Aurora Álvarez Veinguer

Under the shadow of Al‐Andalus? Spanish teenagers’ attitudes and experiences with religious diversity at school

Religious education (RE) is a persistently ‘hot topic’ in contemporary Spain. Although nominally Catholic, majority Spanish society tends to be sharply divided with regard to the issue of religion in education: more conservative and Church‐attending parents approve of the still overwhelming presence of Catholic teachers, trained and chosen by the Catholic Church, who teach (confessional Catholic) religion in both public and confessional primary and secondary schools. More liberal or progressive parents reject this ‘intrusion’ of the Church as reminiscent of ‘national Catholicism’ and favour a strict state–Church separation similar to the French laicité model. This bipolar conflict has become more complex recently. The current dynamics of pluralisation of confessional RE at school, which is currently being implemented in several pilot primary schools in districts with high percentages of Muslim (particularly Maghrebien) as well as Protestant (increasingly Latin American) immigrants, meets strong resistance, not only from the Catholic Church, but also from those who struggle for a completely ‘laicist’ solution. The following analysis of qualitative and quantitative questionnaire data designed and collected in the frame of the comparative REDCo project (‘Religion in Education: a contribution to Dialogue or a factor of Conflict in transforming societies of European Countries, sixth framework programme’) presents an approach to youngsters’ attitudes and experiences with confessional RE.

Intersectionality and the Discourses of Women’s Social Movement Organizations across Europe

This chapter presents some empirical findings based on the work carried out within the project Diversity and the European Public Sphere: Towards a Citizens’ Europe (Eurosphere). We analyse several questions dealing with the views on diversity (both general diversity and ethnonational diversity as defined within the project), and we aim to identify whether gender is mentioned or not mentioned in relation to diversity in the interviews, and how it intersects — or does not intersect — with other diversities (cultural, religious, linguistic and so forth); how diversity is framed by the respondents as either an advantage or a disadvantage for society; the arguments for or against the involvement of the state in the regulation of ethno-national diversity; and the extent to which integration of immigrants and minority groups is a one-way or a two-way process; that is, whether it implies adaptation efforts on the part of the public institutions in the receiving country, or whether it is only immigrants who are supposed to adapt to their new socio-political and cultural context.

3.8 Doubly Reflexive Ethnography for Collaborative Research in Mexico

Despite their success and importance in educational research, interpretive approaches still reflect the heritage of a Western-biased hermeneutics, which often over-emphasizes the role of the “hermeneutist”, of the interpreter, thus neglecting the self-reflexive role of the “object” of interpretation and her/his active participation in the act of interpretation itself. In this contribution, we aim at highlighting the necessary complementarity of hermeneutically inspired ethnographic research traditions, on the one hand, and collaborative, dialogic and/or participatory approaches, on the other hand. Accordingly, after a short conceptual introduction on the role played by diversity as a research topic, in the following we first develop the methodological reasons which lead us to combine and integrate interpretive ethnography and collaborative research. Then, we detail our own hybrid methodology through ethnographic example from an ongoing project we are carrying out in Mexico, before we finally sum up the role played by interpretation in a reflexive and dialogical ethnography.

Revisiting the European Union framework on immigrant integration: The European integration forum as a technology of agency

In the last 15 years, a European Framework on Immigrant Integration has been developed through soft law tools, aiming to create a common understanding of the concept and promoting the coordination, funding, and exchange of best practices among states, local administrations, and nongovernmental actors. In this article, we first contextualize the emergence of immigrant integration policies at the European Union level. We then examine the principal European Union documents on this issue, paying special attention to the link between integration and immigrant participation. Finally, based on an empirical study, we analyze, from the perspective of governmentality, the European Integration Forum, an apparatus considered the “last word” in immigrant integration policies at the European Union level.

Moroccan and Ecuadorian Migrant Organizations in the Spanish State

In order to analyse the emergence, configuration and strategies of formal cross-border migrant organizations (CBMOs) from Ecuador and Morocco in the Spanish state, it is essential to take into account the different contexts and settings in which these organizations operate. For this reason, the following analysis presents their national contexts (origin and arrival) as well as their role within the wider global context of migration.