Narrative construction of self-coherence in the virtual space

While social psychologists warn us that the search for self-coherence brings cognitive biases, marketers and public relations specialists define consistency as the main ingredient of personal branding campaigns. Taking a moderate path, sociologists theorize self-coherence as a coping mechanism for rewriting self-biographies to colonize the future, assuming the narrative as a self-coherence inducing device. We considered the emergence of personal blogs as a suitable setting to study the narrative construction of the self during late modernity. We present a narrative constructivist analysis of data collected from personal blogs (the top 46 Romanian personal blogs in terms of popularity, and 100 blogs participating in a digital archiving memory project) in the period of emergence and unprecedented momentum. We found evidence of three narrative tactics for building self-coherence in the virtual space: temporal coherence, causal coherence, and thematic coherence

Gender divisions of domestic labour and paid domestic services

This article investigates the relationship between sharing domestic tasks in dual-earner mixed-sex couples and using of paid domestic services. Results from a small-scale survey of the domestic outsourcing practices of employees of a large service-sector organisation in the UK show that in households: full-time working by women and presence of younger children is positively associated with using of domestic services; there is no association between the gender division of traditionally female domestic tasks carried out within the couple and paid services; in contrast, men’s greater involvement in traditionally male and traditionally gender-neutral tasks is positively associating with using paid domestic services. These findings tentatively suggest a new arrangement may be emerging whereby some couples address a heavy workload and desire for a less traditional division of domestic labour by men participating more in close-ended domestic tasks and outsourcing more time-consuming tasks traditionally undertaken by women to paid service providers

The dynamic landscape of virtual space explored through a multidisciplinary kaleidoscope

A social life disconnected from space it`s difficult to conceive. However, in sociology, the concept of space is still underdeveloped, missing from theories, dictionaries, or encyclopaedias. For more than a century, sociologists have assumed space as a passive scene for social actions, and implied as material, static, continuous and linearly travelled. In the new context of information society, economic globalisation, and postmodern hyper-reality, scholars question the conventional definitions of space. We believe sociologists will arrive at a more nuanced understanding of space, by taking an interdisciplinary approach, and focusing on how space is lived. We use virtual space as a proxy for understanding how complex space can be, and frame it through the concept of “cultural landscape” to capture its relational, dynamic, and socially constructed dimensions. Our aim is to illustrate the dynamism, versatility, and fluidity of virtual space by moving from one discipline and theoretical perspective to the other and interpreting the newly configured landscapes. We show that virtual space is a discontinuous imaginary process, organised in networks with multiple layers, experienced as a journey into a narrative text or as a ”consensual hallucination”, where the evanescence of the body and the anonymity of the self boost the quest for authenticity, self-discovery, self-disclosure and intimacy. Nonetheless, virtual space, due to its potential to equalise statuses, minimise authority and multiply the audiences of messages, is becoming the enabler of Habermasian communicative rationality, rousing moral consciousness and triggering civic actions

The “free” movement of Roma in the EU: From the presumption of the fundamental right to housing to forced evictions and expulsion

The aim of this article is to highlight the contradiction between the EU principles ensuring the right of free movement and residence with EU and the legislative frameworks and measures ratified at national level by the member states for managing the inflow of Roma migrants. The first part of the article will underline how the main EU conventions, agreements, and treaties stipulate the right to free movement, residence, and housing of the member state citizens, regardless of their ethnic affiliation, within the EU. The second part will present a synthesis of the housing condition patterns of the Roma from Romania, who migrated to Italy, France, Spain, and United Kingdom, as revealed by the reports of recent researches. In the final section, the article brings a series of measures drawn from recent studies and programs, which might help mitigate these discrepancies

Implementation of an Internal Quality Assurance System at Pablo de Olavide University of Seville: Improving Computer Science Students Skills

This work describes how an internal quality assurance sys tem is deployed at Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, Spain, in order to follow up all the existing degrees among the faculties and schools, seven centers in total, and how the teaching-learning process is improved. In the first place, the quality management structure existing in all the centers and degrees of the university is described. Additionally, all the actions related to the quality and improvement of the degrees of a cen ter are reported. Unlike in other Universities, in the Pablo de Olavide University there is no specific procedure for monitoring degrees, but the strategic procedure PE04: Measurement, analysis and improvement of the Internal Quality Assurance System is used to carry out such a proce dure. Therefore, the procedure is detailed specifying the different phases it consists of and those responsible for each of them. Once this procedure has been implemented, the centers have a follow-up report for each of their degrees, which also includes an improvement plan to be developed during the next course. The case of the degree of Computer Science in Information Systems, included in the School of Engineering, is analyzed over time in order to show how the implementation of such a system improves the overall performance of studentsMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2017-88209-C2-