Social work and the search for meaning under conditions of modernity

Author(s): Walter Lorenz / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Social work is a clear product of modernity although it builds on values and helping traditions ofpre-modern times. Therefore, its practice reflects and needs to confront many of the ambiguities thatcharacterize processes of solidarity and ‘helping’ under conditions of modernity. Both the progress ofsecularization and the widespread re-emergence of religious affiliations bear witness to this ambiguityand require differentiated responses that neither pay naïve homage to rationality nor advocate anauthoritarian ‘return to traditional values’. It is proposed that a critical acknowledgement of the importanceof dimensions of human finality, derived from, for instance, the theological thought of DietrichBonhoeffer, can provide a basis for a sensitive, value-oriented form of social work practice thatacknowledges the fundamental openness and vulnerability of the human condition without condoningsuffering fatalistically

Sociální právo jako formalizovaná povinná solidarita

Author(s): Kristina Koldinská / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2019

Sociální ochrana v nejširším slova smyslu je předmětem systému práva, které lze označit jako právo sociální. Autorka si klade za cíl vymezit jeho povahu a obsah a současně reflektovat jeho současnou podobu v kontextu měnících se společenských podmínek ve 21. století. Polemizuje nad tím, zda aktuálnísociální právo je schopno reagovat na nové fenomény a výzvy, které moderní vývoj přináší.

Asambláže postižení: afirmativní pojetí v deleuzo-guattariovské perspektivě

Author(s): Hana Porkertová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2019

The article discusses the potential of Deleuze-Guattarian philosophy for studying disability. It draws on empirical research comprising interviews with and ethnographic observations regarding the visually impaired people, in which the concept of assemblage is used as a sociological tool to analyse the continuity and discontinuity of disability. An assemblage is made up of heterogenic, rhizomatic, and often unpredictable connections, both organic and inorganic and linguistic and material, that continuously transform each other. An assemblage is never finished but is always complete, which gives rise to the question of the relationship between a whole and its parts, thus challenging the perception of disability as a lack and making it possible to think of disability in an affirmative sense. Disability can thus be analysed as a dynamic phenomenon that acquires its concrete contours in specific situations and to consider its discursive and material character. Thus, the concept of assemblage captures both the stability and the fluidity of disability and focuses on connections that maintain and decompose it. On the one hand, disability represents hegemonic discourses about health and the body, while on the other hand, it is a breeding ground for subversive processes.

„Poslední tanec“: bolest, postižení a smrt Jeriky Bolen

Author(s): Alyson Patsavas / Language(s): Czech Issue: 5/2019

In the summer of 2016, black, disabled, and gay 14-year-old Jerika Bolen announced her decision to die. The public conversation surrounding Bolen’s decision, launched through a series of newspaper articles announcing a ‘last dance’ prom, offers a case-study through which to explore how pain frustrates an analysis of the biopolitical formations that shape both right-to-die discussions and decisions. In doing so, this article offers two interventions. It reveals how dominant views of pain and disability shape and limit how we make sense of Jerika’s life and death. It also highlights the analytical leverage that this critical approach offers by reading Bolen’s death as a form of what critical theorist Lauren Berlant calls ‘slow death’ or the gradual wearing out of populations. In this way, I extend conversations within critical theory that seek to trace the slower and more sustained impacts of structural oppression. In looking at the convergence of the biopolitics and necropolitics of disability, race, class, gender, and sexuality, I suggest Bolen’s death and the ‘last dance’ that launched an international public conversation about it function as a celebration of slow death facilitated, in part, by dominant views of pain and disability.

Wolfgang Streeck: How Will Capitalism End?

Author(s): Christoffer Wisén / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

Value Modernisation in Central and Eastern European Countries: How Does Inglehart’s Theory Work?

Author(s): Beatrice-Elena Chromková Manea,Ladislav Rabušic / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2020

An intergenerational shift from more pro-family norms to individual-choice norms has been taking place since the 1980s. Conditions of economic and social security positively contributed to this shift especially in high-income countries. In this paper, we study the modernisation change on value structures in selected Central and Eastern European countries and compare them with Western European ones and look at the generational differences. We first check whether the value shift is moving in the assumed direction and whether it is copying trends observed in Western European countries. We then look at different generations to determine whether the younger generations in CEE countries that grew up after 1989, in a time of rapid economic and political change, show higher levels of post-materialist and post-modern values than the generations socialised and raised during the communist regime. We use data collected by the international repeated cross-sectional European Values Study (EVS). The results are not clear-cut on whether socioeconomic modernisation has led to higher shares of post-materialism, more genderegalitarian attitudes, and stronger support for individual-choice norms in CEE countries. In all the spheres of cultural modernisation analysed we found differences in values and attitudes between generations: the older generations were always more traditional than the younger generations. This was not just true in the CEE countries, as the same trend was recorded in the Western European countries.

The Work Ethic and Social Change in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – A Modernisation Theory Perspective

Author(s): Michal Kozák / Language(s): English Issue: 6/2020

The article investigates long-term trends in the work ethic in the Czech Republic and Slovakia from the perspective of modernisation theory. In particular, it examines whether the work ethic in the two culturally similar societies decreased during the years of growing material prosperity and whether this trend originated in intergenerational population replacement. The study uses data from three pooled waves of the European Values Study (EVS) covering the period 1999–2017 to which it applies the linear decomposition technique and multivariate statistical analysis. The results show that, even though the work ethic decreased in the Czech Republic and increased in Slovakia, intergenerational population replacement contributed to its weakening in both countries. Furthermore, the results indicate that the reason this process dominated the overall trend in the Czech Republic but not that in Slovakia may be the historical differences in levels of socioeconomic development and the different paces of population replacement. Finally, tentative evidence in favour of modernisation theory is presented, indicating that population replacement universally contributed to a decrease in the work ethic in all the other European countries with comparable EVS data.

Teorije društvenog sjećanja

Author(s): Veronika Novoselac / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 2/2022

Review of: Barbara A. Misztal: Teorije društvenog sjećanja; Kršćanska sadašnjost, Zagreb, 2021., 262 str

PLAYFUL AND SOCIAL INTERACTION IN PHYSICAL GAME: A QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE STUDY OF REAL-LIFE ESCAPE ROOM

Author(s): Hsiao-Ping Chiu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

This study investigated the player experience, playful design factors, and player behaviors of real-life escape room games. A questionnaire survey, group interviews, and behavioral observation were conducted to gather players’ demographic information, game experience, social presence, game behaviors, and social interactions while playing a reallife escape room game. Results indicate that a player’s background and the theme of the escape room affect game performance and game experience. The playful design factors are sorted into five categories: story, clue, puzzle, mechanism, and interior design. The player behaviors include individual and team behaviors: searching, thinking, monitoring, physical activity, communication, information sharing, decision making, and cooperation.

Critical Theory in the Glocal South: Introduction

Author(s): Kirsten Locke,Jacoba Matapo,And Pasley,Sean Sturm / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

The call for papers for this special issue of Knowledge Cultures invited critical and critical-creative responses to the question of what it is to do critical theory in the Glocal South. We sought contributions from scholars that were at all stages in their academic careers and that could draw on participant-led, post-qualitative or arts-based – i.e., experimental – methodologies.

Andreas Önnerfors, André Krouwel (Eds.): Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe

Author(s): Natália Slivková / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

Review of: ANDREAS ÖNNERFORS, ANDRÉ KROUWEL (Eds.): Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe London, Routledge 2021, 282 p.

Ghodsee, Kristen - Orenstein, Mitchell., 2021: Taking Stock of Shock. Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions

Author(s): Petr Mezihorák / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

Review of: Ghodsee, Kristen - Orenstein, Mitchell., 2021: Taking Stock of Shock. Social Consequences of the 1989 Revolutions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 288 s. ISBN 9780197549247.

Miloslav Bahna – Roman Hofreiter – Oľga Gyárfášová – Jozef Zagrapan: Medzi Východom a Západom. Prípad Slovensko

Author(s): Patrizia Prando Šušová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 5/2022

Review of: Miloslav Bahna – Roman Hofreiter – Oľga Gyárfášová – Jozef Zagrapan: Medzi Východom a Západom. Prípad Slovensko Bratislava, Sociologický ústav SAV 2021, 224 s. ISBN: 978-80-89897-30-8

Marta Kolářová: V souladu s přírodou: politika životního stylu, udržitelnost a soběstačnost

Author(s): Magdaléna Vášáryová / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 5/2022

Review of: Marta Kolářová: V souladu s přírodou: politika životního stylu, udržitelnost a soběstačnost Univerzita Karlova, Praha, Karolinum (SLON), 2021, 254 s., ISBN 978- 80-246-4993-1

Çocukların Boşanmaya Uyumu Ölçeği-Aile Formu’nun Geliştirilmesi

Author(s): Semra Kiye,Serap Nazlı / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 02/2022

The aim of this study is to develop the Children's Adjustment to Divorce ScaleFamily Form (CADS-Family Form). The CADS-Family Form is designed to collect data from adults (parents/caregivers) who observe the behavior of children whose parents are divorced or in the process of divorce. A total of 368 parents, 85.5% female (315) and 14.4% male (53) participated in the research. The CADS-Family Form is a Likert-type scale. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) analysis were conducted within the scope of scale validity and reliability studies. According to the results of EFA, it was understood that the responsibility was 0.85 for the dimension of emotional-behavioral problems, and 0.89 for all scale items. The results of the analysis show that the CADS-Family Form with a 5-point Likerttype rating consists of 13 items and two dimensions (responsibility, emotionalbehavioral problems) and is a reliable and valid scale for measuring children's adjustment to divorce.

Üniversite Hastanelerinin Covid-19 Dönemi Öncesi ve Sonrası Etkinliklerinin Pabon Lasso Modeli ile Değerlendirilmesi

Author(s): Ayşe Gamze Çiftçi Aytekin / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 03/2022

As a service organization, hospitals are categorized into levels in terms of the service provided by health service providers. At the top of these steps are university hospitals as tertiary healthcare service providers. In this respect, although university hospitals have a small volume in the health system in terms of quantity, they have an important share in terms of the content and quality of the health service they provide. From this point of view, the activities of 10 different state university hospitals operating in different cities of Turkey were measured before and after the Covid-19 period with the Pabon Lasso Model using bed occupancy rate, the average length of stay and bed turnover rate indicators. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there were 4 and 3 hospitals in the 3rd zone, which had the highest efficiency, in 2019 and 2021, respectively, and there were 5 and 2 hospitals in the 1st zone, which had the lowest efficiency, in 2019 and 2021, respectively.

Question(Ing) Strategies in British Political News Interviews: Grilling The Interlocutors as a Strategic Weapo

Author(s): Joanna Szczepańska-Włoch / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2022

Every dialogue is constrained by a rigid framework, which manifests itself in its linear character (an initial-continuation-counter move structure or a question-answer relationship and dismissal-argumentation order of dialogue), and which illustrates the functional dependencies between sentences or sequences of sentences. The following study focuses on the discourse-pragmatic notion of the interviewer’s text-forming strategies, and, in particular, the question-answer relationship of political news interviews in Great Britain. Attention is focused on the questioning strategies employed by Andrew Marr in The Andrew Marr Show. Various types of questions within epistemic logic, which act as the strategic repertoire of the participants in dialogue games (Carlson 1983), are examined. The list of question types includes indirect and direct questions, where the former refer to sentential (yes-no), search (wh-questions), conditional, alternative, tag, ellipted, disjunctive or conjunctive questions (as instances of multiple questions), and the latter to questions presupposing the accomplishment of the specific epistemic state. Andrew Marr, as a dominant participant in this dialogue game, at least with reference to his role that presupposes topic control (selection and change of topics), will use this strategic weapon to influence the politicians’ performance and make them account for their political actions.

The “Poor” in Biographical Sociology Classics— “The Others” or “People Just Like Us”?

Author(s): Agnieszka Golczyńska-Grondas / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

In this article, I aim to reflect on the relationships between the researchers and those whom they investigate, referring to examples provided by classical biographical texts pertaining to the issues of poverty and social exclusion, i.e.: “The Polish Peasant in Europe and America” by William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki and “The Jack-Roller. A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story” by Clifford R. Shaw Concepts of poverty or social exclusion are both “moral” and descriptive; therefore, research in the field is particularly susceptible to social valuing processes. This notion is extremely important in biographical research, where scholars thoroughly analyse the lives of informants. The scholar-informant relationships are inscribed in the frames of Othering and meeting the Other. These stances, replicated in later years, still resonate in sociological publications, in the dimensions of individual biographies, social relations between privileged and disadvantaged groups of social actors, and institutional solutions to social problems.

„Gorąca socjologia”: Przypadek szczególny. O ewaluacji „gorących” pomocowych programów społecznych

Author(s): Magdalena Dudkiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2022

The article deals with several cases of evaluation research of social welfare programmes, which are unpredictable due to how those programmes are necessarily entangled in present social “hot topics” that are not easily manageable. Specifically, this article describes experiences gathered during the evaluation of municipal welfare programmes in Warsaw, which deal with the prevention and damage reduction of specific social ills: family violence and addiction and its consequences. The “hot topic” nature of evaluation research is seen as caused by emergencies requiring fast adaptation by researchers, including prompt decisions regarding research methodologies and approaches. Such situations are described using the author’s experiences in adapting the evaluation to the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

Fenomen pisania o własnym życiu Konkursy pamiętnikarskie w Polsce w XX wieku

Author(s): Paweł Rodak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2022

The article contains a brief description of the Polish tradition of diary competitions and the usage of autobiographical documents in the Polish social sciences. This tradition harks back to the 1920s, and is linked to the activities of Florian Znaniecki, who collaborated with William Thomas on the compilation of the monograph The Polish Peasant in Europe and America based on personal documents, chiefly letters and autobiographies. Between 1918 and 1939 the tradition was nurtured by the Instytut Gospodarstwa Społecznego [Institute of Social Economy] under the guidance of Ludwik Krzywicki. The ISE organised a few important diary competitions (for peasants’ diaries, diaries of the unemployed, and the diaries of emigrants). The research methodology, known as the biographic method and associated with the names of Florian Znaniecki, Józef Chałasiński and Jan Szczepański, was also developed then. During the War, the tradition was continued through the practice of collecting wartime and Holocaust testimonies (e.g. the activities of the Oyneg Shabbos group in the Warsaw ghetto, bearing fruit in the creation of the enormous Ringelblum Archive). Then, after World War II, the Towarzystwo Pamiętnikarstwa Polskiego [Polish Diary Association] was founded; it organised numerous new diary competitions and coordinated the activities of the Polish diary movement. Towards the end of its activities the TPP archive was in possession of almost 900,000 diary manuscripts and typescripts; sadly, after the year 1989, as the TPP’s funds for its activities steadily dwindled, the vast majority of them were lost. That is why the existence of social archives, in which diary and autobiographical materials can be stored, is so important. The latest face of diary competitions is described in brief at the end of the article: competitions organised at the turn of the 21st century for the diaries of peasants and the unemployed, as well as competitions for diaries from the pandemic of 2020 and 2021.