Interest in reflective practices, within the broader framework of teachers’ professional knowledge, has been ongoing in educational research for the past few decades. The idea from which reflection itself stems is that of teachers’ agency in their own professional development. The initial positivist approach viewed the relationships between teachers’ theoretical knowledge and educational practice in terms of hierarchical reductionism. We analyze the relationships between different types of knowledge from a historical-cultural perspective, which requires locating them in the context of the cultural activities. Our aim is to analyze the discursive interactions, which take place during collaborative seminars, within a reflective practicum, and to identify how the university tutors support and foster reflection on practice. We use a multiple case design in which each case is a classroom unit made up of a tutor and his or her students. An analysis of the tutors’ discourse revealed an ongoing promotion of students’ active engagement through highly structured classroom participation, a strong focus on interpreting students’ personal experiences during teaching practice and significant interventions aimed at establishing links with academic knowledge. Results invite us to rethink the ways in which we can contribute to processes of reflection among trainee teachers.

In at-risk areas of social exclusion, a higher number of adolescents drop out of school. Dropout from compulsory education and early school leaving are associated with unemployment, poverty, and greater health problems, posing a significant threat to the youth’s development and wellbeing. Nevertheless, some students manage to pursue formal education even in high-risk areas, exhibiting resilience. Interwoven between the processes of risk and resilience, the students’ identity development plays a vital role. The present study aimed to analyze the learner identity of students who exhibit a resilience trajectory in areas at risk of social exclusion, and its relation to the degree of risk they face, their academic experience, and their gender. The sample consisted of 132 students from at-risk neighborhoods in Spain who successfully completed compulsory secondary education and continued beyond that level. To measure their academic selves, a modified version of the Twenty Statement Test (TST) was used, which was analyzed using a category system that included four dimensions: organization of the self, emotional valence, plane of action, and thematic reference. The results indicate the participants primarily used personal, positive, evaluative self-descriptions related to the academic world, mostly based on effort. A higher degree of risk was associated to more self-descriptions referring good relationships with others and class attendance, while higher academic experience was associated to more independent selves. The study also found several gender differences. The implications of these findings for research and social intervention in at-risk contexts are discussed.

: Achieving adequate integration and success at school in the post-compulsory stages involving situations where there is a risk of social exclusion is a real identity challenge for adolescents. In this research, we used a convenience sampling and selected two high schools located in Areas in Need of Social Transformation in Seville (southern Spain). We studied the learner identity of all their students in the first and second grade of secondary post-compulsory education (N = 70). These students present a trajectory of resilience, as they remained in the education system despite facing many difficulties. In this exploratory research, their identity as learners was analysed through an interview applied in a focus group format (N = 12), where their supports, strengths and psycho-social obstacles that facilitate/hinder their stay in the education system in the post-compulsory stage were also identified. Results show that adolescents have a good attitude towards academic training, based on the conviction that, in the future, they will be able to achieve a higher quality of life and a rapid insertion in skilled jobs. The image students have of themselves combines a negative perception of their lack of work habits, the difficulty of self-regulation and the little effort made, with a more positive view of their agency in the process, highlighting their intellectual and academic capacity and their effort when they set out to do so. Family, teachers and peers play a role in the resilience and identity construction of the adolescents, through protecting them, developing positive perceptions and expectations, stimulating control and effort and attributing successes and failures to students. Programmes based on the participation of the target group are essential for the design and improvement of psychosocial intervention programmes in these contexts.

Several prominent scholars in the Social Sciences have defended the need for a new way of studying the relationship between culture and the individual. Over the last three decades, it has been common to find studies under the heading of Cultural Psychology (CP), which have focussed on the role of culture in historical and ontogenetic development. However, among the defenders of CP, there have been specific disagreements over theoretical and methodological aspects of the project. This lack of agreement is revealed by the different conceptions of the role of meaning and social practice in human psychological functioning. This paper aims is to analyze some different approaches to CP, and the role of meaning plays in its constitution. For us, the central claim of CP is that the human mind should be seen as inter-penetrated by intentional worlds that are culturally and historically situated, and this psychology must to study the ways psyche and culture; person and context, self and other, practitioner and practice live together, and jointly make each other up. In addition, CP has also identified the symbolic mediation of mind and culture as its analytical focus. Finally, we defend that culture and mind are to be treated as forms of culturally differentiated meaning practices. To make possible this enterprise, we propose the necessity to develop the notion of mediated and situated actions as a unit of analysis of Cultural Psychology.

This work assumes the existence of a functional and dialectical relationship between activity settings, modes of discourse and ways of thinking. A research is developed to study the influence of schooling and the cultural origins in concepts formation. The participants were border residents from Brownsville (Texas, United States) and from Matamoros (Tamaulipas, Mexico). They belong to two different educational levels (primary and university education). Participants solved a task on concepts formation related to border and citizen on the border notions. Results showed that the subjects from a basic educational level and the Mexican citizens on the border used the most concrete values of the categories studied. We stand that different learning contexts generate different ways of argumentation and concepts, which are valid both for school activities and for everyday life in one side or other of the border.

La violencia contra las mujeres en la pareja (IPVAW) ocurre a edades cada vez más tempranas y la juventud percibe señales iniciales de violencia contra las mujeres como "normales". Esta normalización de la violencia permite a los agresores mantener sus relaciones y su reputación social, al tiempo que reduce el apoyo social de las víctimas y aumenta su vulnerabilidad. La revisión teórica sugiere actualizar las escalas disponibles incorporando la normalización de la violencia. El propósito de este estudio es desarrollar una nueva escala (MIPVAW) para evaluar el grado de aceptación de los mitos sobre la violencia íntima de pareja. Para ello, 1.500 estudiantes universitarios españoles de primer año (edad: M = 18.9; SD = 1.38) completan la nueva escala MIPVAW y la adaptación española del Inventario de Sexismo Ambivalente. Los resultados de EFA y CFA apoyan una estructura de cuatro factores, mostrando índices de fiabilidad adecuados, lo que se logra con solo 15 ítems. Esto indica que la escala es válida y fiable para evaluar la aceptación de diferentes mitos sobre IPVAW: minimización de la violencia, culpabilización de las víctimas, exoneración del agresor y normalización de la violencia. También se demuestra una alta correlación entre las puntuaciones de la escala MIPVAW con el sexismo ambivalente. Esta escala representa una contribución novedosa en la medición de este constructo al incorporar la normalización de la violencia y mejorar su aplicabilidad reduciendo los indicadores para su medida.