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The study of the spatial distribution of population within rural municipalities faces important difficulties, due to the small volumes of population that many of them present, leaving, at practical purposes, the Padron Municipal de Habitantes as the only statistical source to carry out this type of research. Taking into account the territorial aspect, these difficulties are evident when using census tracts, because when the population number is low, the entire municipal area is embedded in a single one, thus making impossible to know how it is distributed inside the municipality. However, the employment of the Nomenclator de Entidades y Núcleos de Población allows us to avoid this, so it is more convenient. Moreover, since the Nomenclator contains the same number of variables as the Padron, it is also possible not only to inquire about how the population is distributed within the municipalities, but also to divide it into groups using some relevant variable, and describe their intra-municipal spatial distribution. These tasks cannot be carried out using census tracts when only one is delimitated inside the municipality. Moreover, under some circunstances, the interpretation of reality is distorted by the layout of their boundaries. Based on examples of rural municipalities in the province of Malaga, in this paper we show some of the main advantages that the Nomenclator has over the census tract. To fullfill this objective, we have used both the total population volume, and its distribution among those born in Spain and born abroad, referred to 2018, and the census tracts and Nomenclator cartography, also referred to 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text analyses the relation in the Spanish context between the problematization of the migratory phenomenon, the new logics of functioning of racism and the conceptual proposals on 'islamophobia' that have been established during the last years. To do that, the paper presents some results of different ethnographic researches where I have being working for during the last years in the educational context of Andalusia. Based on biographic interviews with students, families and teachers, the paper illustrates the main representations about the Muslim immigrant students as well as the correspondences and divergences among these images of otherness and those teenagers' identification processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex and relationships education is, and has been, the great absent in Spanish both school curriculum and the sociological research on it. Some relevant theoretical and methodological developments have been needed for the construction of the research topic, in order to produce sociological knowledge within this field. This paper continues with this methodological task. It describes the process of design of an evaluation questionnaire to portray the initial state of the issue. In turn, it enables the research on sex and love relationships. In so doing, the paper offers a useful well-founded tool to produce sociological knowledge on this research topic, emerging in Spain. In this process of design, the paper sets a dialogue between a double process of categorisation: on the one hand, the themes involved in the revised literature on the topic; on the other hand, the themes offered by the adolescent voices of the subjects participants in the research. Along the paper, some key debates in contemporary social theory are addressed, such as the appeal to action research, education for democratic citizenship and human rights, the visibilisation of minors' agency and voices, the use of participatory and critical evaluation, and the reflection on power as inherent to social relations.

The analysis of inequality in cities has a wide tradition, from the analysis of urban areas through factorial ecology of the Chicago School to contemporary studies on 'urban vulnerability'. From an operative point of view, its main objective has been to elaborate a synthetic index that allows to place to the urban areas in a continuum with respect to the resources that own its residents and/or the risks that they face. This paper presents a proposal to measure the socioeconomic level of urban areas and its validation. First, some basic aspect in the analysis of urban inequalities are reviewed. Then, the proposal is presented and validated, and finally, some few conclusions about the proposal and its limitations are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex and relationships education is, and has been, the great absent in Spanish both school curriculum and the sociological research on it. Some relevant theoretical and methodological developments have been needed for the construction of the research topic, in order to produce sociological knowledge within this field. This paper continues with this methodological task. It describes the process of design of an evaluation questionnaire to portray the initial state of the issue. In tum, it enables the research on sex and love relationships. In so doing, the paper offers a useful well-founded tool to produce sociological knowledge on this research topic, emerging in Spain. In this process of design, the paper sets a dialogue between a double process of categorisation: on the one hand, the themes involved in the revised literature on the topic; on the other hand, the themes offered by the adolescent voices of the subjects participants in the research. Along the paper, some key debates in contemporary social theory are addressed, such as the appeal to action research, education for democratic citizenship and human rights, the visibilisation of minors' agency and voices, the use of participatory and critical evaluation, and the reflection on power as inherent to social relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two are the main aims of the paper: to highlight the contributions of sequential mixed method designs in the study of migrations, more specifically in the study of migratory trajectories of skilled Romanian professionals in Barcelona and explain the trajectories of a profile of immigrants that in the Spanish context must be understood from a double exceptionality. Based on a design that includes an online survey to 217 Romanians (belonging to a professional network abroad), 30 biographical interviews and 30 life charts satisfaction of Romanian professionals living in Barcelona, the article tackles the way mixed methods are shaped in the case of skilled profiles of migrants and the particularities of a profile that counts with a low social and academic visibility. As for the methodological contributions, the article reveals the usefulness of online survey (and cluster analysis) as a tool to determine the selection of the profiles studied in the second phase of the study (qualitative). The second methodological contribution links with the way life satisfaction charts may be combined with the analysis of biographical interviews. Finally, the main empirical contribution highlights the heterogeneous nature of the profile of skilled migrants, who develops strategies and different paths depending on the set of resources that mobilize before and especially after migrating. While those who migrate through the transfer of a multinational company count on a safety net that is the company itself, for those who correspond to the profile of international students, the institution is perceived as a launching platform that leads to the incorporation into the skilled labour market, even in times of economic crisis. Finally, when the meso level resources do not exist, the micro-level resources (social networks) are the one that explain successful careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oftentimes sociology has focused on the relationship between social origin and cultural habits. In this paper we study the social characteristics that have most influence on patterns of cultural consumption. Sociology has often addressed the study of social class and social status by explaining differences in habits and cultural practices (social uses). In this paper, we try to identify what social characteristics are most influential in the segmentation of cultural habits. To do this, we test a set of theories that examines the role of social stratification in the consumption of cultural goods and services, and, thereby, check its explanatory power in Spain. We use the framework that gives us the most important set of theories on social stratification in cultural consumption, namely the homology argument, the individualisation argument and the Omnivore-Univore argument. Simultaneously, we deal with the methodological difficulties posed by the different statistical techniques used in recent sociological tradition over social stratification of cultural consumption. Our results prove that cultural consumption reflects social stratification in contemporary Spanish society. We found evidence of how practices which are considered as «high culture» are associated with better positioned strata. Nevertheless, we find important evidence, although not decisive, that the homology argument loses explanatory power in favour of the omnivore-univore argument. These findings complement what other omnivourness research works have discovered in recent years. Finally, we have found several univore consumption patterns for Spain instead of just one univore cultural consumption pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper makes a review of the decisions that the Spanish Constitutional Court has taken in its judgement 31/2010 regarding the rules about the judiciary in the Catalonia Act of 2006. After a short reference to the situation before this judgement, the paper analyzes the different points of it, from the language problems to the proposed Justice Council of Catalonia, looking also at the questions about the public prosecutor, the Superior Court, etc. The conclusion is that the judgement is a complete revision of the rules of the Catalonia Act in these matters, a revision that, through the interpretation of some norms, and the annulment of others, proceeds to defuse the value of that rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sometimes, research in social sciences becomes part of the transformative practices of the researchers themselves. In this way, these researchers try to promote social change. This paper is about one of those studies. During the realization of my PhD research, on sexual-affective education in two schools in the city of Granada (Spain) from the sociological view, both the research and the educational action work that seeks social change converged to the point that, once we had taken account of the demand of the reality being researched, educational action research became the most appropriate methodology in order to research acting on education for social change towards sexual and gender equality. In this paper, I will talk about all this process, which is methodological, systematic, and respectful of the scientific value of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has as its goal the measure of the accuracy of the pre-election surveys published in the Spanish media for the 2014 european Parliament, the regionals in the first half of 2015 and the locals in seven of the biggest Spanish cities. Starting with 120 analysed surveys, the aggregated distance model consists of the differences between predictions and actual results by every party and it develops an error coefficient that allows the measure and comparison of those predictions. Results are presented by election, communication group where predictions were published, research company producing them, political party and time distance to election day. Also it is analysed the existing relation between these and some other variables, such as sample size, and the error coefficient as dependent variable with the objective of knowing which are the most decisive factors affecting polls accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses 2005 and 2012 "Survey on homeless person conducted by the National Statistics Institute (INE) "to empirically investigate the relevance of social exclusion in Spain among this population, researching the childhood and the loos of housing. Gaining a better understanding on will be a particular relevance to contribute in social policy evaluation. The results point out an increasing of the risks of homelessness in Spain and the most important changes experienced between 2005 and 2012. Three ideal types of itinerates has been found: new poverty, social exclusion and integrated poverty. Finally, we have analysed how each one of these groups presents a specific morphology of vulnerability among demographic composition, structural, relationship and institutional factors. During this period, the new poverty as increasingly important mechanism and the impact of the structural problems in different itinerates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to pay attention to the ways in which immigrant settlement societies deal with those who are considered as «other»; in this case, immigrant women. Specifically, our focus is on employment and social inclusion strategies targeted to facilitate these women's social and work inclusion. Our exploratory field work has been carried out in two social resources which are aimed at work inclusion for immigrant women, both of them located in the Barcelona's Raval district. The techniques used were participant observation and interview. Departing from the description of some examples of interactions established within such entities, we identify how immigrant women are required to do adjustments and / or changes in their behaviour in order to make a proper use of such resources and promote their social and employment insertion. These requirements are critically interpreted in the light of Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and symbolic violence or symbolic domination, reviewed by some critics. These concepts allow us to reflect on the different interactions that occur in these devices. Furthermore, they shed light on the complexity of immigrant women's integration processes into society. The results of empirical research show that immigrant women are orientated to care and domestic work. Other examples confirm a kind of devaluation of the native language of immigrant women and of the visible manifestations of their religion. Even if it is possible to find other forms of interaction in social services; we argue the importance of recognizing these hierarchized forms of interaction in order to facilitate a critical perspective on disciplines involved in social intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the analysis of the uses of the Internet by activists of the 15-M movement. We pay attention to two processes: the use of the Internet i) as a vehicle of communication with their potential audiences and ii) as a technology that allows to circulate an alternative framework. Therefore we analyzed also the role played by the newspapers during the regional and municipal elections of 2011 when the movement burst onto the Spanish public life. Facing the frameworks developed by the newspapers during this period, the activists reacted with a strategy to control the flow of information about what was happening in the streets of many cities in Spain. This strategy of communicative action revolves around the general framework of the 15-M and, thanks largely to the Internet, is focused on the need to develop forms of direct participation and the disintermediation of the relationships between activists and other citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish 15M movement (also known as the Indignados) was very critical of political parties and the current system of political representation. However, the protest cycle has evolved into a growing and complex process of institutionalization in which activist have been participating in the creation and development of a number of new parties (Partido X, Ganemos and Podemos). This paper analyzes the role played by new technologies in this process. The basic hypothesis is that the extensive use of digital tools, which encourage participation and deliberation in the creation and development of these new parties, in some ways reproduces essential values and practices of the movement, thus facilitating the identification between the 15M activists and the parties. In this way, the transition between movement and party has been conditioned by, among other things, a component of technological mediation, generating an environment of horizontal deliberation, participation distributed and decentralized structure. The use of these tools has been accompanied by the development of a certain technophile frame that stresses the potential of new technologies for social and political change. Thus, the classical notions of representation or participation are redrawn allowing a smooth evolution from the squares to the Parliaments. This article examines the construction of technophiles frameworks, which influenced by the presence of free software and open source, help us to understand the organization of the new movement-parties and the transition between the different forms of collective action. Likewise, some of these digital tools are mentioned and outlined and the role that they have played in order to forge new organization models for these movement-parties are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an ethnographic study about the school discourse around the school concentration of immigrant students. It deconstruct the discourses about the factors and impact of this phenomenon. This work taken a microsociological level analysis, the ethnographic context is a district of the province of Granada. This analysis allows to discover covert practices that favor the concentration and the discourses that justify this reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show some empirical evidence on the factors driving social and political participation in the Internet in Spain. Using the wellknown resources approach in the literature on social and political participation, our general assumption is that the different types of resources that citizens have (individual resources, group resources...) structure their opportunities to participate social and politically in the Internet. Specifically, we explore the determinants of social and political online involvement through the issuance of opinions, participation in consultations or/and voting on political and civic affairs. The results suggest that the highest participation is among youngsters and surprisingly among unemployed people. It also shows that the gender gap not only arises in offline environment but also online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an approach to the study of skateboarding in the city of Madrid through a multi-sited ethnographic study which combines online and offline research. Based on this methodology, we show an analysis of some of the main characteristics of the skate culture in our society, particularly in the city of Madrid, putting the emphasis on the most intersubjective and cultural aspects of this reality. In recent years skateboarding has experienced a visible increase in Madrid and the analytic frame that we propose for studying its diffusion and escalation, answers to changes in the cultural order of western societies and the skate culture in itself, in dynamic interdependence with the economic sphere, as the order of production and distribution of cultural and sporting services and goods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sedentarism has become one of the major concerns of our times. Most people spend a large part of their daytime sitting down, most movement taking place by mechanical means, rather than by walking. Younger generations do little more sport today than their counterparts did a decade ago. In other words, sedentary habits have become common in our society, especially among the young. To understand this phenomenon we should ask what is sedentarism for young people. Are they aware that their lives are sedentary?What cultural mechanisms have contributed to this? What are the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle for our health and well-being? These are the questions we have asked in this study. We have been working on this topic for some time; in this paper we present the results from a qualitative study among the Spanish young adults. These results provide important clues to better understand how sedentarism has become normalized among the new generations of citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current economic crisis that Spain has been suffering throughout the last years has had a significant impact on the ways citizens are relating to consumption. In this context, one of the key issues is the new space open for a growing environmental consciousness, due to several reasons such as the impossibility to sustain the consumption model inherited from the boom years, the growing popularity of new patterns of sutainable consumption and the awareness that public opinion shows when asked about topics such as climate change. In this paper, our goal is to explore social perceptions on green consumption from a qualitative perspective. To do so, an analysis of social discourses recorded from focus groups will be undertaken, in the context of a wider reesearch about consumption and crisis. Results seem to highlight the challlenges green consumption faces in Spain, once it fails to engage with the average Spanish consumer. The reasons for such failure will be described in detail in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main effects of the current crisis is re-emerging phenomenon of Spanish emigration, especially since year 2011. This paper examines the growth of emigration from 2008 to 2012, using disaggregated data by origin, age, sex as well as geography detail at provincial level from the Residential Variation Statistics. The analyses distinguish between native-born and foreign-born with and without the Spanish nationality, and highlight recent trends as a result of the prolonged economic recession and its impact on international migration. Although the use of this dataset which contains time series data enable us to provide a relevant picture of the main demographic profiles of current emigration, the data too have uncertainties embedded within, not least because many of the new emigrants have not registered yet at the destination country. However, the data examination allows us to identify different patterns, including the main recipient countries as well as the provincial geography of emigration, and the main demographic profiles of emigrants. The results shed some light of what could be considered as Neo-Hispanic migration given the apparent diversity of outflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an ethnographic study about the school discourse around the school concentration of immigrant students. It deconstruct the discourses about the factors and impact of this phenomenon. This work taken a microsociological level analysis, the ethnographic context is a district of the province of Granada. This analysis allows to discover covert practices that favor the concentration and the discourses that justify this reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show some empirical evidence on the factors driving social and political participation in the Internet in Spain. Using the wellknown resources approach in the literature on social and political participation, our general assumption is that the different types of resources that citizens have (individual resources, group resources...) structure their opportunities to participate social and politically in the Internet. Specifically, we explore the determinants of social and political online involvement through the issuance of opinions, participation in consultations or/and voting on political and civic affairs. The results suggest that the highest participation is among youngsters and surprisingly among unemployed people. It also shows that the gender gap not only arises in offline environment but also online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyse participatory methodologies applied to the planning and management of landscape and compares this analysis with the experience developed for the participatory planning of mount San Cristóbal-Ezkaba in the metropolitan area of Pamplona-Iruñea (Navarre). We reflect on its capabilities and advantages paying special attention to the strategies for gathering the social senses and landscape perceptions in different social groups and to incorporate them into the participatory process. Our research explores the effectiveness of different methodological designs and techniques to achieve this goal. The peculiarities of our case study allows us to examine the participatory processes and its potential to encourage citizen engagement with the conservation, planning and management of everyday environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The «New Ecological Paradigm (NEP)» Scale has been widely used as an analysis tool of the environmental beliefs, known as the assessment and opinions facing environmental problems. Nevertheless, its indiscriminate use for measuring any kind of parameters on environmental concern beyond said beliefs has been detrimental to its strength. Furthermore, there is a consensus that, in itself, the NEP has some relevant inconsistencies and limitations. This paper introduces a methodological proposal to improve the utility and applicability of the NEP Scale by constructing specific indicators of environmental beliefs from their items, which may be incorporated as part of general environmental awareness measurement systems, and also helping to offer an in-depth approach of the understanding and the strengthening of this concept. The determination of these indicators originates in the factor analysis and subsequent arithmetic averages calculation of the scalar assessment given to each group of item references. The research takes place at the Universidad de Córdoba (Spain) during the year 2008-2009, within a sample of 1082 students (averaging 21.6 years old, 42.8% male and 57.2% female). The results gave place to the definition of three indicators regarding to adhesion to environmental beliefs: 'ecocentrism', 'anthropocentrism' and 'consciousness of the limits of the biosphere resources', which were part of a multidimensional system of environmental awareness indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering different decisions of the Spanish Constitucional Court on relevancy of amendtments to the Bill they aim at and on multisectorial laws, this paper, on the grounds of the constitutional rule of certainty of the law and with a view to the consistency of the legal system, defends the applicability of the principle of relevancy (from now on required to amendmentds) also to the contents of bills and laws, in avoidance of «logrolling» or inclusion of alien rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of emotional and affective regulation goes beyond family and romantic relationships and influences our aggressive behavior. In the research on interpersonal violence, one of the most complex variables to analyze is adult attachment. The international research has linked attachment styles with functional or dysfunctional anger expression, domestic and intimate partner violence, and criminal behavior. The aim of this paper is to review the existing research on adult attachment styles and their relationship with intimate partner violence. The value of the variable in the typological classification of offenders, the implications for therapeutic interventions and the limitations in its assessment are discussed. Since it is a variable whose study in Spain still must be developed some future research lines are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contains the speech of Álvaro Rodríguez Bereijo, Ex-president of the Spanish Constitutional Court, pronounced in the presentation of the Fernando Abril Martorell Award 2011, and it focuses on reminding the spirit of concord in the elaboration process of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and on encouraging to face the reform of this Constitution with the same spirit of concord and looking for the same consensus as in 1978. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the reform of the article 135 of the Spanish Constitution, to give constitutional status to the balanced budget principle and the public debt limits, this paper offers a comparative study with the equivalent rule of the German Constitution, as amended in 2009. The study explains the main characteristics of the distribution of taxing and spending power between the Federation and the States in the Bonn Basic Law and the reforms introduced in the previous revision of 2006. The article also outlines other issues discussed during the reform process, like the tendency to a centralized Tax Administration and the growing but still very limited State Tax Powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the introduction of the "European restriction" to public deficit, resulting from the Treaty of Maastricht and the Stability and Growth Pact, the Autonomous Communities have been subject to formal fiscal rules with regard to the deficit and the debt, as well as the management of their budgets. However, this regulation did not prevent some Autonomous Communities failed to comply with the budgetary stability objectives, probably because it lacked an effective system of sanctions. This paper examines the scope of the constitutional amendment of article 135, and focuses particularly on the margin of maneuver that new article 135 gives the State to impose the regional governments meet the deficit and debt limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the introduction of the "European restriction" to public deficit, resulting from the Treaty of Maastricht and the Stability and Growth Pact, the Autonomous Communities have been subject to formal fiscal rules with regard to the deficit and debt, as well as management of their budgets. However, this regulation, did not prevent some Autonomous Communities failed to comply with the budgetary stability objectives, probably because it lacked an effective system of sanctions. This paper examines the scope of the constitutional amendment of article 135, and focuses particularly on the margin of maneuver that the new article 135 gives the State to impose regional governments meet the deficit and debt limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the Consultative Council Inform of 15th December 2010 about the inobservance of the EU Law caused by a Comunidad Autonoma and its effects. The Consultative Council examines all the possible mechanisms that could be used by the State to prevent and to act in case of a violation of EU Law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present paper was to analyze whether a difference exists in the progress of mental and motor development and the quality of attachment in a sample of preterm infants when receiving the Vojta's physiotherapy technique vs. other therapy techniques. The ages for assessing the mental and motor development were first trimester, 6, 12 and 18 months and for assessing the quality of attachment were 15 months. Their families were attended at different Centres for Infant Development and Early Intervention (CDIAT) from the Region of Murcia since the early months of infants' life. The results revealed that the mental and motor development of infants receiving the Vojta therapy was significantly better, but there was no difference between the two samples in the attachment security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Constitutional Court case on the Preamble of the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (STC 31/2010). For the Spanish Court, the Statute cannot be regarded as an original Constitution derived from a constituent power. On the contrary, the Statute is a law derived from the Spanish Constitution. From this point of view, we analyze the following issues: a) first, the possibility of a constitutional control of the preambles of the laws; b) secondly, the question about the meaning and scope of the effectiveness of the preamble regarding the terms of nation and national reality of Catalonia; c) thirdly, the reasoning of the Courts on historical law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of the Councils of Justice in the «second generation» Statutes of Autonomy responds to one of the most important demands that the Autonomous Communities are doing on matter of justice as a means to bring it to the decentralized structure of the State at its highest stage of evolution, because of the the inability of the system for constitutional reform and the absence of a response in the successive reforms of the organic law. The model embodied in the Catalonian and Andalusian Statutes was characterized by creating, with reference to the organic law, a state organ subordinate to the General Council of the Judiciary, as a decentralized body, also fulfilling articulation functions of the competencies of the Autonomous Community on «administration of the Administration of justice». This model has been very controversial in the literature as regards its compliance with the constitutional framework and, finally, declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, with a decision that has serious contradictions, in the Judgement 31/2010 about the Statue of Catalonia. This paper analyzes the status quaestionis of this matter in an evolutionary perspective of the autonomous State and critically examines the doctrine established in this Judgement by the Constitutional Court, proposing as a possible solution to the created situation, the reform of the Organic Law of the Judicial Power in the same direction and size covered by the statutory reforms and the lines put in the deceased Draft Law amending the Organic Law 6 / 1985, July 1, of the the Judicial Power, on justice of proximity and Justice Councils, approved by the Council of Ministers on December 23, 2005. Such reform, combining the functions now fulfilled by the Boards of Governance of the Superior Courts of Justice with others related to the field of competences of the Autonomous Communities, would allow, in addition to a closer proximity to the social reality of justice, a higher degree of integration and coordination between the two levels of government in this area, thus highlighting the statehood of the government's judicial branch referred to an overall conception of the State and helping to strengthen the unity of the Judiciary in a state that possesses a federal logic and rationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish Ombudsman has been conceived as an institutional guarantee of the fundamental rights recognized in the Spanish Constitution. To protect the fundamental rights of citizens, this institution has been granted the traditional instruments used by other Ombudsmen. Therefore, the Spanish Constitution expressly provides that the Ombudsman is able to control the Administration and will report about its activities to the Parliament. However, the Spanish Ombudsman was gifted with two powers that are not always granted to Ombudsmen, as he/she can initiate a proceeding before the Constitutional Court if he/she considers that a law is unconstitutional or if he/she considers that an individual act violates those fundamental rights recognized in articles 14 to 29 and 30.2 of the Spanish Constitution. This paper will focus on those powers, analysing the reasons that leaded the Spanish constituency to grant the Ombudsman powers to initiate some proceedings before the Constitutional Court; the constitutional and legal configuration of those powers; and the use that the Spanish Ombudsman has made of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the methodological innovation of applying the social network analysis software (Ucinet® and Netdraw®) to the Causal Networks Methodology (CNM) with the aim of improving the processes of diagnosis on the tourism activity functioning at a local scale. Specifically, this methodological proposal is structured in the following steps: first, the identification of the impacts of the residential tourism activity and the creation of their causal chains with the participation of local stakeholders; second, the analysis of the network of causal chains. This analysis allows the identification of the variables with the highest level of repercussion on the environmental, economic and social structures at the tourist municipalities. This methodological proposal manages to systematize a high volume of information and helps the local planner to discriminate the most influencing variables for their use in the design of more efficient lines of action in terms of resource investment. The selected case of study is the municipality of Denia, on the North of the province of Alicante. The results show that the deep causes of the negative impacts induced by the residential tourism are connected to a democratic deficit in the local management activity regarding residential tourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the constitutional problems raised by the phone and mail interventions from the vantage of the protection of privacy. The legal regulation required by the Constitution has turned out to be insufficient. Therefore the main task of protection of the right has fallen on the judiciary and subsequently on the Constitutional Court. Prof. Aragon's contribution focuses on the questions und circumstances that surround this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early twenty-first century, the Romanian population in Spain showed a spectacular increase. It is now the largest group of foreign population and also the most geographically dispersed. The aim of this paper is to analyze the spatial structure of internal migration by Romanians between 2001 and 2007. Data from the Statistics of Residential Variations produced by the National Institute of Statistics (INE, Instituto Nacional de Estadística) which registers municipal residents was used. The results show the sharp increase of mobility, the predominance of short-distance movements, which take place within the same province and neighbouring provinces, and the role of Madrid and the Mediterranean coast in the redistribution of interprovincial Romanian population in Spain. Geographic mobility is due to the pursuit of better living conditions, which is related to the labour market and housing, as well as social networks and the attitudes of society and local authorities towards foreigners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent publication of National Immigration Survey lets to carry a wide study about the main characteristics of foreign population settled in Spain. This data source contains information referred to family structures and households. The principal thesis of this paper is to show how the rising transnational mobility produces a new frame in familiar relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the history of a failed attempt at standardization of prestressed concrete joists (small beams) at the end of the 1950s in Spain: Punto Azul (Blue Point). Punto Azul was a means of developing and spreading performance standards for mass-produced structural components. The project, championed by the Instituto Técnico de la Construcción y del Cemento (Technical Institute for Construction and Cement) and his director Eduardo Torroja, of international reputation as a structural engineer, tried to gather the state and private business around construction experts. However, the project aroused opposition that, after heated controversy, led to its termination. This paper will follow the Punto Azul story in order to unveil the intermingling of science, technology and political economy in a time of changes within the Francoist regime. Thus, I will show that Punto Azul conveyed a whole program of industrialization of construction that included the development of 'the sciences of construction', a growing technological integration with other European countries and a project of control and regulation of Spain's private industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, metaresearch is proposed as a tool for review and analysis of scientific publications. This concept refers to the need to critically evaluate and reflect what and how people research as a fundamental strategy of scientific progress. Our interest is situated in the field of the biomedicine and the study of health-illness-care process in foreign immigrants. The objective is to analyse how scientifically relevant questions about this population are selected, constructed and broached. Specifically, we aim to evaluate how ethnocentric/ethnicist and andocentric/sexist biases affect this process and its results. We analyse from a cultural diversity and gender perspective the scientific articles on immigration published from 1984 to 2006 indexed in the Spanish Medical Index-CSIC. In the majority of the articles, the definition of the sanitary and academic significant questions responds to ethnocentric and androcentric visions that strengthen social stereotypes and inequalities. Furthermore, they involve limitations of scientific rigour and validity, with consequences in the sanitary practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows a set of techniques designed purpose of graph construction aimed at the apparition of either concepts or issues in a collection of texts. The aim is to analyze graphically the semantic connections that can be found in a selected textual corpus as a complement to the study of the statistical frequency of the different elements. The key contribution of this proposal is the use of network analysis for those items that are statistically connected. The use and range of these techniques are shown through the analysis of a database compiled by J.J. Linz composed by more than 76.000 Spanish newspapers articles on the transition to the democracy, published between 1958 and 1987. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two years the Inspección de Servicios of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has been running a web-based panel survey with a probability sample of 889 students. In each wave of the panel students report on the incidences occurred at the academic lectures they attend in a particular day of the week. For the academic year 2006-2007, until the month of April we had a sample of more than 10.000 lectures, being the later our unit of analysis. In this paper we will report on the response rate of the online panel, on one hand related to those invited to participate (3.091) and on the other to the specific response rate in the different waves of the panel. We will cover the following aspects: • Basic methodological characteristics of the research and aim of the survey. • Participation rates in the invitation process and in the different waves of the panel. • Socio demographic characteristics of respondents. • The recalling process (up to 2 reminders in each wave). Reminders and its incidence in the measurement basic parameters of the survey. • Implications of the results for online based research in academic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During much time, anthropology has defined primitive societies as societies of mythopoetical thought. Just the opposite of those societies in which it governs the rational thought to the service of profitability and productivity. Myth constructs its discursive form with metaphors, analogies and other tools of the intellect. It represents and identifies the primitive society as a whole. Myth was the wild thought. This idea could also be applied to traditional societies. In these societies we found mythopoetical praxis and speeches, like in the example that is analyzed in this paper: the wild analogy of pasiegos in relationship with their cattle. We have to consider two questions on the analogical thought of pasiegos. First, the role of analogy in the origin of the culture and the dynamic of cultural change. Second, gender analogy: is the analogical universe of pasiegos masculine, feminine, or without gender? Additionally, under the consideration that «wild» is a pristine human thought, we ask ourselves how much of wild has the wild thought. First at all in its relation with rationalism: emerges analogy from rationalism? What relation analogy maintains with rationalism? Its origin is the result of a «natural» function? By the same token, we ask about the social nature of the savage. That is to say, how much of wild is the analogy. Whether or not the analogy is a historical and asocial function of human intellect. One final observation: The analogical complex of pasiegos is not entirely examined. We only analyze the homologous relations between the cows and the habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The appearance of the Information and Communication Technologies has generated new forms of inequality. This is the case of the digital divide, which refers to the unequal access to the technologies by different social groups due to, among other reasons, their place of residence, their age, or their educational level. However, despite of the growth of the number of studies about this social phenomenon, we are still unaware of important aspects of the digital divide. In this paper we try to contribute to the explanation of some of these aspects showing the relationship between the digital divide and the social differences that characterizes some territory. From a statistical model, specifically designed for this purpose, we will defend that the differences in the use of Internet among different territories can be completely explained resorting to the unequal social distribution among these territories. This will lead us to conclude, with authors like Van Dijk (2002), that the reduction of the digital divide is conditioned to the decrease of social differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explains conceptual operational use, and reclaims empirical data from Galicia's Cultural Survey (ECF, 1991). The theoretical generation of concepts and classifications goes on to select indicators and construct indices, process that concludes with a multivariable analysis of the elaborates classifications. These operations lead up to reconstruct the structure of values and attitudes that galicians used at the beginning of nineties, to represent the wild country, woodlands and forestry sector. Moreover, it contributes new data to check the predictions done for change values and social abilities theories, in relationship with the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]