Search

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

The present study aims to identify the most productive countries, journals, authors, institutions and the most used keywords in the field of special education during 2011-2020, based on the WoS database. The widespread effects of the papers and how they are related were analyzed with the bibliometric analysis method. The findings of the study showed that the USA is inarguably the most productive country, followed by England and Australia. On the other hand, there was a very strong positive correlation (r = 0.929) between the number of papers published by countries and their h-index, a similar finding was also found to be present between the countries' h-index and GDP per capita (r = 0.790). Moreover, it was found that the journals with the highest quartile (Q1 and Q2) in the field of special education published significantly more papers than the journals with the lowest quartile (Q3 and Q4). Matson, JL (USA), Sigafoos, J (New Zealand) and Lancioni, GE (Italy) were determined as the most prolific authors, respectively. Autism, intellectual disability, and Down syndrome were the phrases most frequently used as keywords. Our findings provide key information regarding the developments that the research direction of special education field has recently taken. This study also serves a potential roadmap for future studies.

Context: In the last few decades, the constant and exponential changes in the society's consumption of information have increased the awareness of practitioners from the education and training field, on the need for training programs for the enhancement of critical thinking skills and media literacy among students from Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) who are less exposed to intellectual trainings than their peers in traditional education pathways. Approach: With this impetus, the present paper reports the results of a mixed methods study evaluating a training program for such competences. Based on a cognitive psychology theoretical framework, the training program consisted in three main techniques through which trainers can work with students in the classroom. N= 35 trainers from five different countries (i.e., Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands) were instructed about the training techniques and implemented them in their training centres. Then, a total of N= 288 students among these countries were involved in the testing of the training, which took place on a duration average of 5 months. Mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the effectiveness and quality of the training. Notably, prospective statistical analysis evaluated the training's impact of the participating students and compared with a control group. Qualitative interviews examined the training's lived experience with a group of students and trainers. Findings: The quantitative and qualitative analysis of pre/post- measures of critical thinking skills and media literacy of the experimental group, and the comparison with the control group, indicate an increase in these competences and confirm the efficacy of the training intervention. Conclusion: These results inform about the usefulness of the training program cross-culturally and the feasibility of training strategies based on cognitive psychology. Moreover, the paper offers a methodological contribution thanks to the proposition of the mixed methods approach for training programs assessment.

Immigrant minority (IM) languages have a significant presence in certain European regions. Nonetheless, these languages are not usually included in the school curriculum. This paper aims to analyse the studies published between 2010 and 2020 considering IM languages in multilingual European education contexts. The method included a search of academic papers published in the databases ERIC, Web of Science and Scopus, which yielded 42 studies. The studies were analysed by considering: (1) the demographic characteristics of the countries where the studies were conducted, (2) the sociolinguistic or psycholinguistic focus of the papers in relation to the European country, and (3) the characteristics of the bi-multilingual education programme including IM languages. The results indicate that: (1) the demographic characteristics of the country are not strictly related to the number of studies published, (2) most studies have a sociolinguistic approach even though many studies analyse both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic factors, and (3) only seven multilingual education programmes including IM languages were described in these papers. We conclude that there is a lack of research focusing on IM languages in educational settings and discuss how addressing these gaps could create opportunities for building equitable multilingual communities in Europe.

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

The higher education efficiency evaluation model using the data envelopment analysis method has interested many researchers. This paper uses bibliometric analysis on publications extracted from the Scopus database to provide a comprehensive overview of research publications on the measurement of higher education efficiency based on data envelopment analysis: its growth rate, major collaboration networks, the most important and popular research topic. A total of 169 related publications were collected and analyzed from 1988 to 2021. The analysis results show that: Publications published every year have increased sharply in the last six years; The quality of publications is relatively high as publications tend to be published in journals with high-ranking indexes; Countries with the most influence in studies on this topic are: Italy, China, Spain, the USA, and the United Kingdom; Authors with the most influence in this research direction are Agasisti T., Abbott M., Doucouliagos C., Avkiran N.K., and Johnes J.; The research cooperation among countries and among affiliations is not strong. Finally, the paper has provided recommendations for future studies based on the findings.

This paper makes available to the broader educational community the instruments which have been originally designed and validated within the European project "CLIL for all: Attention to diversity in bilingual education" ("ADiBE") to determine how diversity is being catered to across a broad array of CLIL contexts in European Secondary Education (Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom). They include three sets of questionnaires, interviews, and observation protocols and are qualitative and quantitative instruments whose design has been based on the latest research and which have undergone a carefully controlled double-fold pilot process for their validation (external ratings approach and pilot phase with a representative sample of 264 subjects). The questions included in the three sets of instruments are initially characterized, together with their format and main categories. The paper then details the steps undertaken for their research-based design and the double-fold pilot process followed for their validation. The questionnaires and interview and observation protocols are then presented in a format which is directly applicable in any CLIL classroom in order to determine the accessibility of bilingual programs for all types of achievers and to identify the chief difficulties and best practices in promoting inclusion in bilingual education.

While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

For over two decades now, the application of Citizen Science to Education has been evolving, and fundamental topics, such as the drivers of motivation to participate in Citizen Science projects, are still under discussion. Some recent developments, though, like the use of Artificial Intelligence to support data collection and validation, seem to point to a clear-cut divergence from the mainstream research path. The objective of this paper is to summarise the development trajectory of research on Citizen Science in Education so far, and then shed light on its future development, to help researchers direct their efforts towards the most promising open questions in this field. We achieved these objectives by using the lens of the Affordance-Actualisation theory and the Main Path Analysis method.

Although concepts such as research without borders have become more commonplace in recent decades, few studies have investigated the capabilities that global researchers require to cross both cultural and disciplinary borders. This paper explores global capabilities along with strategies and spaces that may facilitate academic researchers' acquisition and development of global research competence. The study's dataset comprises responses of 26 participants across 15 countries -- all of whom are members of a specific comparative education society -- who contributed their views via e-questionnaire. Findings indicate that research capacity building is a dynamic process and global competence calls for complex skills and conscious attitudes. Commitment to expand scientific curiosity beyond one's own culture and academic discipline appears to be a main criterion in achieving global competence. Results of this study are not meant to be prescriptive but rather exploratory and informative for a broad group of academic stakeholders.

Objective: This review summarizes evidence pertaining to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological health of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Materials and Methods: An electronic search was conducted using four major databases--PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Using an umbrella methodology, the reference lists of relevant papers were reviewed, and citation searches were conducted. The study included articles written in English between January 2020 and March 2021 that focused on the psychological health of autistic children and adolescents. Results: All eight studies included in the final review were cross-sectional. Three of the eight studies were conducted in Italy, two in Turkey, and one study each in Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with a total of 1,407 participants. All studies used a mixture of standardized and non-standardized questionnaires to collect data. The total number of patients were 1407 at a mean age of 9.53 (SD = 2.96) years. Seven studies report gender; male 74.7% (657/880) and female 25.3% (223/880). The finding showed that behavioral issues in children and adolescents with ASD have significantly increased; 521 (51.9 percent) of the 1004 individuals with ASD presented with behavioral changes, including conduct problems, emotional problems, aggression, and hyperactivity. Some studies also found increased anxiety and difficulties managing emotions. Only one study reported clinical stabilization in children with ASD during COVID-19. Finally, 82.7% of families and caregivers of children with ASD (544 out of 658) faced challenges during COVID-19. Conclusion: Although the studies in this review suggest a general worsening of ASD children's clinical status, it remains difficult to draw definitive conclusions at this moment, with newer COVID-19 variants on the rise worldwide. During this difficult pandemic period, caregivers, families, and healthcare professionals are recommended to pay more attention to the ASD patients' health and care needs.

This study explores the relation between risk of job automation and participation in adult education and training (AET) and examines variation in that relation across welfare regimes distinguishing between situational and institutional barriers. Using microdata of PIAAC, we analyze participation in formal or nonformal AET for job-related reasons in relation to the risk of automation of the respondents' occupation after controlling for main sociodemographic characteristics. Logistic regression models are run on respondents from 14 European countries representing different welfare regimes: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (Scandinavian countries); Italy, Greece, and Spain (Southern European); Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland (Central and Eastern Europe), Belgium, France, and Germany (Continental); and United Kingdom and Ireland (Anglo-Saxon countries). Our findings confirm that workers in occupations at high risk of automation were found to be consistently less likely to participate in job-related AET, quite irrespective of welfare regime. [The paper was presented at XIII Conferenza Espanet Italia--Il welfare state di fronte alle sfide globali (Venezia, 17 September 2020).]

This study aims to identify the literacy skills of individuals whose highest level of education was in the field 'teacher training and educational sciences'. The study sample comprised 10,618 individuals in the field of teacher training and educational sciences, selected from 31 countries (participating in the International Adult Skills Assessment Programme during the 2014-2015 survey) using a multi-stage sampling method. The study employed multi-level latent class analysis and three-step analysis in order to determine both the number of multi-level latent classes of educators' literacy scores as well as the selected independent variables' success in predicting those latent classes. The analysis revealed that educators in Germany constituted the group with the highest literacy skills while educators from Singapore comprised the group with the lowest literacy skills. [This study was presented at the 9th International Congress of Educational Research. Ordu University, Ordu, Turkey.]

Purpose: Free and open-source software (FOSS) has been used worldwide because of the advantages of user control, cost-saving, flexibility, openness, freedom, more security and better stability. The purpose of this study is to explore the status quo of educational application of FOSS and the trends from international perspectives and its implications for higher education in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach: The method of cluster analysis was used in this study. The Web of Science database was used as the data source and all relevant literature for the year 2010-2020 on the theme of "FOSS" was collected for analysis. The information visualization software CiteSpace was used for citation visualization analysis, revealing the research results of FOSS worldwide, including hot spots and development trends. Findings: This paper found that FOSS has become an important research area and is playing an important role in the reform and development of education. Meanwhile, the development and application of FOSS have regional imbalances and strong differentiation, including the educational sector. The paper also found that although FOSS has entered the stage of interdisciplinary development, the research and development of FOSS in the field of education is insufficient, which poses a huge challenge to decision-makers, teachers and students. Originality/value: Implications for higher education in Hong Kong including: attach importance to and vigorously promote FOSS research and practice to benefit more teachers and students; teachers and students need to be trained for acquiring the awareness and skills of FOSS applications and formulate different strategies; the government should provide greater support to formulate and implement a short and middle-term development plan to facilitate the application of FOSS; and Hong Kong higher education institutions may strengthen exchanges and cooperation with counterparts around the world to jointly promote the development of FOSS. It is hoped that the findings will provide a reference for the study and application of FOSS in higher education in Hong Kong.

Due to globalisation and migration, multilingualism has become both a reality and an aim of education systems across Europe, affecting how language education is shaped. To improve the ways in which schools cater for language education in diverse settings, research is required on the potentials of multilingualism in order to design curricula that foster skills in different languages. This paper aims at identifying and explaining research priorities in the field of multilingualism and language education in a cross-national perspective. It draws on data from a survey with 298 expert participants in five European countries (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain) who ranked pre-identified research topics in relation to their perceived urgency. Results show that experts identified 'effectiveness of multilingual support in regular lessons', 'features of multilingual didactics' and 'effectiveness of literacy support in home languages on the development of academic language skills in the majority language' as having the highest research priority overall. However, these results vary across national settings investigated. While the German, Dutch and Portuguese respondents attributed urgency to research on academic language skills, other issues were rated higher in the Spanish and Italian research contexts. The advantages and limitations of conducting cross-national research are also addressed.

Modern technology progresses at an incredibly fast pace. With personal computers, mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet, technology is used in all spheres, affecting our daily lives greatly. Educational games are also taking advantage of the technological process, for example, many useful apps are available for children. Gaming and educational opportunities have expanded because of the development of tablets and smartphones. Teachers have the opportunity to combine physical and electronic objects when creating education materials, so they are not confined to the use of traditional physical objects. Storytelling remains one of the oldest teaching methods for children: the development of technology has given impetus to the creation of tangible digital storytelling, which combines programs with physical objects, creating a single field for learning. Creating stories in which a child can interact with his/her peers has also provided new opportunities for inclusion and cooperation in young children. Indeed, the increased use of speakers, videos, pictures, and other tools that can help to quickly create and easily adapt objects for children with various backgrounds has fostered inclusive teaching. This paper will consider the evolution of the storytelling practice, focusing specifically on tangible digital storytelling and its benefits in young children.

Children and young people who come into conflict with the law tend to be disengaged with education and learning. This paper reports on research from an EU Erasmus+ project in Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK. The research focused on the impact of Authentic Inquiry (AI) on learners in custodial or youth justice settings and the impact on educators and their pedagogy. Quantitative data (from 82 educators and 73 young people), demonstrated the young people could be re-engaged with education and learning as evidenced in the change in Learning Power profiles. Qualitative data (from 16 educators and 14 young people) showed the greatest impact to be on the emotional component of engagement. The AI had an impact on educators as learners by improved Learning Power profiles and on their pedagogical approach. Ways to embed the approach into education in youth justice settings in the different country contexts are discussed.

Today, the term 'global' has become a pervasive description of universities that aim to alleviate their importance and reach. The global looks inherently big. By relating to a spherical shape it attributes size in two distinct ways: it signifies the comprehensive and extensive reach of a theme or issue as well as the spherical centrality of an organisation. The paper argues that such perceptions of the global as big do not simply derive from the size of a terrestrial body. Rather, it excavates the historic roots of global size-building and the complicity of science and the university therein. It draws on two historic case studies: the formation of globality in the 'cordial agreement' between the "Hohenstaufen" emperors and medieval scholars and the conquering globality in the 'symbiotic relationship' between the Spanish Empire and cosmography. While distinct as historical cases they structure globality in a way that nurtures contemporary perceptions of the global. The historic genesis shows that the university is not merely sized through the global but that the university establishes a common knowledge space that makes the global emblematically big. The global sizing of the university today is just as much the story of the academisation of the globe.

This paper explains and analyses a virtual gamification experience developed by a teaching group from the University of Catania (Italy) and the University of Cordoba (Spain). A competition based on professional tasks about hydrological planning was implemented in two subjects on Hydrological Sciences. The teaching experience was designed to improve the acquisition of technical knowledge and skills needed for hydrological studies, promote the management of ICT and increase international cooperation between different universities; all aimed at making students more employable. The experience is transferable to different academic levels. Following the philosophy of soccer leagues, the students solved and presented the exercise by teams of two students. Through videoconference, the presentation and the explanation were done so the fans in each country supported their teams. The students found it a very challenging experience but at the same time, some of them were aware of their needs of improving technical knowledge, particularly Geographical Information Systems, and English language skills. Updating of tools and the schedule within the different academic calendar were their main organization handicaps. The main outcome of the presented experience is that social energy and enthusiasm associated to popular activities such as soccer led to improve the interest and the motivation of the students in challenging technical contents as well as teamwork and language transversal competences.

The application of academic freedom may lead to a violation of individual rights, such as the right to respect private life or institutional rights such as university autonomy, or the right of the religious community to self-determination. These collisions between rights are resolved by constitutional courts either according to the proportionality test or by balancing the rights. This paper investigates cases from Czechia, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain, where academic freedom collided with other constitutional rights, in order to determine methods for resolving these types of conflicts. This analysis demonstrates the way in which proportionality allows the construction of the content of academic freedom. It also shows the reasons why academic freedom could become a weak right and why sometimes it is a strong right.

Early access programs (EAPs) generally refer to patient access to medicines/indications before marketing authorization, possibly extended to price and reimbursement approval. These programs include compassionate use, which is usually covered by pharmaceutical companies, and EAPs reimbursed by third-party payers. This paper aims at comparing EAPs in four European countries (France, Italy, Spain, UK) and providing empirical evidence on EAPs in Italy. The comparative analysis was conducted through a literature review (including scientific and grey literature), complemented by 30-min semi-structured interviews with local experts. The Italian empirical analysis employed data available on the National Medicines Agency website. Although EAPs are very different across countries, they exhibit some common features: (i) eligibility criteria refer to the absence of valid therapeutic alternatives and a presumed favourable risk–benefit profile; (ii) payers do not allocate a pre-determined budget to these programs; (iii) total spending on EAPs is unknown. The French EAPs seem to be the most structured, financed through social insurance, covering pre-marketing, post-marketing and pre-reimbursement phases and providing for data collection. Italy's approach to EAPs has been varied, with several programs covered by different payers, including the cohort-based 648 List (for both early access and off-label use), the nominal-based 5% Fund, and Compassionate Use. Most applications to EAPs are from the Antineoplastic and immunomodulating drug class (ATC L). Some 62% of indications in the 648 List are either not under clinical development or have never been approved (pure off-label use). For those subsequently approved, most approved indications coincide with those covered through EAPs. Only the 5% Fund provides data on economic impact (€ 81.2 million in 2021; average cost per patient € 61.5K). Diverse EAPs are a possible source of inequalities in access to medicines across Europe. A harmonization of these programs, though difficult to achieve, could be modelled on the French EAPs and provide key advantages, not least of which a common effort to collect real-world data in parallel with clinical trials and clear separation between EAPs and off-label use programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish whether, and to what extent, an increase in the public provision of early childhood education and care services (ECEC) has had a positive effect on women's participation in the labour market in Italy and Spain. It does so by compiling panel data using microdata from the European Labour Force Survey (2006–2018), together with secondary sources of information on public ECEC investment made in the two countries. After controlling for unit heterogeneity and reverse causality, the estimated results indicate a positive correlation with the employment rates of women with children and the number of hours worked, in particular for those without a degree, thus indicating the need to address unequal access to publicly-provided ECEC services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the discursive construction of the concept of border and its interaction with identity in two exclusionary populist movements: Lega in Italy and Vox in Spain. The study, based on the analysis of an ad hoc selection of discourses by the two parties' leaders, applies clause-based semantic text analysis to detect the main discursive representations of the "us" and the "others" as threatening ontological security and the performative role played by borders as the ultimate (de)Fence for identity. Results show that Matteo Salvini focuses his discourse on the manipulation of physical space, representing Italy as the space for Italians and proposing to "close the borders" as the only way to stop the "invasion". Santiago Abascal, on his side, constructs Spanish identity as inherently and proudly "anti-Islamic". Borders, therefore, are invalicable for those considered incompatible with local values, namely "Muslims", represented as a "natural threat" to Spanish identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to describe the goals, activities, and methods of EUMOVE project in developing a set of resources targeting both primary and secondary schools that allow the entire educational community to promote healthy lifestyles (HL). The EUMOVE project is an Erasmus+ program based in the Creating Active Schools (CAS) framework. The project lasted 3 years and was developed by 14 academic and non-governmental institutions from Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the UK. EUMOVE was divided into three phases. In the first phase, several work packages were carried out aimed to ensure the coordination/management of the project activities. In the second phase, seven educational resources strengthened by rigorous scientific research were developed to promote HL from schools. During the last phase, all the resources were disseminated through scientific seminars, workshops with families and teachers, and the online promotion by the non-governmental institutions of each country. The EUMOVE project developed and promoted a smartphone APP, video/activity repository of physically active lessons, active break virtual platform, learning units, and parent/teachers/school-leaders' guidelines to promote physical activity, active commuting, active school playgrounds, healthy diet, and sleep habits. To our knowledge, EUMOVE is the first European project to provide a set of practical tools based on scientific evidence to help schools or future school-wide interventions implement a paradigm shift based on the CAS framework for the promotion of HL. Future research will need to investigate the implementation, effectiveness, and scalability of this proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated if and how financial sustainability affects the ability of local governments to meet the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. Two samples consisting of Italian and Spanish local governments were analyzed for the analysis. These municipalities were selected, as they provide many essential services largely linked with several SDGs. Findings show that local governments with better financial conditions devote more effort to achieving the SDGs connected with the biosphere, as well as social and economic development. Our results can stimulate politicians and managers to fight against tax evasion to increase their resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants in rural areas and immigrant employment in the agricultural sector have been studied from a variety of perspectives. However, we currently lack a bird's-eye view of these two phenomena covering all EU member states through time. This paper tackles that gap, first by describing the main features of immigrant settlement and economic integration in rural areas in the EU. Second, it offers an EU-wide overview of immigrants' integration in the agricultural sector. Then, it investigates empirically the degree to which the different characteristics of agricultural production in two member states – Italy and Spain – are associated with a migrant presence in the area. The study finds that, in the context of a shrinking agricultural labour force, the share of migrant workers in that sector in several regions is increasing over time. Migrants living in rural areas are more likely to be unemployed and face economic hardship than locals. Migrants employed in agriculture are, also, more likely to work in elementary occupations and temporary jobs. Finally, the case studies on Italy and Spain demonstrate that the relative size of the migrant population is related to the typology of agricultural land use and to the labour intensity and seasonality of cultivation. • Immigrants in rural areas tend to fare worse compared to the local population and to migrants living in cities and towns. • In the agricultural sector, migrant workers have steadily increased their share of total employment over time. • Migrants are more likely to work in elementary occupations, to be employees, and to have temporary forms of recruitment than locals. • In Italy and Spain migrants in rural areas tend settle where intensive agricultural production, a high degree of temporary employment prevails. • Quantitative analyses based on official stastistics face challenges in terms of under-representing the real number of migrants in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the delay in implementation and inadequacy of specific policy actions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in nursing homes. The analysis focuses on Lombardy and Madrid, the two wealthiest regions in Italy and Spain. These were the most severely affected by the onset of the pandemic, both country-wise and at the European level. We compare the chronology of policy decisions that affected nursing homes against the broader policy responses related to the health crisis. We look at structural factors that reveal policy legacy effects. Our analysis shows that key emergency interventions arrived late, especially when compared to similar actions taken by the national health services. Weak institutional embedding of nursing homes within the welfare state in terms of ownership, allocation of resources, regulation and coordination hindered a swift response to the onset of the crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the potential implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the infrastructure of social services in Italy and Spain. Drawing from the policy capacity framework and focusing on childcare and elderly care, we investigate how the National Recovery and Resilience Plans are likely to impact the core functions of the social investment approach. Through document analysis, the article shows that, whereas the infrastructure of the social service system remains characterised by a 'marble cake' type of institutional arrangement combining national and subnational responsibilities, attempts have been made by the central governments to steer the social investment policy capacity at the organisational and systemic levels. We argue that the pandemic represents a window of opportunity to rethink the overall system of intergovernmental relations in the field of social services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this article was to examine how Germany, Italy and Spain practice digital public diplomacy in Eastern Partnership and Central Asia countries in 2022, i.e., how they promote their countries through their embassies? Facebook profiles. Three research questions posed by the authors were: 1) Which social networks and applications have embassies of Germany, Italy, and Spain used in the countries of Eastern Partnership and Central Asia to inform and communicate with different audiences?; 2) Which soft power tools were dominantly communicated by the German, Italian, and Spanish embassies on Facebook profiles in countries of Eastern Partnership and Central Asia during 2022 to promote their own countries?; and 3) Are digital diplomacy tools of Germany, Italy, and Spain, that they utilize to promote their own countries and communicate with the public of Eastern Partnership and Central Asia, following their foreign policy focus? The authors have used quantitative content and thematic analysis to answer these questions. The results were presented with the use of descriptive statistics. The authors? findings indicated that digital diplomacy 2.0 is standard practice for Germany and Italy in Eastern Partnership and Central Asia. Less information was available regarding Spain's digital diplomacy efforts. The research's findings further demonstrated that Germany and Italy exhibit greater interest in the Eastern Partnership and Central Asian countries compared to Spain, which was concordant with their foreign policy focuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When, where, and how do asylum seekers encounter the state? Anyone seeking asylum in the Global North might meet state authorities of the country where they want to apply for international protection long before arriving at its borders. However, if the state often becomes "very present" by transcending its geopolitical margins in border control, once asylum seekers have managed to cross into national territory, the state frequently vanishes. Insufficient information, opaque proceedings, difficulties in reaching state agencies, which dramatically increased with the COVID pandemic, often translate into a denial of asylum seekers' rights and their exclusion from welfare programs. Moreover, following a widespread tendency to outsource public services, access to asylum and related welfare programmes are being increasingly mediated by a range of nonstate actors (such as NGOs, activist groups, companies, and individuals) acting as state agents. Drawing on the analysis of ethnographic results from Spain and Italy, this article proposes the concept of "ghost bureaucracy" to theorise the street-level bureaucrats from their absence and explore asylum seekers' encounters with a seemingly powerful and omnipresent but unreachable state through closed offices, digital bureaucracy and third-party actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greece, Italy, and Spain are the Southern European borders and the main entrances for migrants and refugees to Europe, a movement that was particularly visible after the 2015 "refugee crisis of the Mediterranean." In this context, immigration is used as a political tool, and the object of major media coverage. However, previous studies have shown that this coverage tends to be partial and prejudiced. This study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, uses the frame building theory to study the perceptions of journalists covering migration issues regarding ways to improve the representation of migrants in the media of these three countries. For that, in-depth interviews were conducted with 94 Greek, Italian, and Spanish journalists. The precarity of the profession, the focus on conflictive approaches, and discrimination based on national origin or religion are mentioned as the biggest challenges. Professionals covering this information demand more individualized and deeper coverage, giving the migrants' condition greater visibility, and giving voice to the migrants themselves, as they are the protagonists of the stories. Greater attention to journalistic ethics and the defense of vulnerable groups is considered essential to achieve this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on insights from scholarship on contentious action frames, this article examines the framing of demands for social justice for migrant farmworkers in Spain, Italy and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus particularly on how activists in each country aligned their action frames with prevalent public discourses on the essential contribution migrants make to agricultural production, the need to guarantee "health for all," and "increased vulnerability" of migrants' lives during the global health crisis. Using these diagnostic frames, activists in the three countries called for secure legal status for all migrants. Drawing on the literature on contentious action frames, we then analyze if action frames advanced by activists during the COVID-19 pandemic "resonated" with the understanding of these issues by policymakers. We challenge an approach to understanding resonance in binary terms as either present or absent. Instead, we introduce the notion of "ambivalent resonance" to draw attention to the fact that some frames are accepted only partially or only by some policymakers but not the others, as was the case in the three countries under study. We then situate this ambivalent resonance in the context of immigration priorities and recent trends in immigration policy development in these three countries and suggest that activists can build on ambivalences to advance migrant rights to status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Live-in care, provided by mainly female migrants, has developed as a do-it-yourself welfare mechanism—hardly regulated, with undefined working times, singular labour relations and widely untraceable cash flows. Migrant carers are isolated, working in a 'grey' area, torn between the family in which they are working and the individual person in need of care, and very often they are also dependent on brokering agencies. The aim of this contribution is therefore to describe and analyse how the pandemic has made hidden inequalities more visible in connection with the specificities of live-in migrant care in Austria, Italy and Spain. Findings are based on a brief scoping review, including national media coverage. Results are described in terms of national caveats and strategies to respond to challenges triggered by the pandemic. Mitigating short-term strategies were implemented under pressure and at short notice, mainly influenced by the national framework conditions of live-in migrants in the respective countries. In spite of upcoming political debates regarding the regularisation of live-in care, including issues of wages and working conditions, the visibility of migrant live-in care remains tightly connected to the further development of care regimes and the acknowledgement of unpaid work as a precondition for gender equality and equal opportunities in a European and subsequently in a global dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how some aspects of the cultural politics of childhood in Italy and Spain limit, allow or encourage the fuller realisation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, using the complementary voices of 49 participants, including policymakers, leaders of third sector organisations and families in vulnerable situations. Our research contributes to the advancement of the field by contextualising some of the facilitating and challenging factors regarding the enforcement of children's rights, divided into three different levels of analysis: structural factors, political factors and cultural factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most scholars analyze European Union politicization as a process that shapes public opinion, little attention has been paid to political strategies. In this article, I focus on politicization as an outcome of political work, the practice of carving out a space for agency in an environment that is constrained by institutional rules and intergovernmental power structures. Through an ethnographic analysis of the Juncker Commission's implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact in Italy, Spain, and Portugal in 2015–2017, I make three arguments. First, the Commission succeeded in redefining the rules of the Pact, without however challenging them. Second, this political work was enabled by conservative and social-democrat actors who neutralized each other. Third, political work contributed to a politicization of the Pact. The ethnographic narrative reveals two practices of politicization at play: (1) the purposeful exercise of political discretion vis-à-vis institutional rules; (2) the embrace of ideological and partisan conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks whether the novel EU approach to member states' economic adjustment strategies constitutes a 'social investment turn' by the Italian and Spanish welfare states. The analytical framework combines insights from different strands of the literature on policy change, in particular those devoted to policy legacies and to policy-making 'conditionings' (constraints and facilitators). The study assesses the extent of social investment, as advocated by EU country-specific recommendations, of the set of measures introduced to fight the socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and of programmatic documents issued by the Italian and Spanish executives, such as the State Budget Laws for 2021 and National Recovery and Resilience Plans. In order to evaluate the impact of new conditionality on policy outputs, the article then turns to consider the economic, social and policy legacies of the previous economic crisis and what would have been the prospects for a social investment turn in the absence of Next Generation EU funding. Conclusions show that, at least at the level of intentions, 'carrots' seem to be working better than 'sticks' on the quest for more intense social investment in Italy and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses actual social dialogue experiences in Italy, Portugal and Spain in order to examine the social partners' participation in COVID‐19 crisis management. It considers the economic and political variables that have helped revitalize tripartism in all three countries relative to the previous economic crisis. The lack of austerity policies and responsibility‐sharing on the part of the social partners and governments paved the way for various agreements that, though differing in content and scope, attest to stronger peak‐level tripartite dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines COVID-19 and residential care for older people during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, comparing a range of countries – Denmark, England, Germany, Italy and Spain – to identify the policy approaches taken to the virus in care homes and set these in institutional and policy context. Pandemic policies towards care homes are compared in terms of lockdown, testing and the supply of personal protective equipment. The comparative analysis shows a clear cross-national clustering: Denmark and Germany group together by virtue of the proactive approach adopted, whereas England, Italy and Spain had major weaknesses resulting in delayed and generally inadequate responses. The article goes on to show that these outcomes and country clustering are embedded in particular long-term care (LTC) policy systems. The factors that we highlight as especially important in differentiating the countries are the resourcing of the sector, the regulation of LTC and care homes, and the degree of vertical (and to a lesser extent horizontal) coordination in the sector and between it and the health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigaciones Geograficas is the property of Universidad de Alicante, Instituto Universitario de Geografia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After nearly six decades, on May 2, 2018, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) announced its dissolution. This announcement brought an end to the last ripples of the wave of political violence in Europe that began in the sixties, which coincided with a cycle of protests during the sixties and seventies. In response to serious political conflict and its drift toward armed violence, some liberal-democratic states established an antiterrorism framework involving legislative and practical transformations at every level of the criminal justice system. From a critical criminology perspective, the concept of a 'culture of emergency' was developed in the field of il garantismo in order to analyze the phenomenon. The present article explores the construction of this exceptionalism in two cases: that of Italy ('revolutionary wave') and of Spain (ETA). While attempting to identify a common pattern of emergency, this study also identifies the specificities of each conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]