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Keynote at the 10th International Conference on Education in values at Hidalgo State (México)

Last 2nd of October, María Rosa Buxarrais gave a keynote at the 10th International Conference on Values Education at the State of Hidalgo (México). This year, the title of the conference was “Values for a Peaceful, Democratic and Harmonic Coexistence in Educational Centres”. The conference, that lasted until the 4th of October, had venues in the following municipalities: Pachuca, Tepeji del Río, Actopan, El Arenal, Huasca de Ocampo, Mineral del Monte and Omitlan de Juárez. Specialists in values education from Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Costa Rica and Mexico took part in this event.

The title of Buxarrais’ paper was “Managing emtions and feelings in education in values education: the care approach”. The seminar dealt with how to manage feelings and emotions, taking into account that they have an influence on the construction of the scale of values of each person. Based on the distinction between emotion and reason and that between feelings and emotions, an objective for values education is proposed: an ethics of care. Thanks to this model, we can understand that the world is formed by a network of relationships between people where certain values have priority, such as care, responsibility, gratitude and autonomy.

New Publication in Universities and Knowledge Society Journal

Logo RUSC The article University Lecturers’ Conceptions of Ethics and Citizenship Education in the European Higher Education Area: a Case Study, written by Francisco Esteban, Teodor Mellen and Maria Rosa Buxarrais has been published this month in the Universities and Knowledge Society Journal (ISSN 1698-580X).

Abstract
Ethics and Citizenship education has become the focus of considerable debate since the launch of the European Higher Education Area. That this is the case is interesting, as it is a type of education that forms part of the educational mission of universities, as its history plainly demonstrates. Ethics and Citizenship education cannot be analysed solely in terms of its pedagogical requirements, the skills and competencies that it seeks to develop, or the type of students and professionals that the world needs today. Its success also requires that we explore what university lecturers understand by this type of education, the context it currently finds itself in, and how students perceive such an education. This paper presents a case study conducted on university lecturers in Education, Philosophy and Humanities at several European institutions.

The article can be freely downloaded in the article section of the website.

Opening lecture at the 8th Summer School in Nou Barris (Barcelona)

On the 1st of July, Maria Rosa Buxarrais gave the opening lecture “Ethics of care” at the 8th Summer School organised every year by Asociación 033 Educa in Nou Barris (Barcelona). The Summer School was this year entitled “Education with Heart”.

Maria Rosa talked about the new educational paradigm that should be implemented in schools nowadays: the pedagogy of care. This is an educational approach based on relational autonomy within an “education with heart”. The principles and practice of this approach, applied in the school context, were presented in the lecture as well as some strategies for its promotion.

The brochure with the speakers in this summer school can be downloaded here.

Program on Education for Democratic and Intercultural Citizenship

From the 26th of May to the 6th of June, the Faculty of Pedagogy of the University of Barcelona has held the intensive Erasmus program on Education for Democratic and Intercultural Citizenship. Twenty-six postgraduate students and forteen lecturers from eight countries (The Netherlands, Greece, Finland, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Israel and Spain). The European Union funds this project, lasting for four years, with 40000 euros with the aim of train students in these topics and plan joint research projects among the participant institutions.

In these two weeks, the students (three of which are from the University of Barcelona), have presented their research and taken part in different round-table discussions. Four of the fourteen lecturers are from the University of Barcelona: Maria Rosa Buxarrais, Francisco Esteban, Miquel Martínez and Elena Noguera.

Maria Rosa Buxarrais, professor at the Department of Theory and History of Education and also the director of this event, thinks this has been a very positive experience that “has contributed to a contextualised concretion of terminology not just from a theoretical point of view, but also based on the research carried out in each country“.

New publication in Wulfenia Journal

Logo Wulfenia Journal

Last February, the article “Telling Stories about the Value of Co-responsibility: An educational strategy to train Spanish families in the values of the work-life balance“, by Maria Rosa Buxarrais (UB) y Alexandro Escudero (UB), has been published in Wulfenia Journal (ISSN 1561 – 882X).

Abstract:
The entry of women into the workplace has not resulted in a just reallocation of the family’s household chores. This situation has had two adverse effects: first, mothers experience difficulties in achieving a good work-family life balance; and, second, unwelcome changes occur in the children’s health, their performance at school, and in their ability to make constructive use of their leisure time. An educational proposal has been drawn up, designed to foster values for achieving a better work-life balance and adhering to the principles of: 1) placing the teaching of the values of co-responsibility at the heart of the family project; 2) taking appropriate action in the early years of the children’s lives; 3) telling true or fictitious stories about the values of co-responsibility; and 4) engaging the children in dialogue so they might reflect on these values through informal, spontaneous activities of recreation. Our research, conducted using grounded theory, identifies the strategies that families in Barcelona (Spain) adopt on a day-to-day basis to achieve a good work-life balance. Our results show that families have various practical concerns, but one overriding worry: they all express the hope that their children will grow up to be happy, decent people; yet they do not implement any systematic actions to achieve this objective.

The article can be downloaded from here.