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In recent years, a large number of educational systems, following the recommendations of international organisations, have introduced a competence-based emphasis into their traditionally subject-based curriculum. This move, beyond what any document can deal with, does not seem to find its way into everyday school practice easily or with instant results. This paper explores encounters and clashes between policy and practice regarding a competence-based curriculum framework. We refer firstly to the notions about information processing and digital competence held by international organisations and the Spanish and Catalan Ministry of Education, and the implications of said notions for teaching. Then, from evidence collected through class observations, interviews with students and teachers, and documents analysis in a case study, we draw on four teaching and learning scenarios where ICT is regularly used. Promoting students' digital competence is one of the key competences prescribed in the curriculum; however, our study showed that the backgrounds and educational views of teachers, as well as the teaching culture and organisation of schools, should be deeply challenged to foster this competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education policy in Spain, a curricular discipline in the Education Faculties since 1974, has been a foreign body -because of its inevitable connection with political sciences- both in the former Degree in Education and in the current one, a result of the curriculum adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The Degree in Education aims to train teachers, not education-oriented political scientists, but, unlike other similar disciplines -education sociology or education economy- which have managed to find their place in the curriculum as supplementary knowledge, education policy runs the risk of being distorted if we do not root it in the political sciences it stems from. The reflections presented in this paper therefore focus on the three major problems the discipline does not get to resolve: its conceptual indeterminacy, the right nature of this body of knowledge and the lack of canonical boundaries of its knowledge fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research is to analyse some indicators which allow us to understand the current state of social education politics in Europe, with special reference to Spain. Some European and Spanish social and educational policies which try to confront the challenges of the current financial crisis are also explained. Some deficiencies, failures and contradictions attached to the process of the construction of European citizenship are pointed out. Some key topics which seem to foresee a deeper social and democratic crisis apart from the economic one are tackled. It is explained how the new forms of inequality evidence the failure of some of the important declarations of intent and objectives of the European Union. The subjection of social and democratic aspects to neoliberal economy --i.e. the negation of ideologies-- is questioned. To conclude, some key topics are proposed as the central axis through which it could be possible to redefine the content of social education politics in Europe and Spain and to set the bases of a new democratic European citizenship [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]