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El arte desarrolla las soft skills. No obstante, el manejo de estas últimas y el trabajo de las artes quedan relegadas a un segundo plano en la educación. De ahí, la necesidad de observar el vínculo de las soft skills en función del bajo y alto interés por las artes visuales en una muestra de 589 futuros docentes. Los resultados mostraron que el interés por las artes visuales fue más alto en la mayoría de dimensiones de las soft skills. Asimismo, estos factores predicen el alto interés por las artes visuales. Se debe ampliar el conocimiento científico en este campo. Art develops soft skills. However, the management of the latter and the work of the arts are relegated to the background in education. Hence, the need to observe the link between soft skills based on the low and high interest in visual arts in a sample of 589 future teachers. The results showed that interest in the visual arts was higher in most dimensions of soft skills. Likewise, these factors predict high interest in visual arts. Scientific knowledge in this field should be expanded.

The objective of this study is to develop intercultural and critical citizenship competences by using a literary excerpt among a group of EFL university students in Spain. For this purpose, the focus group method was adopted, and a qualitative study was designed. The core aim was to implicitly work on aspects such as otherness, the rejection of racism and the use of revenge as a response to a perceived unethical action. The findings demonstrate that the approach dealt effectively with all these concepts. The literary excerpt triggered discussions against racism and religious intolerance. Revenge was rejected as a constructive solution to discrimination and the cohort expressed their connection to ‘others’ through a common humanity, which is linked to human rights principles. These values are closely aligned to the theoretical reference points known as Intercultural Citizenship Education (ICE), Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and cosmopolitan citizenship.

The question of developing educational policies that involve training people to be capable of critical reflection and skilled in approaching the discussion-debate binomial, with the overall goal of achieving learning which is of a transformative kind, is currently embraced by the transdisciplinary paradigm known as Global Citizenship Education. This qualitative study investigates the impact of protest or topical songs released in response to the Iraq War on a cohort of university students and explores whether these songs could be useful in Global Citizenship Education. The results of the study emphasize the value of these types of songs as triggers for transformative learning, because, independently of respective national educational policies or the possible influence of the mass and digital media, these songs were shown to tap into an underlying set of universal values, rights and attitudes among citizens that drive the need for Global Citizenship Education design and evaluation.

Perfectionistic Automatic Thoughts (PAT) negatively affects people who present it. Hence the importance of their study to determine possible ways of reduction. The current study tried to identify PAT profiles and specify the statistically significant differences in the Spontaneous Use of Mental Imaging in 647 undergraduates. For this the Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory and the Spontaneous Use of Imagery Scale were used. The cluster analyses showed three groups of PATs, low (LPAT), moderate (MPAT) and high (HPAT). An analysis of variance revealed moderate size differences in the visual-spatial capacity as well as in the total of the Spontaneous Use of Mental Images for MPAT and LPAT. Implications for the training of future teachers related to the use of mental imagery that can reduce maladaptive PAT are discussed.

La educación musical en la enseñanza obligatoria en España —infantil, primaria y secundaria—, es una de las materias de más reciente incorporación al currículo escolar y donde la praxis tiene su razón de ser. El problema es entender qué significa este procedimiento, la praxis, y saber su dificultad para su aplicación. Para ello hay que conocer la problemática inserta en responder qué es la música; qué es la educación musical y la importancia de relacionar educación musical y comparatismo como forma de realizar investigaciones valiosas para esta materia. Music education is one of the most recent subjects to be included in the respective school curricula of Spain’s compulsory education system —infant, primary and secondary— and it is where praxis finds its raison d’être. The problem lies in understanding what is involved in this procedure —praxis— as well as knowing the difficulties arising from its application. To this end, it is necessary to answer complex questions related to defining music and music education, as well as understanding the importance of relating music education to comparative education as a means by which to conduct valuable research in this subject.