Social work education in Spain: evaluation and challenges for a new generation of social workers

ABSTRACT

The European social integration model was built on two main pillars: employment and access to the welfare state. European social work education was mainly oriented to training professionals in order to promote this inclusion through case management and the provision of benefits. This influence was very intense in the curricular content of Spanish social work programs. The new social risks and the European convergence in higher education have promoted curricular changes, but is it enough?. This paper aims to identify the content and limits of current social work education in Spain. To this end, a comparative analysis of social work education in public universities of Spain was performed. This information has been contrasted with professionals, teachers and social work students. The results evidence the gap of these contents with the real professional needs. This paper proposes several alternatives and approaches in new intergenerational methodologies and technological tools to train a new generation of social workers     

Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960–2015

For a long time, studies of socioeconomic gradients in health have limited their attention to between-group comparisons. Yet, ignoring the differences that might exist within groups and focusing on group-specific life expectancy levels and trends alone, one might arrive at overly simplistic conclusions. Using data from the Spanish Encuesta Sociodemográfica and recently released mortality files by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE), this is the first study to simultaneously document (1) the gradient in life expectancy by educational attainment groups, and (2) the inequality in age-at-death distributions within and across those groups for the period between 1960 and 2015 in Spain. Our findings suggest that life expectancy has been increasing for all education groups but particularly among the highly educated. We observe diverging trends in life expectancy, with the differences between the low- and highly educated becoming increasingly large, particularly among men. Concomitantly with increasing disparities across groups, length-of-life inequality has decreased for the population as a whole and for most education groups, and the contribution of the between-group component of inequality to overall inequality has been extremely small. Even if between-group inequality has increased over time, its contribution has been too small to have sizable effects on overall inequality. In addition, our results suggest that education expansion and declining within-group variability might have been the main drivers of overall lifespan inequality reductions. Nevertheless, the diverging trends in longevity and lifespan inequality across education groups represent an important phenomenon whose underlying causes and potential implications should be investigated in detail.     

Evaluating positive leadership: pilot study on the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the Positive Leadership Assessment Scale / Evaluando el liderazgo positivo: estudio piloto de las propiedades psicométricas de una versión reducida del Positive Leadership Assessment Scale

Positive leadership is considered a fundamental factor which contributes significantly to the development of healthy organizations. Positive leadership has been address via other leadership models, primarily transformational and authentic leadership, with which some affinities have been established. Although there is a large body of literature on positive leadership, especially related to its practical aspects, the construct is not properly delimited and there are only a few relevant contributions on how to measure it. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a pilot study to examine the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the PLAS (Positive Leadership Assessment Scale). Results from a confirmatory factorial analysis show that a five-correlated factors model achieves a good fit with the empirical data (on a sample of Spanish students). Likewise, this study also offers a range of evidence of validity, showing a relationship with the constructs of both transformational and authentic leadership and engagement.     

Feeding behaviour of red fox and domestic cat populations in suburban areas in the south of Paris

Urban Ecosystems - Among medium-sized carnivores, red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) are the most abundant species in human-dominated landscapes worldwide. Both...     

Being Mapuche today in Chile: judgement criteria for ethnic identification among the new generation

This study seeks to identify the underlying factors that sustain ethnic identification judgements – in this case regarding the Mapuche ethnic group – elaborated by a sample of Chilean young people who live in the Santiago metropolitan region. To this end a factorial survey method was used, incorporating quasi-experimental vignettes, which demonstrate social and individual determinants of human judgements. The results show that both self-identification as Mapuche and last name – particularly the paternal surname – are the criteria considered most relevant to inform judgements about ethnic identity. It is clear that there is a complex idea about what it means to be Mapuche today among young people in Chile, combining both subjective and objective factors. This conjunction shows the narrowness of the constructivist and essentialist proposals for understanding ethnicity.     

Migration,Household Tasks,and Gender: Evidence from the Republic of Georgia

We examine whether migration affects the gender division of household tasks and participation in leisure within origin‐country households using survey data from the Republic of Georgia. Our theoretical framework identifies two sets of mechanisms whereby migration might influence gender differences in home activities: migrant experience effects and migrant absence effects. We test for both types of effects on the probability that men and women perform gender atypical household tasks and engage in leisure activities by comparing households with and without currently absent and return migrants using probit regressions. We find evidence for both migration absence and migration experience effects on gender differences in housework and leisure. However, these effects are complex and contradictory: Generally, male migration tends to exacerbate gender differences in the sending household while female migration tends to ameliorate them.     

A Universal QQ-Plot for Continuous Non-homogeneous Populations

This article presents a universal quantile-quantile (QQ) plot that may be used to assess the fit of a family of absolutely continuous distribution functions in a possibly non-homogeneous population. This plot is more general than probability plotting papers because it may be used for distributions having more than two parameters. It is also more general than standard quantile-quantile plots because it may be used for families of not-necessarily identical distributions. In particular, the universal QQ plot may be used in the context of non-homogeneous Poisson processes, generalized linear models, and other general models.     

Why die for my sibling? The positive association between identity fusion and imagined loss with endorsement of self-sacrifice / ¿Por qué morir por un hermano? La asociación positiva entre la fusión de identidad y la pérdida imaginada con la disposición al autosacrificio

Abstract

Identity fusion — a visceral feeling of connection with a group — is a powerful predictor of willingness to engage in extreme pro-group behaviour. Here we propose that identity fusion also reinforces willingness to fight and die for one’s siblings, and we explore one of the underlying mechanisms producing this effect. We additionally controlled for a powerful predictor of family investment, perceived psychological similarity with the sibling. Our study shows that fusion with a sibling, but not perceived similarity, is positively associated with willingness to fight and die for the sibling. This relation is mediated by the imagined personal consequences of losing one’s sibling. This research extends previous work on fusion with groups to pairs of individuals and identifies a new mediator of the effect of fusion on willingness to fight and die for others. Overall, these results suggest that identity fusion might contribute towards explaining self-sacrifice among genetically related individuals as predicted by the theory of kin selection.     

Migration Policy and Development in Chile

Current and prospective migration law and policy in Chile does not adequately incorporate the causes, content, and consequences of international migration to and from Chile. We describe and examine migration in‐flows, out‐flows, migration‐related policies, and how those policies drive, and are driven by, notions of development in Chile. We explore contradictions in Chilean nascent migration policy currently under legislative review. We argue that it is imperative that migration, migration policy, and their relationship to development be discussed inclusively and transparently and be explicitly incorporated into the Chilean government's nascent migration and development legal policies and frameworks.