, conocimiento y propaganda : discutiendo la contribución del proceso de Bolonia sobre la investigación en enseñanza superior en Europa'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación. Monográfico con el título: El proceso de Bolonia : dinámicas y desafíos de la enseñanza superior en Europa a comienzos de una nueva época

Influence of gender and educational status on fluent adults speech fluency. 'Influencia del género y el nivel educativo en la fluidez del habla en personas adultas'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Resumen en español

Gender and cultural effects on perception of psychological violence in the partner

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Language learning strategy use by Spanish EFL students : the effect of proficiency level, gender, and motivation

Resumen basado en el de la publicaci??n

The light representation of religion and power in sound

The thematic and anathematic in music-making a reflection occurring after listening to an art song and a pop song from the 19th and 20th century Levantine music. Bach’s Orchestral Suites keep popping up, elegantly unveiling “the truth”.

Memory and power : two movements

The institutions that work with the preservation and diffusion of cultural heritage - be them archive, libraries, museums, art galleries or cultural centres - present a certain discourse about reality. To understand this discourse, composed by sound and silence, by fullness and emptiness, by presence and absence, by remembrance and forgetting, an operation is implied, not only with the enunciation of speech and its gaps, but also the comprehension of that which causes to speak, of who is speaking and of the point whence one speaks. Preservation and destruction, or, in another way, conservation and loss, walk hand in hand in the arteries of life. As suggested by Nietzsche (1999, p.273), it is impossible to live without loss, it is entirely impossible to live avoiding destruction to play its game and drive the dynamics of life on. However, by means of a kind of tautological argument, one often justifies preservation by the imminence of loss and memory by the threat of forgetting. Thus, one ceases to consider that the game and the rules of the game between forgetting and memory are not fed by themselves and that preservation and destruction are not opposed in a deadly duel, but instead they complement one another and are always at the service of subjects that build themselves and are built through social practices. To indicate that memories and forgettings can be sown and cultivated corroborates the importance of working towards the denaturalisation of these concepts and towards the understanding that they result from a construction process also involving other forces, such as: power. Power is a sower, a promoter of memories and forgettings.

'Black skins-white masks': Postcolonial reflections on 'race', gender and second generation return migration to the Caribbean

This paper illustrates the opportunities afforded by the adoption of postcolonial discourse in development geography, drawing specifically on issues of transnationalism, hybridity and inbetweeness. The utility of such notions and associated approaches is illustrated by the authors' current research on the migration of young, second generation and foreign-born 'Bajan-Brits' to the small Caribbean island nation of Barbados, the homeland of their parents. Focussing on issues of 'race' and gender, the paper examines the experiences of return migration among this cohort from an interpretative perspective framed within postcolonial discourse. It argues that notwithstanding the considerable sociocultural problems of adjustment encountered, these Bajan-Brit 'returnees' may be seen as occupying positions of relative economic privilege. Theirs is a liminal space derived by virtue of having been born and/or raised in the UK and being of the black 'race'. Accordingly, they are demonstrated to be both advantaged and disadvantaged; both transnational and national; and black but, in some senses, symbolically white.

Sociology, Gender and Educational Aspirations: Girls and their Ambitions

This study helps develop an overall understanding as to why some students achieve where others don't. Debate on the effects of class on educational attainment is well documented and typically centres on the reproductive nature of class whilst studies of the effect of class on educational aspirations also predict outcomes that see education reinforcing and reproducing a student's class background.Despite a number of government initiatives to help raise higher education participation to 50 per cent by 2010, for the working class numbers have altered little. Using data from an ethnographic case study of a low-achieving girls school, the author explores aspirations and argues that whilst class is very powerful in explaining educational attainment, understanding educational aspirations is somewhat more complex. The purpose of this book, therefore, is to question and challenge popular assumptions surrounding class-based theory in making sense of girls' aspirations and to question the usefulness of the continued over reliance of such broad categorisations by both academics and policy makers