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The use of religious signs in schools, as in other areas of the public sphere, is a current topic, given that legislative changes are constantly taking place. In countries as close as Germany, France, England and Spain, the legislation governing the wearing of the Islamic veil differs considerably due to their different historical, cultural, social, economic and idiosyncratic contexts. Leaving aside the ethnocentric perspective, in this paper a comparative study of the situation was carried out in these four countries. The main results include a negative attitude towards the wearing of the Islamic veil in France as opposed to a more tolerant position in England and Spain. In the case of Germany, there is a greater diversity of positions due to the characteristic autonomy of each federal state. Given the different types of veils, the reasons for wearing them, the traditions of each society and regional idiosyncrasies, it is considered that, a priori, there should not be a fight against its use, although it is recommended to adopt a belligerent stance against its imposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Videotape is an increasingly used tool in cross-national studies of mathematics teaching. However, the means by which videotaped lessons are coded and analysed remains an underdeveloped area with scholars adopting substantially different approaches to the task. In this paper we present an approach based on generic descriptors of mathematics learning objectives. Exploiting live observations in five European countries, the descriptors were developed in a bottom-up recursive manner for application to videotaped lessons from four of these countries, Belgium (Flanders), England, Hungary and Spain. The analyses showed not only that the descriptors were consistently operationalised but also that they facilitated the identification of both similarities and differences in the ways in which teachers conceptualise and present mathematics that resonated with the available literature. In so doing we make both methodological and theoretical contributions to comparative mathematics research in general and debates concerning the national mathematics teaching script in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is ultimately to contribute new insights from current explorations of Englishness in Spain. More specifically, a selected narrative written by Jacinto Salas y Quiroga in 1846 is carefully analysed from a cross-cultural standpoint, taking into account the ideological and discursive bases on which nations are built. The article focuses on how A-S England is constructed in Salas' book, as opposed to the image portrayed in other narratives of a similar nature, published in Spain during the nineteenth century. After the analysis of Salas' textual, rhetorical and linguistic strategies, results show that in this original contribution, the expected Anglo-Saxons' territorial and ethnic identity occupies only a background position, whereas the dynamic interaction of two conceptual types or characters, the powerful vs. the weak, is driven to the forefront. Through the use of heterodox schemes Salas deviates from the Spanish common cultural and historiographic practice, and completes a powerful and novel image of Anglo-Saxons, which performs a well-defined function in mid-nineteenth century Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]