Analysis of Spanish policies for the integration of immigrant schoolchildren

The Organic Law on the Improvement of the National Education Quality (Ley Orgánica de Reforma de la Calidad Educativa) readdressed one of the most significant educational issues: educational policies related to immigrant students. Therefore, this is an appropriate moment to evaluate these types of policies in three singular Spanish regions: Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia. This article presents an analysis of the measures taken in three Spanish regions: Madrid, Catalonia and Andalusia in response to students’ reception, acceptance and enrolment of immigrant students. A qualitative methodology based on the comparative method is used. Diverse similarities, but also specific characteristics and differences, can be found among the three models associated with each region. There are several significant differences that can be appreciated, such as the institutional role, as well as other specific measures. However, singular features are also identified, such as the diverse policies for the use of the vehicular language in each of the cases. Finally, the comparisons highlight various critical aspects, such as attention devoted to the students’ native language and progress towards intercultural education in school strategies and planning.     

Preference intensity representation: strategic overstating in large elections

If voters vote strategically, is it useful to offer them the possibility of expressing nuanced opinions, or would they always overstate the intensity of their preferences? For additive voting rules, say that a ballot is extremal if it is neither abstention-like nor can be expressed as a mixture of the available ballots. We give a sufficient condition for strategic equivalence: if two rules share the same set of extremal ballots (up to an homothetic transformation), they are strategically equivalent in large elections. This condition is also necessary for the strategic equivalence of positional rules. These results do not hold for small electorates.     

Therapeutic change in Colombian families dealing with violence: therapists, clients, and referring systems in conversation

There is a gap in the Marriage and Family Therapy literature regarding clients', therapists', and family judges' theories of change in relational therapy for family violence. We conducted in-depth interviews with eleven court-referred families, their therapists, and two family judges in Bogota, Colombia. Interviews focused on their expectations of therapy outcomes, their understanding of change, and their evaluation of individual and relational therapy outcomes. We followed a grounded theory approach to data analysis. Analyses showed that therapists, family judges, and clients hold different expectations and theories regarding therapeutic change. Findings are discussed based on existing research on clients' and therapists' ideas about change. Implications for future research and practice are presented.     

Ports modernization and its influence on trade unions

The restructuring of production resulting from the Port Modernization Law (Law 8.630/90) caused significant changes in work organization of Brazilian Ports. In the case of Mucuripe (Fortaleza, Ceará), in particular, the changes were very intense as Mucuripe is an old port that, before the Law, had labor regulation being governed by Trade Unions. This paper aims to present the perceptions of Union Representatives on the changes brought about by the Law on work organization in the port of Fortaleza, its influence in the organization and in the way the Unions deal with this new reality. Open and exploratory interviews were conducted with representatives of occasional labor workers registered in the Port of Fortaleza OGMO (Org?o Gestor de M?o de Obra, Labor Regulation Management). The analysis of the collected material in the interviews was based on the technique of content analysis proposed by Bardin (1979). Trade Unions have undergone a great loss of power and it has reflected in a relative inability to perform its function and to fight for the rights of the workers. The obvious Trade Unions weakness - a reduction of strikes and less unionized workers - reflects the dominating ideology of capital.     

Proposal for training of workers and researchers as from the participatory return of research results in workers' health

This study streams from a perspective of Workers' Health as a field of intervention where worker's experience on the process of illness is essential to understand and generate changes in the work process, and to contribute to develop knowledge in this area. We intended to collaborate in the training of researchers and nursing workers as a means of contributing to amplify their knowledge related to work and health conditions. As a motto to promote dialogue between researchers and workers, we organized workshops to discuss the results of an epidemiological study on the work-health relationships in nursing. Ten workshops were conducted at two federal public hospitals, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The main aspects discussed during the workshops revealed (i) work nuances for which the questionnaire was not sufficiently sensitive, (ii) some associations between different aspects of the survey, dealt with in the questionnaires, and (iii) recognition that some aspects shown in the epidemiological results were experienced at work. One can appreciate that the proposal presented here contributed to the training of researchers and workers, amplifying their knowledge and contributing to the development of the activity.     

Product evaluation based in the association between intuition and tasks

This paper explores the importance of researching the intuitiveness in the product use. It approaches the intuitiveness influence for users that already had a visual experience of the product. Finally, it is suggested the use of a table that relates the tasks performed while using a product, the features for an intuitive use and the performance metric "task success".     

Demography,Education, and Democracy: Global Trends and the Case of Iran

Reconstructions and projections of populations by age, sex, and educational attainment for 120 countries since 1970 are used to assess the global relationship between improvements in human capital and democracy. Democracy is measured by the Freedom House indicator of political rights. Similar to an earlier study on the effects of improving educational attainment on economic growth, the greater age detail of this new dataset resolves earlier ambiguities about the effect of improving education as assessed using a global set of national time series. The results show consistently strong effects of improving overall levels of educational attainment, of a narrowing gender gap in education, and of fertility declines and the subsequent changes in age structure on improvements in the democracy indicator. This global relationship is then applied to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past two decades Iran has experienced the world's most rapid fertility decline associated with massive increases in female education. The results show that based on the experience of 120 countries since 1970, Iran has a high chance of significant movement toward more democracy over the following two decades.     

A new approach in vocational rehabilitation in Iceland: preliminary report

The lack of vocational rehabilitation in Iceland inspired the Janus Rehabilitation initiative in the year 2000. The team currently consists of two occupational therapists, a social worker, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, and a physician. Janus uses resources from local education establishments and is located at the Reykjavík Technical School. A client-centred approach is used, enabling a flexible rehabilitation timeframe. The aim is to help the client back to employment/education. Advantage is taken of the facilities of the school where integration between education and rehabilitation takes place. Forty individuals have been admitted, with a mean time from work of 2.9 years, (range: 0-11 years). Seventeen (43%) have returned to employment/education. Twenty-three of those entering the programme are still on invalidity pension. The Canadian Occupational Performance Measurement (COPM) shows improvement in occupational performance and satisfaction. The Icelandic Quality of Life measurement also shows improvement. The results have been promising. However, a larger group is needed in order to draw clear unequivocal conclusions.     

Utilization of Mixed Distributions in the Calculation of Polarization: The Case of Spain

Social Indicators Research - This study analyzes the evolution of salary polarization in the Spanish labor market. The paper proposes the use of mixed distributions to examine the consequences of...