Skills and professional practices for the consolidation of the support group model to foster families

The research presented here is justified by the lack of tradition in Spain with regards to socio-educational intervention programmes based on training and group support, as well as the proven benefits of these methods in foster care. It addresses the need to go deeper into the acquisition and consolidation of the core professional competences for running socio-educational groups with foster families. After a process of participatory action-research with 39 professionals from the Child Protection System from different regions of Spain, we see an improvement in the development of the competences necessary to establish a supportive relationship with families, management and group dynamics, as well as the crystallization of attitudinal changes in professional practices. Data have been collected on the basis of methodological complementarity and a pre-test–post-test design that has identified and explained the changes in the evolution of competences and professional practices.     

Impulsivity traits and gambling cognitions associated with gambling preferences and clinical status

Impulsivity (and related traits reward/punishment sensitivity and tolerance to delayed rewards) and gambling cognitions have been linked to gambling. However, their independent associations with gambling preferences and clinical status have never been dissociated. The current study applied a data-driven strategy to identify gambling preferences, based on gambling frequency in several modalities. The two resulting factors were used to classify gambling disorder patients (GDPs) and non-problem recreational gamblers (RGs) into Type I (preferring cards, casino games and skill-based bets) and Type II (preferring slot machines, lotteries/pools and bingo). Participants were assessed in impulsivity, delay discounting, reward/punishment sensitivity, gambling-related cognitions, gambling severity, gambling frequency and average amount gambled per episode. GDPs scored higher than RGs in positive and negative urgency, delay discounting, reward sensitivity and intensity of gambling-related cognitions, but less in lack of perseverance. Additionally, Type II gamblers had greater difficulties delaying gratification, whereas Type I gamblers showed higher cognitive distortion and reward sensitivity levels. In practical terms, the finding that some characteristics are equally pervasive in disordered gamblers independently of their preferences (affect-driven impulsivity), whereas others (distorted cognitions, reward sensitivity, delay discounting) are more prominent in one type or the other, provides a basis to establish targets’ priority in therapy.     

University environment and entrepreneurial intention: the mediating role of the components of the theory of planned behaviour / El entorno universitario y la intención emprendedora: el papel mediador de los componentes de la teoría de la acción planificada

Entrepreneurship contributes to job creation and economic development. Thus, it is important to promote entrepreneurial initiatives; universities play a key role in this regard. The psychosocial perspective can contribute a great deal to studying the antecedents that lead a person to become an entrepreneur, with the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) being the theoretical framework used the most to predict entrepreneurial intention. Based on the data collected in Spain as part of the international GUESSS project (Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey) with a sample of 9,753 students, the influence of the university environment, the entrepreneurial environment and the perceived risk of entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial intention are analysed, both directly and as mediated by the three components of the TPB (attitudes towards entrepreneurship, subjective norms and entrepreneurial self-efficacy). The results show that the university environment is the antecedent with the greatest effect on entrepreneurial intention; therefore, it is recommended that entrepreneurship be promoted through initiatives and educational programmes in the university environment.     

The Language of Learning: The Academic Engagement of Newcomer Immigrant Youth

The current study uses an accelerated longitudinal design to examine the role of three dimensions of academic engagement (behavioral, relational, and cognitive) in explaining the influence of English language proficiency on newcomer immigrant youths' academic performance across adolescence. The sample included 354 youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico. As established with other populations, the behavioral, relational, and cognitive dimensions of academic engagement were closely associated to one another and significantly contributed to academic performance. Mediation analyses revealed that immigrant youth with limited English language proficiency were more likely to experience low levels of relational and behavioral engagement, which contributed to lower levels of academic performance over time.     

Trust and Hometown Associations in Haitian Post‐Earthquake Reconstruction

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12, 2010 in Haiti reawakened in the diaspora a strong sense of purpose to focus efforts beyond family remittances towards regional and national development. Yet Haitian hometown associations (HHTAs) in the US struggled to establish a strong, organizational structure to respond systematically and effectively to the country's increased post‐earthquake needs. Based on historical analysis, participatory observations, interviews, and comparisons with other diaspora groups’ models for homeland development, we explore how trust within the transnational Haitian nation has been impacted in the post‐earthquake era by cultural conditionings of the past which constrain the scalability, durability, and viability of HHTAs’ developmental potential to systematically intervene in a coordinated manner regionally and nationally. We examine the ways in which trust – and resistances to it – operates as a mediating lens remobilized by the earthquake for the interpretation of the Haitian past, present, and future.     

The Empowering Potential of Reformist Urban Activism in Czech Cities

Since the late 2000s, activists involved in conflicts over urban space and municipal budgets in a number of Czech cities have had an increasing tendency to enter the formal political realm in order to disrupt non-transparent ties between politicians and private business, and to narrow the gap between public administration and citizens. According to critical urban theorists, similar reformist strategies tend to end up co-opted by the status quo and are ineffective in ending neoliberal urbanization. This paper shows that in a context affected by the communist past and a long tradition of non-participatory political culture, the transformative potential of radical approaches may be diminished, whereas reformist strategies, such as increasing government transparency and institutionalizing participatory practices, can be more productive in terms of taming haphazard development and the extraction of municipal assets, and even the potential to reduce the democratic deficit within their cities.     

Bitter strawberries: the construction of differences in a multicultural school: a case study

This paper presents the results of a case study looking at the views of teachers and other educational professionals pertaining to the academic progress and general integration of immigrant schoolchildren in multicultural schools in the province of Huelva (Andalusia, Spain). It is organised into three sections: first, the geographical and social context of the study is described, focusing in particular on the impact on schools of migratory trends within the province associated with strawberry cultivation. This is followed by a presentation of the results of a field study into the educational panorama of immigrant pupils from various countries, drawing on verbal reports by teachers and school administrators. Finally, some conclusions are suggested for possible categories of analysis with a view to opening new lines of research in the future.     

Mobilities

This paper reconstructs the emergence of a student mobilization that occupied a central place in the Mexican political scenario in May and June of 2012. Within the framework of a formally democratic regime with an authoritarian functioning logic, the #YoSoy132 (#IAm132) movement was launched within social networks and quickly became an agent of dissatisfaction with the role played by the media as an interested party in a flawed electoral process. The shift from spontaneous protest to organic mobilization involved extending the proposal beyond the private university to which its first members belonged. It also meant that the initial reactive position gave rise to a collective movement of a proactive nature. Although the future of this movement is still uncertain, spaces for struggle have opened up around it, which have been described as the Mexican Spring.