SOCIAL POLICY OF THE UNITED NATIONS AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Author(s): Mile Ilić,Milan N. Jovanović / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The study of social policy almost always has its beginning in the Organization of the United Nations. It is also the source and meeting place for local social policy, benchmark against which the standards are established. Poverty, illiteracy, hunger and social inequality have become serious reasons that can impair global relations, which is the main motive for the creation of ECOSOC. Since its formation, the United Nations has made significant achievements in the field of social policy and has proven to be an indispensable instrument for international cooperation. The UN, with more or less success, remained consistent with its proclaimed goals and principles. A large number of UN declarations in the field of protection of workers, women, children and many other aspects of social policy attain its final form and true value only after their implementation in local communities. Inequalities between regions, crime and unemployment must be accepted as a reality. But it is right there that the need for the UN activities emerges, which should create timely and appropriate measures in the field of social policy and be applied all the way to the local level.

Recenzje: Humanistyka a zagrożenia technonauki

Author(s): Bartosz Stopel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 31/2015

Jak prowadzić partycypacyjną ocenę technologii? Przegląd metod i technik

Author(s): Agata Stasik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2015

The article discusses the issues related to the participatory Technology Assessment (pTA). The author highlights that in order to con‑ duct pTA one not only needs to be convinced that there is a point in this activity, but also should have techniques and tools that convert ideas into effective social actions. The article reviews most important experiences with the application of different methods designed to take into account knowledge, perspectives and interests of a broader array of stakeholders or members of general public in the political discussion on potential employment of new technologies, such as consensus conferences, citizens juries, and scenario workshops. Strengths, weaknesses and expected outcomes of the chosen methods are characterized on the basis of specific examples described in academic and professional literature.

Potrzeba dialogu a słabość społeczeństwa obywatelskiego (na przykładzie programu partycypacyjnego „Razem o łupkach”)

Author(s): Katarzyna Tamborska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2015

This paper discusses the basic assumptions of Technology Assessment (TA). As an example of TA process the author employs “Together about shale gas” programme (executed in northern Poland). The first two sections briefly outline the Polish context of shale gas ex‑ traction and describe what technology assessment is. In the next two chapters the objectives and outline of ‘Together about shale gas’ programme are presented. The author attempts to recognize how many of the TA assumptions are given in the programme and identify its outcomes. The final section examines challenges for the Polish policymakers in the field of technology assessment.

Innowacyjne technologie energetyczne – w stronę energetyki rozproszonej

Author(s): Mirosław Sobolewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2015

The article focuses on technological change in the energy sector in light of its social context. Author examines recent progress in several emerging technologies (solar electricity, energy storage, passive buildings) and claims that widespread deployment of these technologies will lead to structural change in operational model of traditional energy system. Transition towards more decentralised energy may have a wide range of socio‑economic implications, therefore policy guidance pertaining to future shape of energy market should be assisted withTechnology Assessment (TA) studies.

Technologie cyfrowe w dyskursach o przyszłości pracy

Author(s): Kazimierz Krzysztofek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Our knowledge on work is based on the output of sociology of the industrial work. Nowadays we acquire the empirical material on the work in society called postindustrial, information, network, knowledge based one etc.. In this paper methodologically based on the critical analysis of discourses I attempt at bringing closer these discourses related to the impact of new technologies on our understanding of work. I focus on six discourses: (1) End of work, technological unemployment, work of machines, (2) „Washing out” of the center – rising demand of high and low skills, (3) Machines need man – man needs machines; work in techno-human collectives, (4) Dispersed work, prosumption, (5) Work of Multitude, (6) Abundance of work. Metaphor of “the house under construction”.

Skąd się biorą głosy nieważne w wyborach do sejmików województw?

Author(s): Adam Gendźwiłł / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article describes the phenomenon of large shares of invalid ballots in regional elections held in 2010 and 2014 in Poland, simultaneously with municipal and county elections. The regression analysis (conducted with use of data disaggregated at the municipal level) demonstrates that the patterns of invalid votes’ distribution in 2010 and 2014 were similar. The models indicate a relatively strong impact of ballot card design. In 2014 a brochure ballot card was used in all regions; in 2010 brochure was used only in Mazowsze region, while in other regions voters used single-page ballot card. The analysis also demonstrates that invalid votes in regional elections were casted more frequently in small, peripheral communities where voters were mobilized to participate primarily in the election of local, not regional, councils.

Pozycja prezydenta w systemach politycznych krajów pokomunistycznych a fragmentacja systemu partyjnego

Author(s): Wojciech Rafałowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The presidential powers and the direct elections of the head of the state are two crucial components of presidentialism. Despite the two elements being logically and empirically correlated, they can lead to contradictory consequences for the number of parties in a polity. Strong presidents may use their informal influences to support their own political milieu and to encourage the concentration of votes. On the other hand direct election of the president allows all the candidates to establish and promote their own parties and help them in gaining support in elections that might lead to greater fragmentation.In this paper I confirm the aforementioned hypotheses testing the independent effects of presidential prerogatives and the mode of election on the number of parties at the electoral level using data from post-communist countries.

Obywatel współbadacz, czyli o pożytkach z dzielenia laboratorium – renegocjowanie umowy pomiędzy naukowcami a amatorami

Author(s): Agata Stasik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article analyses the phenomenon of lay people engagement in the processes of knowledge creation and their impact on the boundary-work between science and non-science. Basing on the examples of lay people involvement on the three areas: environmental science, medicine and syntethetic biology it is argued that in some cases, in accordance with the model of post-normal science, engaged public is able to modify the protocols of scientific investigation. Thus, analysed cases show that participants from beyond the academic system are capable to bring the meaningful contribution into the processes of knowledge creation. Wider citizens’ involvement in this process is considered as a radical form of democratic participation in the technoscience. To put the light on political consequences of this ongoing transformation, Bruno Latour’s notions “work of translation” and “work of purification” are employed.

Advances and Challenges of Social Epidemiology – the social determinants of health revisited (literature review)

Author(s): Zuzanna Drożdżak / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2015

This literature review revisits the concept of “social determinants of health” in light of new scientific findings and points to key research directions in modern social epidemiology. Recent evidence suggests that not only poverty but also inequality and perceived inferiority exert a detrimental influence on one’s health. It is also now clear that socioeconomic position influences health via various pathways, such as health behaviors, access to health care, environmental exposure, and psychosocial processes. At the same time, there is no definite conclusion as to the leading mecha-nism that would translate social position into morbidity and mortality. The need for causal explanations has opened up an important field for sociological investigation. Given its increasing international currency and the need to broadly address social inequalities in policy actions, it is time to bring this highly meaningful topic also to our research agenda.

Konsumpcja jako budowanie tożsamości

Author(s): Łukasz Iwasiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The article analyzes the sociological narrative, which sees consumption as a tool of discovering or reflective shaping of consumer’s identity. In contemporary societies, lacking support in stable institutions, individuals experience disembeddedness, hence they are uncertain of their identities. Lack of this foundation is largely compensated by the market. Disembeddedness from the old structures and the growing role of the market does not need to result in fabricated identities, formatted by marketing – as post-Marxist oriented authors declare. On the contrary – individuals can create their identities in much more conscious way, but it requires constant choices mediated by expert systems. Discourses presented by these systems express diverse, often conflicting positions, hence the „identity market” is pluralized. Consumption does not necessarily standardize and strengthen conformity, but can serve as a tool for developing identities which challenge the dominant ideologies. The article discusses the concept of consumption developed by the School of Birmingham, positions polemical to Bourdieu’s idea of structural determination of consumption, Anthony Giddens’ model of reflective consumption, Colin Campbell’s individualistic perspective on consumption. All presented concepts argue that individuals can, in the process of consumption, actively create their own identity. In today’s world consumers receive a variety of ways of problematizing their identity and many instruments to resolve them.

Co to jest jedzenie naturalne? Socjonatura na targowisku

Author(s): Ewa Kopczyńska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The objective of the article is to analyse the way in which customers of fresh food markets define natural food. The arguments made are based on 15 individual in-depth interviews conducted with customers of markets in Krakow and smaller towns in the Małopolska region. A relational approach and the premises of Actor-Network Theory were applied during the analysis, permitting the specific nature of the social category of naturalness of food to be identified. Food here is understood as a product of human and non-human factors, socionature, and the effect of coproduction.The article also develops the theme of the criteria and legitimation of consumer choices in the area of food and the importance of competences and social capital during shopping. It illustrates the link between the category of naturalness and those of trust, safety, cleanness, dirtiness and “chemicals”. Taken into account in the interpretation was the socio-economic context, including personal experience of food production and scepticism towards “eco” brands.

Problem etykietowania i stygmatyzacji wśród wychowanków zakładów poprawczych i schronisk dla nieletnich. Socjologiczna analiza zjawiska

Author(s): Piotr Chomczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

The following paper encompasses results of a few years of qualitative field study concerning group interactions among juvenile delinquents from reformatories and shelters. In the article there is discussed the problem of practices oriented on stigmatization both in verbal and nonverbal terms initiated by female and male juveniles. There are discussed conditions lying under self-stigmatization practices taken by inmates, which determine their social perception. In analyses there was helpful habitus theory by Pierre Bourdieu and Jean Claude Passeron but also conceptions of Erving Goffman encompassing social construction of stigma.

Antropologia kulturowa wobec fenomenu gier komputerowych (recenzja z: Radosław Bomba: Gry komputerowe w perspektywie antropologii codzienności)

Author(s): Damian Gałuszka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Użyteczność krytycznej analizy dyskursu politycznego dla socjologicznych analiz nowoczesnych zmian instytucjonalnych i moralnych (recenzja z: Isabela Fairclough i Norman Fairclough: Political Discourse Analysis. A Method for Advanced Students)

Author(s): Piotr Pawliszak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Kultura masowa nie dla mas

Author(s): Anna Dwojnych / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Prawdowatość Internetu i pęknięta bańka informacyjna (recenzja z: Wojciech Orliński, Internet. Czas się bać)

Author(s): Magdalena Szpunar / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2015

Harmonization: Newsletter on Survey Data Harmonization in the Social Sciences

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English Issue: 24/2015

The following are reprints of the articles that appeared this year in the Newsletter, Harmonization: Newsletter on Survey Data Harmonization in the Social Sciences. This Newsletter is a production of, and was originally published by, Cross-national Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training program (CONSIRT.osu.edu), The Ohio State University and the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). It was edited by Irina Tomescu-Dubrow and Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow, CONSIRT. Marta Kołczyńska of The Ohio State University provided technical assistance. The first issue appeared as Volume 1, Number 1, in Winter 2015. The second appeared as Volume 1, Number 2, in Fall 2015. They were first published in the website, consirt.osu.edu/newsletter. The catalyst for the Newsletter is the project, “Democratic Values and Protest Behavior: Data Harmonization, Measurement Comparability, and Multi-Level Modeling” (hereafter, Harmonization Project). Financed by the Polish National Science Centre in the framework of the Harmonia grant competition (2012/06/M/HS6/00322), the Harmonization Project joins the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology PAN and the OSU Mershon Center for International Security Studies in creating comparable measurements of political protest, social values, and demographics using information from well-known international survey projects. The team includes: Kazimierz M. Slomczynski (PI), J. Craig Jenkins (PI), Irina Tomescu-Dubrow, Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow, Przemek Powałko, Marcin W. Zieliński, and research assistants: Marta Kołczyńska, Matthew Schoene, Ilona Wysmułek, Olena Oleksiyenko, Anastas Vangeli, and Anna Franczak. For more information about the harmonization porject, please visit dataharmonization.org. All volumes of Ask: Research and Methods, 1995 to the present, including each individual article, are permanently archived in The Ohio State University’s Knowledge Bank. You can find more about it at the website, CONISRT.osu.edu/askresearchandmethods.

Changes in Social Structure, Class, and Stratification: The Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN)

Author(s): Kazimierz M. Słomczyński,Irina Tomescu-Dubrow,Joshua Kjerulf Dubrow / Language(s): English Issue: 24/2015

We present an overview of the intellectual foundations and some major research questions and topics of the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN). Carried out since 1988 in 5-year intervals, with the latest in 2013, POLPAN is the longest continuously run panel survey on chan ges in social structure, class and stratification in Central and Eastern Europe. The 2018 round is in planning. POLPAN is strongly anchored in recent theoretical innovations surrounding analyses of social structure and its change, as well as in the most up-to-date survey methodology. As such, POLPAN has major substantive and methodological contributions. Substantively, POLPAN constitutes a breakthrough that stems from taking into account individuals’ life courses in a long time span. Methodologically, POLPAN enhances knowledge about how to conduct long-term panel studies and how to assess the quality of this type of data. Social scientists interested in the dynamics of social structure, class, and stratification, as well as political attitudes and behaviors, have a wealth of data with chich to address timeless and timely research questions from a variety of perspectives and fields.

Social Stratification and Eating

Author(s): Henryk Domański,Zbigniew Karpiński,Dariusz Przybysz,Justyna Straczuk / Language(s): English Issue: 24/2015

Patterns of eating, as an element of lifestyle and consumption, constitute a major research area in the social and health sciences. The study of eating patterns focus on what pe ople eat, whether they eat alone or in company, where they eat, how often, and under what circumstances. For decades, research on eating within sociology had been somewhat neglected, but in recent years there has been an explosion of interest in this topic. In Poland, however, social scientific inquiry into practical, social, and cultural aspects of food has been minimal. Using data from a nation-wide survey carried out in 2013 and in-depth interview with 60 respondents conducted in 2014, we attempted to answer two questions: (i) to what extent eating patterns reflect existing inequalities and stratification, and (ii) to what extent they have been affected by globalisation and Western lifestyle. This article discusses theoretical background of our research, its empirical basis, and summarises the basic results.