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The purpose of this paper is to elicit a richer conversation for youth development practitioners and academic researchers related to the approach of youth mentoring training based on Vygotskys (1967) sociocultural and activity theory. More specifically to conceptualize and guide youth mentoring research, particularly in inner-city communities where the environments can be most challenging to the health, social and academic development of young people. Recently, there has been an increasing call for youth development researchers to direct their efforts toward solving contemporary social problems that plague todays youth, particularly in environments that are most challenging to the well- being and academic development of our young people. While youth development practitioners are seen as being on the front line and continuously engaged in this endeavor, academic institutions are sometimes viewed by social activists as being self-serving and not fully committed to such endeavors. Using the principles of activity theory, this paper advances previous literature proposing a participatory paradigm as a basis for shared youth development work between practitioners and academic researchers. The paper describes the elements of a participatory youth mentoring training program and presents a case example to demonstrate its characteristics
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Assistant professor at the School of Management, Beijing Normal University, China. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Aberdeen, UK and specializes in political and legal sociology, social policy and administration. Her research focuses on rural land expropriation and compensation, the interaction between land-lost farmers and the local authorities in China
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This paper looks into methodological issues of sample design for a specific target population: Romanian youths (aged 16-35) that reside in rural areas. The first part of the paper will provide an overview into general issues that come from demographic trends, such as the overall population decline and especially the wave of emigration to Western Europe, and the pros and cons of the most widely used sampling techniques in Romania. The stages of the survey design itself comprise the second part. The most challenging part was how to reduce undercoverage problem by putting forward a sample frame, namely fieldwork procedures to identify as many elements of the target population as possible under real-life conditions. Multiple solutions were taken into consideration, before choosing one after field testing. The final part features an analysis of the survey focusing on the outcome of the sample design.
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As Edwin Alderson, a prominent North Carolina educator stated biracial organizations attracted "plain people ...demanding their share in the government, and their right to be trained for its responsibilities" and created more self-reliant and resourceful people who were wiser when it came to local government. I found Beckel's book reads like an interesting historical story about how North Carolina was affected by civil equality. Beckel starts out her book with an Introduction about biracial relationships. This led to interracial cooperation, and eventually influenced North Carolina organizations. The States organizations were massive, and the North Carolina Knights and the Alliancemen had plans to pass some labor laws and get involved politically. At this time, around 1890, the Knights of Labor has 250 locals in 50 counties with the members half and half, Black and White. The Alliance had 55,000 Blacks and 90,000 Whites. In the last chapter "Race and Home Rule," (p. 178) Beckel shares with us that the voting rights were expanded for both the Blacks and the Whites. In conclusion, Beckel tells us: "Many of the state's most energetic citizens simply left for what they hoped would be greater rights and opportunities outside North Carolina."(p.211). In 2010, North Carolina statistics showed 21.6% of the registered voters are Black, where there are 73.2% registered voters who are White.
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This paper sets out as an explanatory approach, supported with theories and statistical data, for the development of the social economy sector in Romania. Following a brief review of the literature, which informs the theoretical basis of this paper, We presented a series of economic and social data, expressing the needs of several social groups, potential actors in the social enterprise arena. The study has dealt with the issue of social economy by analysing two daily papers and a professional journal, as well as by interviewing 14 experts who work in the social field, in state institutions and NGOs. After analysing the articles published in the two papers and the journal, it can be stated that there is, in the context presented, a certain interest in the issue of social economy. The articles on this subject referred to different approaches in the field of social economy, the main idea being, particularly in the journal, that social economy represents a potential for creating jobs and for the social integration of the disadvantaged. As far as the results obtained after analysing the interviews are concerned, social economy is seen by experts as an opportunity to integrate disadvantaged groups into the labour market, to reduce social marginalization and to improve local communities quality of life. The conclusions of the paper point to the need, but also to the possibility of developing social economy in Romania, the need to stimulate and sustain it, especially in regards to social entrepreneurship.
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The Romanian transnational migration represents one of the most important social processes that our country had to face during the past two decades, involving over 3,5 million citizens. The most compatriots have left, especially for working, to Italy, Spain, France, England, Greece, and to other continents. The biggest Romanian immigrant community in different European states is in Italy and Spain, and the migration phenomenon form Romania is still in process. The main purpose of this article is to respond at three important questions: Who are those who have left from Romania to Italy, in what regions they are living and working? Which are the most important reasons of their options for this country? In what measure living in a foreign society has influenced their cultural identity and their value options? In the article is also presented a brief history of the sociological researches on Romanian immigrants from Italy, socio-demographical data and comparative analyses. The main research methods that we have used are the statistical method and the opinion query based upon questionnaire. The initial hypothesis, that Romanians from Italy have preserved, generally, their cultural identity, was confirmed by the results of the sociological field research
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The re-emergence of the social economy sector as important agent for occupation, economic growth, social solidarity, associationism and social services, coincided with a higher importance of running program and project- based activities in all European countries, irrespective whether they are member states of candidate states. Within the context of the benefits specific to the social economy projects it is important to debate and analyse the subject of continuing the activities of this form of economy by consolidating the financial allocations. Thus, complementary to the identification of new consistent sources of financing of the activity performed by the social economy organisations, it is important to know the position of the initiatives within the current context of the global economy and to apply rigorously the project implementation methodology.
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For the companies relying on hundreds of internal and external suppliers for the millions of components required to produce goods and services, it is quite important to integrate all these functions and departments in order to prevent information inconsistencies, to leverage multiple sources of information within the enterprise and to gain dominance among competitors, and to perform much higher efficiency levels and sustainable performance standards. Therefore, the importance of Enterprise Resource Planning emerges as a major area of interest for many enterprises in order to facilitate the flow and share of information among the different functions within and outside a company. However, especially in low income countries, there may be various barriers such as bureaucracy, poor technology infrastructure, and lack of consultancy firms in order to plan, develop and implement an Enterprise Resource Planning project. This study becomes important that it presents the Enterprise Resource Planning implementation through the leading small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A survey-based study is applied to empirically test the Enterprise Resource Planning implementation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the short interviews with relevant respondents are considered to observe the current Enterprise Resource Planning scenarios of their organizations. Furthermore, some of the surveys can also be considered as interviews. In the conclusion and discussion parts the survey and interview results are discussed and future research areas are addressed.
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The buzz word development encompasses growth with institutional changes. Despite some basic commonalities, Indias North Eastern-most three immediate neighbouring states Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur have got asymmetric development performances due to asymmetric institutional structures. Of the states, Manipur is quite different from other two and experiencing nearly a complete breakdown of its development mechanisms in the recent years, especially in 1990s. Communal violence, human rights violation, and uncertain law and order condition, etc. are the fallout of institutional failure and consequently these factors led the States economy to a crippled one. Infrastructure, especially, road and communication aggravates to the present state of condition, and also breaks relationship with the neighbouring states, among the communities within the State. Otherwise, this state should have been one of the most advanced states in the country when we traced the early history and its development trajectory. Why is the government (centre) apparently benign with the states of Mizoram and Nagaland when dealing with public demands while it appears to be malignant in Manipur? What factor(s) led to mass uprising, conflict in the State of Manipur and remains unsettled so long are also raised in this paper.
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The objectives of our study were to verify the Romanian translation of the TAQ, to determine its psychometric qualities in a sample of participants from Western Romania, and to compare them with data from similar researches. The TAQ measures three key anxiety components: somatic, cognitive and behavioural. The questionnaire’s 36 items were derived from previous research, from different widely utilised measurement instruments known for their psychometric properties. The TAQ was administered along with other psychological tests, the Current Thoughts Scale (CTS), the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS), the McGill Pain Questionnaire, (McGill PQ-S) and the Dental Fear Survey (DFS). The validation of these instruments on the Romanian population represents a part from a PhD research project regarding anxiety and dental fear management. We consider that the results advanced in the validation study support the TAQ’s psychometric qualities, and thus the TAQ can be seen as a useful instrument, with high applicable potential.
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Increased self-esteem, developed facilities of participation to the community life and extra satisfaction insures a superior life quality for the patient diagnosed with schizophrenia.The study includes 150 participants divided in 3 lots. Schizophrenia diagnosis was established according to the operational criteria from DSM-IV-TR (1994) and ICD-10 (1992). Life quality was evaluated by using the inventory of self-perceived wellbeing (ISBA; Adams, Bezner, & Steinhardt, 1997). The results revealed significant differences from life quality point of view regarding the occupational statute, educational level and the type of the disease. Self-perceived wellbeing of the individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia is lower as compared to the healthy persons; under the social, intellectual, spiritual and emotional aspects the persons diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia are more affected than the ones having other forms of schizophrenia. Life quality in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia is lower as compared to general population and out of all types of schizophrenia, the paranoid one is the most affected.
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Teachers have diverse professional expectations, and when a balanced relationship is built between different aspects of the professional activity and teachers’ expectations on these aspects, professional satisfaction appears which effectively contributes to consistent effort for professional tasks realization. Professional needs constitute a catalyst element of professional satisfaction. This feeling is produced by the satisfaction of professional needs at the level of teachers’ expectations. This way, MHR solicits the identification of the actions for continuous professional education which could and should be realized by the system/institution to obtain individual performances. It is also necessary to understand that the organizational investment in human resources supposes the concrete actions of self-investment, as well.
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This article presents educational poetic therapy methods / techniques to empower schizophrenic clients. A theoretical psychological and educational basis is given to explain Educational poetic therapy. The causes of schizophrenic clients’ disability to live self dependently in society and to deal with their disabilities are presented. Low self evaluation is discussed as a typical and difficult problem, and is explained how educational poetic therapy can transform personality. Qualitative research is used. Case analysis illustrates the effectiveness of educational poetic therapy.
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This text has two objectives referring to the study of the market development of artisanship in Romania, and to the theoretical interpretation of the folk craftsmens fairs in the comparative context of the open-air markets from Central-Eastern Europe. Our research attempts to answer some questions related to the cultural variability of artisanship, its hybrid character, as well as its regenerative properties within the peasant traditions as a whole. From a methodological viewpoint, the article dwells upon an ethnographic investigation (pursued in terms of participant observation and life-story interviews) of a number of 53 peasant artisans that attended folk fairs held in the summer of 2005, in the cities of Bucharest, Sibiu, Timiºoara, and Suceava. The second part of our material represents a compared analysis of the folk fairs and the open-air markets in Central-Eastern Europe. The craftsmen differ from the market traders either as to their working ownership, or as to their administrative and commercial subordination. Despite such important socioeconomic differences, the artisans and the farmers from the agricultural markets share a peasant historical background, and a series of commercial functioning similarities (including the ownership of their goods and trademarks, their relationships with partners coming from the public or private spheres, strategies of retail and wholesale, investments in ·...´
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The article presents some of the results of a case study on two villages in Transylvania, T\lm\cel and Ludo[, from Sibiu County. The article focuses on the theme of collective identity, analyzing empirical variables proposed by the author that reflect the ways of identifying with the community of the people in the two villages. Data analyzed resulted from a survey in the two villages, using a bi-stadial sample, and semi-focalised interviews with key-persons from the two villages elite. Results show differences in the way people from T\lm\cel and Ludo[ identify themselves with their communities and the article tries to explain these differences.
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In recent years, Romania is facing an explosion in the number of injecting drug users (IDU). Young injecting drug users are considered a group of high risk for HIV infection, which cannot be ignored by the public policies. The research aimed at evaluating the risk behaviours of these young people, being the first time when Respondent-Driven Sampling (RDS) is used in Romania. The quantitative research has been supplemented by a qualitative research, aiming at better understanding and describing the risk behaviours. The main subjects/dimensions included in the research have been related to the risk associated with drug use, sexual risk behaviours, procurement of clean/safe injecting equipment, knowledge on HIV/AIDS, interactions with the police and the authorities, access to services. Based on the results of the research, recommendations for changes of social policies are included.
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Statistical data point out the high level of Romanians religiosity as compared to other European Christian peoples. There is an evident contradiction between this observed reality and the New Testament syntagm which denominates the Christians as the little flock. Moreover, in the study of the religious phenomena from a sociological perspective, a standardized measurement methodology suitable to each Christian denomination is still absent. In this study, I want to identify another way at analyzing the Orthodox Christian religiosity, considering that the sociological arguments must be adequate to the very specificity of this denomination. The questions that will be addressed later represent the starting point of my endeavor that will hopefully finalize in the elaboration of an instrument for the measurement of the Orthodox Christian religiosity.
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By this study we intend to approach the migration phenomenon from a perspective which has been ignored in previous studies: the determinants of Romanian emigrants. decision to return to their native country and the profile of those who intend to return. We were able to study this phenomenon thanks to the social survey on Romanian emigrants in both Spain and Italy conducted by the Agency for Governmental Strategies and Metro Media Transilvania between late 2007 and the beginning of 20082 . We take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the Agency for Governmental Strategies for granting us full access to this data set. There is a set of determinants of one.s decision to return to the country of origin permanently which we highlighted using the logistic regression analysis. The results have indicated that the Romanian emigrants who had declared that they were going to return definitively to Romania in the next two years . approximately 38% . are different from those who wished to stay in the host country in terms of their occupational status, their level of education and the magnitude of relation with relatives or friends living in Romania (we have measured this variable by means of the frequency with which they send money home, the frequency which they visit their family in the native country and the assessment of the importance of family in their life).
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Maramure[ was a space that generated cultural stereotypes, and this characteristic remains current. We propose a critical examination of these cultural stereotypes. We try to identify the phenomena of social and cultural change that qualify this area among of the most mobile and innovative in Romania, even if cultural innovation, out of legislative control and everyday aesthetic education is generating the loss of any traces of local identity of these communities.
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