Professor Ronald Sultana, director of the Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research at the University, in collaboration with Professor Mohammed Sabour from the University of Joensuu, has just published a special issue of the International Journal of Contemporary Sociology (Volume 40 No.1) dedicated to the theme "Education and Power in Mediterranean Societies".

The special issue explores the way education mediates symbolic, political and economic power structures in the region, with papers by 11 authors focusing on Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Spain, Cyprus, Morocco, and a number of Arab and Gulf state education systems addressing the tension between reproduction and transformation of societies.

A central theme is the struggle over who shall establish leadership over the new generation of young people, and over how one is to define and assert national identity in the face of globalization.

The papers that appear in this volume were first presented at a workshop, co-led by the editors, sponsored by the Mediterranean Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence.

The Euro-Mediterranean Centre for Educational Research has also published Volume 7 No.2 of the Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, which has now established itself as the leading specialist academic review of educational issues in the region.

The present number carries papers on repatriated students in Cyprus, on school choice in Spain, on Spanish education reforms, on the education management information system in Palestine, and on notions of the 'normal' and the 'pathological' in biology teaching in Moroccan secondary schools.

Further information about the two publications, as well as orders, can be addressed to ronald.sultana@um.edu.mt.