Using Creative methodologies to help adult students understand equality issues: findings from the Literacy & Equality in Irish Society Project.(LEIS)

Literacy perspectives often reflect the ideological perspectives of their creators as well as social, cultural , political and economic environment of the time.This article examines ways in which adult tutors can use non- text creative methods in their teaching. to help learners understand equality issues.

Philosophers and practical men: Charles Babbage, Irish merchants and the economics of information

Before the emergence of coordination of production by firms, manufacturers and merchants traded in markets with asymmetric information. Evidence suggests that the practical knowledge thus gained by these agents was well in advance of contemporary political economists and anticipates twentieth-century developments in the economics of information. Charles Babbage, who regarded merchants and manufacturers as the chief sources of reliable economic data, drew on this knowledge as revealed in the evidence of manufacturers and merchants presented to House of Commons select committees to make an important pioneering contribution to the theory of production and exchange with information asymmetries.

Key issues in the study of new and alternative social movements in Spain: The Left, Identity and Globalizing Processes

This article highlights the importance of dedicating a whole special issue on New and Alternative Social movements in Spain. It sets the basis for this endeavour by emphasizing the importance of the 2004, unexpected, electoral victory of the Spanish socialists, and the subsequent satisfaction of the important demands promoted by certain social movements actors and Spanish society in general (the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, the cancellation of the National Hydrological Plan and the Legalization of same sex marriages. The view supported is that these developments signify the end of a protest cycle, which could have the same effect with the early 1980s socialist victory. After a discussion around the low associationalism that characterizes Spanish society and recent experience of authoritarianism, it is suggested that it is time for the study of new and alternative social movements in Spain and other south European societies to move beyond the emphasis on exceptionality but appreciate differences by focusing on the available political opportunities and the identity of social movement actors. The remainder of the article is dedicated to introducing the contributing articles.