Last December, from the 8th to the 11th, Dr. Buxarrais participated in the 42 Association for Moral Education Conference, which took place at Harvard Graduate School of Education, which is where this association was founded in 1976.

Dr Buxarrais presented a poster, coauthored by Dr Francisco Esteban (UB), entitled “Becoming a teacher: Ideas for university education and civic engagement”. This is the abstract:

In recent years university education has changed considerably. In brief, it could be said that it has adapted to the prevailing circumstances and that it is even proving to be an essential resource in the optimization of professional, social, cultural and economic domains. The changes it has gone through have led to the achievement of quite significant results. However, at the same time we have also witnessed the emergence of concerns and misgivings about the nature of this education, above all in relation to the personal, ethical, and civic development of today’s student populace. What makes a good teacher and what motivates a person to want to teach are timeless questions that concern us all.
This study focuses on those who are currently training to become teachers, more specifically undergraduates studying a degree in Primary Education in the universities of Catalonia. We employ a quantitative methodology based on a self-administered questionnaire conducted with a representative sample. Participants’ open-ended responses are recorded and codified. We construct three main categories: personal, authentic teacher; the teacher as story teller; and, the teacher as motivator of learning. Our results highlight important differences between these categories, extolling above all the authentic, personal teacher, who leaves a mark thanks to their character and way of being. This, together with other findings, allows us to offer some considerations for the university training of future teachers.

Also, as a senior researcher, Dr Buxarrais was invited by the conference organisers to participate as a mentor in the “Junior Scholar’s Reception” on the 9th. This AME conference popular event consists in a lunch that brings together a researcher with vast experience and a group of new researchers (students or reseearchers with less than ten years since their PhD) to talk about a topic, in this case “school curriculum” and answer their questions on the topic.

Maria Rosa Buxarrais and Ignasi de Borafull (Universidad Internacional de Cataluña) have presented in the 8th International Conference on Psychology and Education (CIPE2016), held in Alicante (Spain) from the 15th to the 17th of June, the paper entitled “Parentalidad, funciones ejecutivas y desarrollo moral”. The abstract is presented next.

Abstract
Neuroscience is investigating, among other fields, how the brain of preschool children develops. Our research analyzes the relationship between parenting and the development of the executive functions located in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) which is the basis for their future moral development. Advances in neurotechnology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), provide information on the deployment of the brain, its functions, and how early experiences, whether positive or adverse, may affect its development. Child abuse affects the brain under construction. Until recently, these effects were only described psychologically and behaviorally. Today research also includes the biological tests of neuroscience. In child abuse attention is drawn to the physical and sexual abuse, however, we are focusing on a psychological and negligent abuse -deprivation of affection, neglect of some care, etc.- aspect that is less considered due to its invisibility. Neglectful parenting becomes a harmful toxic stress for the brain development of the child throughout his life. We are at a strategic moment and research has shown that preventive action will be more efficient the earlier it starts the better. One level of prevention requires that the first caregivers -parents and nursery school- take proper action. Another level of prevention involves identifying these cases at the nursery school and in pediatric care. In the medium term, our goal is to study the factors of parental and preschool care that in this period determine the future health of children, their cognitive and moral development. To narrow the field of study we are going to measure the specific executive functions responsible for impulse control. Our goal is to assess -in a sample (N=200) of boys and girls from 4 to 6 years old- the correlation between psychological and negligent abuse and the executive functions responsible for the cognitive moral development.

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Last 28th of April, Dr. Buxarrais participated in the Education and Transparency Workshop, organised by the Research Group in Pedagogical and Social Thought (GREPPS) of the Faculty of Education at the University of Barcelona and by the Edith Stein Centre.

This workshop seeks, from a plural and universal view, to discuss the relationship between education and religions transcendence, taking into account the role of inwardness, which becomes again the key to guarantee a full humanization. More information in this brochure (pdf in Catalan, 1,2 MB)

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From the 5th to the 7th of last November, the 41st edition of the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education (AME) took place in Santos, Brazil. In this edition, Maria Rosa Buxarrais was voted by AME’s members to be part of AME’s Executive Board for the next three years (2015 – 2018), together with Matthew Hayden, Vishalache Balakrishnan and Larry Nucci.

In this meeting, Dr. Buxarrais presented the paper “Moral Education and Citizenship. The Construction Model of Moral Personality” (available in the conference website, as the rest of the papers presented there). She also coordinated the “Symposium on Moral Education and Citizenship”. The picture shows her with the other participants in the symposium.

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