Examinando por Autor "Cores-Bilbao, Esther"

Mostrando 1 - 4 de 4

Andalusian university students’ perception of their European identity: international orientation and experiences
(2019) Méndez García, María del Carmen; Cores-Bilbao, Esther
Multicultural European societies increasingly demand internationally oriented citizens, who are willing to actively participate in civic life and able to successfully access the labour market. The European dimension in education supposedly endows youngsters with civic values, multiculturalist attitudes and plurilingual competences which ultimately lead to raising awareness of their Europeanness. Formative years at university, pivotal to students’ individual life course and projects, are a decisive stage in the development of supranational, collective identityformation. Similarly, pan-European study programmes are aimed at inspiring a sense of European citizenship and identity, the most renowned of which within the Higher Education context is Erasmus+. By conducting focus group interviews, this paper probes Andalusian university students’ understanding of their European identity and verifies the causal dynamics between European identity-taking and foreign country sojourns, comparing the perceptions expressed by returnees to those by students who have not had the opportunity to participate in international study programmes (ISP) at higher education yet. Results evidence students’ apparent supranational orientation, general awareness of commonalities across Europe and utilitarian outlooks on the EU, although not a clear discernment of its institutions or a marked European identity.
Deliberate training and incidental learning through the Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media: Capitalising on a European tool to enhance visual literacy and intercultural dialogue globally
(2023) Méndez García, María del Carmen; Cores-Bilbao, Esther
This article addresses visual literacy as a crucial competence for fostering intercultural literacy and intercultural dialogue. Visual literacy has been defined as a combination of skills needed to interpret the meaning of images, latent reasons behind their making and their impact on audiences. Individuals need to develop such skills to critically read the ‘vocabulary’ (content) and ‘grammar’ (composition) of images they are constantly flooded with to fully understand and appreciate the underlying meaning of visual representations of their own culture and other cultures, as well as the people belonging to different cultural groups. The Council of Europe’s Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media (AIEVM) has been designed to promote interculturality through the reflection on the other, as portrayed in visuals. By analysing AIEVMs produced by 18 adult learners of English in two contexts – featuring explicit intercultural training prior to AIEVM completion vs. its application without such previous input – the present study examines the impact of pertinent training in visual and intercultural competence development. The data suggest heightened levels of metacognition and critical thinking in the former context. Results for both groups also disclose the development of a powerful sense of self-discovery and empathy toward alterity, induced by the commonalities detected between the respondents themselves and the depicted. Overall, implementing the AIEVM seems to narrow the gap between the intercultural awareness discerned in both contexts, yet the dissimilar depth of the narratives produced corroborates the value of prior intercultural learning. The article concludes with a critical overview of the potential of the AIEVM, comprising prospective courses of action to supplement this instrument to sharpen users’ visual literacy and boost deeper intercultural reflection.
State and Substate Dimensions of Andalusian University Students’ Identity: Implications of Regional Schooling and Academic Mobility Experiences for a (Dis)harmonious Pattern of Identification
(2024-12-09) Méndez-García, María-del-Carmen; Cores-Bilbao, Esther
The formation of collective identity is considered a context-dependent, socially construed process. Identity is perceived as a complex, multifaceted, and ever-changing phenomenon through which individuals align themselves with diverse political communities. Global intercultural encounters have accentuated the notion of being several selves at once, and while national identities remain salient, allegiance to the nation-state is no longer paramount. While research has extensively explored the influence of academic study-abroad experiences on students’ transnational identification, there has been a lack of scholarly studies examining their impact on place-of-origin identity at a substate level. Only recently has this effect been examined. This article addresses this gap by comparing mobile and nonmobile university students’ perceptions of the self in relation to three social–spatial environments—local, regional, and national. Results reveal the emergence of regional identities influenced by the new environment abroad, prompting an internal reevaluation of the participants’ subnational territorial attachment and self-identification.
University students’ representations of Europe and self-identification as Europeans: a synthesis of qualitative evidence for future policy formulation
(2020) Méndez García, María del Carmen; Cores-Bilbao, Esther; Fonseca-Mora, M. Carmen
The current European context is characterised by the emergence of socio-political tensions that threaten to derail the cohesion objectives traditionally promoted by the authorities of the European Union. With EU citizenship in the shadow of Brexit, the fear of dismemberment of the current Europe of the 28 looms over a renewed debate on concepts like European identity, European citizenship or EU legitimacy and the involvement of its constituents in European affairs, as well as the role of education for promoting democratic awareness among young Europeans. This work aims to collect, appraise and synthesise qualitative evidence obtained in primary research exploring the perceptions of European university students about their civic and cultural identity. This systematic analysis sets out to identify predictors of positive self-identification with the EU and its institutions, focusing on the impact that different educational interventions have had on the attitudes and perceptions expressed by university students, and the importance of foreign language learning in the results obtained. The authors report their assessment of quality of the findings in a Cochrane-style qualitative evidence synthesis (QES), based on the GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research) method.

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Examinando por Autor "Cores-Bilbao, Esther"