This month of July (20th to 23rd) The 48th Association for Moral Education (AME) Conference, took place in Manchester with the theme “Moral Development & Moral Education in Global Transition”. The event was organised by the Assocation for Moral Education, the Journal for Moral Education y the Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education. Dr. Buxarrais presented a paper and a poster in the conference (see below).

The paper, authored as well by her two research students, Eric Ortega and Laura Fontán was intitled “Ethics in Times of Pandemic: An exploratory study on the values, attitudes and civic habits of Catalan citizens towards the COVID-19 crisis“.

This is the abstract: “The coronavirus pandemic has had a wide impact on everybody’s life. From the Observatory of Civism and Values of Catalonia and the Moral Education Research Group GREM of the University of Barcelona, we carried out an exploratory study to find out the impact on moral values, attitudes, habits, and citizenship behavior during the pandemic in Catalonia (2020-2021). We collected data at two different times through two descriptive surveys, collecting individual perceptions and concerns about the virus. In the realm of people’s values and ideals, a reconfiguration of the hierarchy of values can be observed”.

Dr. Buxarrais with her research students, Eric Ortega and Laura Fontán

The poster Dr. Buxarrais presented (which can be freely downloaded here) was intitled “Evaluation of Ethical Competencies in Students of Behavioural, Biological and Health Sciences” and it was a common effort between Zaragoza Faculty of Higher Education of the Autonomous University of Mexico and the Faculty of Education of the University of Barcelona. The authors, Los autores, además de Maria Rosa Buxarrais, son Rubén A. Miranda, Mirna García, Alan A. Mercado, Miriam de la Torre y Héctor Raymundo.

Parcial image of the poster presented by Dr. Buxarrais

Furthermore, as the Chair for the Good Work Award Committtee, Dr. Buxarrais handed this year’s award to Geoff Thompson, five times heavyweight champion of the world in karate, for the work he carries out with his NGO Youth Charter promoting the role and value of sport, art, culture and digital technology in the lives of young people in underpriviledged communities, nationally and internationally.

Photos of the event

Dr. Buxarrais with Dr. Loret de Ruyter (Univ. of Utrecht), AME President

Dr. Buxarrais with Dr. Brian Gates (Univ. of Cumbria), local host of the conference

Dr. Buxarrais with Dr. Taylor (Univ. of London) and Dr. Conroy (Univ. of Glasgow)

Dr. Buxarrais with Dr. Phyllis Curtis-Tweed (Bermuda College)

Last November, Dr. Buxarrais participated in the 45th Annual Conference of the Association for Moral Education, which took place in Seattle (USA) with the theme “Morality and Ethics in the Digital World”.

The title of her paper was Measuring Ethical Sensitivity of students at the University of Barcelona, coauthored with Dr. Josep M. Ustrell, from the School of Dentistry of the University of Barcelona. This is the abstract:

The study examines the Ethical Sensitivity of university students chosen from two Degrees: Education and Dentistry. We have used the Ethical Sensitive Scale Questionnaire (ESSQ) (Tirri & Nakelaine, 2011). The Scale was presented to a sample of 187 students of Education and 58 of Dentistry, in the first year and last year of the degree. Before, we have adapted the scale questionnaire in the context. A quantitative cross-sectional design was utilized. Data were collected twice, in the first and the fourth year.

Eric Ortega and Laura Fontan (see photo), interns from the Research Group of Moral Education (GREM), which is coordinated by Dr. Buxarrais, were also presenting the work they are doing for their PhD research.

In this conference, Dr. Buxarrais was officially appointed as Chair of the Good Work Award Committee of the Association for Moral Education, where she has been serving as an elected board member since 2015.

As part of the program “Distiguished Professorship PIMSA, which aims at promoting research lines in certain fields and at boosting competitiveness of the institution, CETYS University received Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais from the 13th to the 19th of Octuber.

During that week, Dr Buxarrais has given, in all three campuses (Mexicali, Ensenada y Tijuana), a conference conferencia (“management of emtions and feelings in values education: the care approach”) addressed at schools, civil organizations and general audience; another talk “Ethics and solidarity”) addressed at final year students and (“Moral Education from a Female Perspective”) PhD students; and a seminar (“The Pedagogy of Being, the challenge of educating in Humanities”) addressed at lectures of the university in all three campuses.

She was also interviewed by different media. Some examples can be read (in Spanish)  here and here.

Lecturers from CETYS University, Mexicali Campus

Lecturers from CETYS University, Ensenada Campus

Lecturers from CETYS University, Tijuana Campus

Seminar with PhD Students from CETYS University

Dr. Buxarrais was invited as a keynote speaker at the 4th International Conference on Civil Engineering Education:Challenges for the Third Millennium, organised by the Escola de Camins (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC BarcelonaTech), and EUCEET (European Civil Engineering Education and Training) Association from the 5th to the 8th of September.

The conference was entitled “Ethical competencies in Higher Education” and the abstract can be read next:

Higher Education encompasses three interconnected dimensions:

• A dimension related with the construction and transmission of the scientific, technical, cultural and humanistic knowledge.
• A political and social dimension linked to the implication in the society and in the democratic principles development.
• An ethical dimension bound together with and activity compromised with the justice, the people’s and communities’ dignity and human rights.

Since Higher Education must train competent professionals who are to analyse their own practises, we will consider the third dimension. Furthermore, they must be able to evaluate their actions, their perceptions, their beliefs and their thoughts, not only as professionals in their field of knowledge but as compromised citizens as well. Thus, the training of the ethical competence is necessary to develop ability of reflection, analysing and the taking of a post. Here we are going to ask ourselves questions related to the teacher practises and the ethical learning in the higher education.