Between 15 and 17 July 2026, the XVI Spanish Congress of Sociology was held in Bilbao, organised by the Spanish Federation of Sociology (FES) entitled “Challenges, Evidence, Solutions”. The congress brought together researchers from different areas of sociology to share research findings and discuss some of the main social challenges facing contemporary societies.
Several members of the LEARNER project team participated in the congress, presenting work connected to the project’s main lines of research:
- Learning as a Sociological Problem: Towards a Relational Sociology of Learning Inequalities. Aina Tarabini (Autonomous University of Barcelona).
- The Competency-Based Reform of Compulsory Secondary Education: Challenges and Tensions in Unequal Contexts.Marta Curran (Complutense University of Madrid), Carlos Alonso (Pablo de Olavide University), and Javier Rujas (Complutense University of Madrid).
- Emotions and Learner Identity at School: An Approach Through Gender, Social Class, and Curricular Differences in Catalonia and Madrid. Francisca Bustamante, Relmu Gedda, Veda Krüger, and Mariona Farré (Autonomous University of Barcelona).
- Taste, Distinction, and Identity: The Affective Dimension of School Learning. Paula Arboix (Autonomous University of Barcelona).
These contributions helped advance the discussion of learning as an object of sociological analysis, with particular attention to its relational and socially unequal nature. They addressed issues such as the construction of learner identities, emotions and dispositions towards learning, and their relationship with gender and social class inequalities, as well as with different school contexts and curricular approaches.