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This article approaches intelligence activity from the point of view of the norms regulating sociological research, based on the premise that the main concern of both sociology and intelligence is to investigate the social aspect and find ways of interacting with it. Discussing intelligence work within the theoretical and methodological framework specific to sociological research offers intelligence professionals a complete and objective view of the threats/risks to national security and also the possibility of constantly improving the quality of products they put together for strategic decision makers. While intelligence work cannot be reduced to the methodologies of social sciences, these methodologies contribute significantly to the scientific truth contained by intelligence products. This aspect changes the focus/core of intelligence work from the “art of collecting” to the “science of analysis” and gives substance to the role that scientific research methods could play in increasing the quality of intelligence products.
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This paper aims towards reviewing the main contributions brought by social history and historical sociology and evaluating the reception which these two intellectual approaches received in the International Relations discipline (IR). They were involved in the theoretical disputes regarding structuralism’s destiny as a research approach, being often viewed as both alternatives and failed hopes. The debates are still important for understanding actor’s policies, because they identify and select the factors which are considered as significant for an academic domain and can influence decision-makers reactions.
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Intelligence analysis, like any other field of human endeavour, relies on and is shaped by discourse. However, the extent to which discourse affects the process of intelligence analysis has seldom been tackled in research on this issue. The present article contends that critical discourse analysis would be a vital tool for intelligence analysis in two respects: firstly, in deciphering the cultural and ideological mechanisms at work in the discourses that analysts receive from the field, and, secondly, in the production of intelligence reports themselves. The article then focuses on the errors that might arise in the production of these reports and identifies two main categories to which they pertain: those related to the analysts’ cognitive limitations and those pertaining to the discursive level per se. The aim of the article is to identify the means by which critical discourse analysis could be used to alleviate the effects these errors may have on the intelligence analysis process and suggests several coping mechanisms and techniques for analysts in this field.
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One of the main priorities of current educational systems is a strong connection between education provided by schools and the requirements of a successful integration in the social life and work field. This article offers the teachers’ perspective on the various ways in which outdoor learning can be useful in creating teaching-learning situations that prepare pupils to be active citizens and to have smoother integration in the social life and this way, on the labor market. The findings of a brief study among teachers from Arad County is presented. The method that was used is the survey based on a questionnaire. The main instrument that used was the questionnaire, which was based on a number of 12 variables. The quantitative data obtained was processed in the SPSS statistical program. The preliminary results show that even if teachers have some knowledge on the benefits of outdoor education regarding future involvement of pupils in social life, they tend to rarely use it in their educational practice. This happens because of the lack of correct and valid information they have on this type of education, and also because of the misconceptions of parents, who refuse to cooperate regarding this issue. The present study brings and important contribution in this research field, highlighting the values of outdoor education, both theoretically and practically.
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Aim. The aim of the article is to present the results of a study of gender-related features of the connection between empathy and performance of adolescents during online learning. The main objectives of the study are as follows: defining criteria for online learning success; holding expert assessment of success of online learning of adolescents; studying correlation between the level of empathy and success of online learning in groups of male and female. Methods. The study participants consist of 50 teenagers from a secondary school in Kharkiv (Ukraine) and their 10 teachers. The study uses the following methods: 1) expert assessment; 2) psychological testing (Mehrabian and Epstein Questionnaire); 3) statistical methods. The following is used for statistical data processing: descriptive statistics methods (to measure the percentage of people with different levels of empathy and different levels of online learning performance); Pearson's χ2 consistency criterion- (to compare data distributions in groups of female and male participants by all study indicators); Spearman's correlation analysis (to investigate the correlation between the level of empathy and the level of successful performance of online learning of adolescents). Results. During the study, the aim has been achieved and all the objectives have been fulfilled, in particular: 1) “involvement in online learning” and "quality of online learning" are defined as criteria for online learning successful performance; 2) expert assessment of the study results is carried out, allowing us to determine that female participants show mainly medium and high levels of online learning performance, while male participants show low and medium-level results; 3) it is determined that the correlation between the level of performance of online learning and empathy in the group of girls is higher than in the group of boys. Conclusions. The study shows that the development of online courses requires not only the use of modern technological and methodological approaches, but also taking into account the gender-related and personal traits of students.
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Aim. The purpose of this article is to analyse risky behaviours undertaken by university students on the Internet. Theory. The concepts of “risk” and “risky behaviour” are known and often discussed in science. Krzysztof Ostaszewski (2005) defines risky behaviours as actions that contradict social norms and legal order, which at the same time pose a threat to a person's health and development. The catalogue of risky behaviours is very diverse and—more importantly—open. With the development of civilisation, new forms appear. Examples include risky behaviours on the Internet. Methodology and research results. The study population sample consisted of 241 university students. The research was conducted using an online survey questionnaire. The respondents admitted to taking risks in the virtual world. A large percentage of respondents admit to sharing private information on social networks (almost 70%). Nearly 75% of respondents ignore communications about potential threats to websites, putting themselves at risk of losing sensitive data. Moreover, 65.1% of students admit to downloading content from illegal sources. Other risky behaviours undertaken by students on the Internet include Internet addiction and online activities, aggression on the Internet, sexual and/or erotic behaviour in cyberspace. The paper also presents the answers to open-ended questions, which refer to threats on the Internet as perceived by the students. The answers given most often referred to: addiction to new technologies, loss/theft of private data, vulnerability to false/unverified information available on the Internet. Cognitive value. Online risk-taking is a global problem. The phenomenon should be further theoretically considered and analysed in a pedagogical practice.
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Foreign Direct Investments and Labour Force Indicators in Transition Economies: Linear Mixed-Effects Models Impact Analysis. Main objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) on labour force in transition economies, through monitoring and quantification of selected labour force market indicators. This research analyses and discusses the effects of FDI inward flow on labour force indicators in transition economies from the economic and social point of view (i.e. quality of life of labour force). The paper argues that FDI inward flow should have a positive effect on labour force, through the increase of employment growth rate, wages, and reduction of income inequality. Data processing was done by applying Linear Mixed-Effects Models on 17 transition countries during the period 2000 – 2017. The findings show a positive and significant impact of FDI inward flow on employment rate and on wages and salaries, while the impact of FDI inward flow on income inequality is uncertain. Finally, there are policy and future research recommendations.
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The article examines key competences in the lifelong learning process – asa European reference framework, taking into account legal, psychological and pedagogicalaspects. The article contains an introduction and two subsections describing the concept andtypes of competences, and the second one examining the social competences in the Polish and European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning.
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The article addresses issues related to the experience of helplessness of a child’ssuffering. The theoretical part presents the perspective of understanding the helplessness ofa child experiencing sexual violence. The methodological part introduces the basic assumptionsof the research project. The subject of the study was the helplessness of a victim of sexualviolence, and the purpose was to identify significant determinants showing the helplessnessof suffering of a child experiencing sexual violence and their description in the experience ofstudy participants. The study used the narrative method following content analysis. The researchproblem took the form of a question: What is the experience of helpless suffering of a child in thenarratives of post-graduate students preparing to work with an abused child? The research wasconducted in 2019 among 23 post-graduate students preparing for counseling work. Obtainedresearch results have allowed the emergence of subcategories within the examined categoriesthat show the specificity and value of the helplessness of the suffering of the child describedby the respondents - victims of sexual violence. In addition, the conclusions of the study arevaluable for pedagogical practice, especially in the scope of enriching the educational offer forthe teaching profession and teacher in relation to diagnostic, intervention and support activitiesfor people with experience of violence.
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The article is an analysis of source materials as well as an interpretation of own research.The literature provides answers to the question of what professional predispositions related tothe work environment are manifested by socially maladjusted male youth aged 17–18. Theresearch is quantitative, equated with the positivist paradigm. It was carried out with the use ofa diagnostic survey method based on a research tool consisting of 50 statements with a threepoint scale of answers. The project was carried out in a youth educational center. The selection ofthe research group was deliberate, because it was composed of socially maladjusted boys aged17–18, towards whom increased activities related to the process of becoming independent areundertaken. The article contains a theoretical part analyzing the process of career planning.
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Household and family are critical units in coping with poverty. Different terms, such as livelihood, coping, survival, and adaptation, are used interchangeably to refer to the same activities to deal with poverty at the household level. This study aims to examine the concepts of household strategies and family strategies that are frequently used in social policy and poverty studies. In this study, the strengths and weaknesses of household strategy and family strategy concepts were discussed, and the importance of these concepts for poverty studies is discussed. Moreover, the opportunities provided by household and family units in the analysis of strategies to understand the decisions and actions going beyond the individual against poverty are elaborated. In the first part of the study, different definitions of household and family are elaborated. Although there are conceptual differences between household and family, household strategies and family strategies appear to involve similar survival and livelihood efforts. In the first of the study, it is elaborated that despite the importance of the household and the family for the survival of the individual against poverty, it is known that these units contain unequal power relations with the effect of various factors, especially gender and age. Despite these inequalities, the literature analyses the conditions and limitations of how people and family members stay together and form strategies are discussed. The second part of the study focuses on strategy and discussions on its use in poverty studies. By using household and family units in strategy analysis, decisions and actions beyond the individual can be understood. Strategy analysis is essential for the poverty literature as it is a form of analysis that emphasizes households and families' ability to transform their conditions.
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Frugalism as financial freedom and anti-consumer society movements does not exist until 2000, moving from America to Europe and now to Turkey. Frugalism is the reduction of expenditures without reducing the basic needs to gain financial freedom and early retirement. He aims intense financial planning, catching a high savings rate (between ages 25 and 40) at the very beginning of the career, and declaring financial freedom in the future (after 40). Frugalist is against the unnecessary spending of the consumer society, which are inflated by advertising, the restricted right to retirement when aging, and the way of life on unhealthy and disrespectful to the environment. Frugalism matures the person, and questions such as happiness, the meaning of life, long-term goals, time, money, and consumption. Frugalism finds himself in Stoic which emphasizes the differences between pleasure and happiness. Hedonism proposes to maximize pleasure in order to have the best life. But Stoicism rejects because pleasure is one dimension of happiness. An individual does not need external motivators (possessions of goods and compliments of others) to be happy. Healthy life, stress-free environment, making decisions independently are real luxuries. This blissing depends on financial independence which depends on frugal lifestyle. In the article, the concept of frugalism is investigated from philosophical, psychological, sociological, and economic points of view.
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This paper presents the post-disaster reconstruction of the Tōhoku region. Although Japan has always been one of the most prepared countries because of its long history with natural disasters, the 2011 Great East Japanese Earthquake and tsunami might be one of the most significant disasters recorded in the country’s modern history. This unprecedented disaster that has shaken Japan is a decisive turning point for the entire society as well as for architects and urban planners. Almost ten years later, reconstruction work is still ongoing. This paper introduces specifically Japanese architects’ involvement during the three phases of recovery: emergency shelter, temporary accommodation and permanent housing. After the first stage of perplexity and doubt, architects gradually stepped up and started initiatives to resolve the disaster victims’ precarious situation. This article outlines some of the architects’ actions through the three phases of recovery since the 3.11 disaster. Each of these temporalities has its issues and challenges which the urban planners, architects and designers tried to solve using their know-how to help rebuild devastated communities.
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The migration to the city, which started in parallel with industrialization, has led to changes in the daily life of societies and their entertainment. The participation of women in workforce and the importance of the female labour presence in the development of the country are appreciated and following the policies towards this direction reveals the reason behind women also have a need for entertainment. It is necessary to evaluate the entertainment and the enjoyment that pulls women away from the stress, difficulty and fatigue caused by home and work life and the way this need is met, especially in the context of cultural changes. The program called Girl with Girls to Girl with Kerem held in Eskişehir city center during the week is an example of urban-based entertainment towards this need. The program lasting 3 hours is performed by a graduate of the conservatory and it being full every week indicates that urban women are in search of novel entertainment. In the entertainment which has seen great interest from members of high income and high education groups in city, the effort to revive and preserve various traditional elements attracts attention. In the article, the entertainment program called Girl to Girl with Kerem, in which only women can participate in Eskisehir, is approached with a structural and functional approach. Based on the data obtained with the techniques of “participation”, “observation” and “interview”, It has been observed that he fulfills an important duty in terms of socialization, solidarity of women and casting social pressure and control mechanism aside. It was observed that the women were not disturbed by the biological gender of the program’s performer, enjoyed his choreography, stage costume, repertoire, his spectacles with his drag queens and dancers, and they took photos with him. The musician identity of the performer surpassing his gender identity also provides important clues about the breaking of the already established gender codes.
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This study analyzed the views of vegans who define themselves as Muslims, Atheists or Deists. Questions such as ‘How did you decide to be a vegan?’, ‘Please present your opinion about sacrificing an animal for God’ etc. were asked to the participants in order to evaluate their views. In-depth audio-recorded interviews were conducted with individuals over the age 18 which were then, decoded and interpreted. The interviews took place between April 9 and November 8, 2017. Upon completing the analyses, it was determined that some Muslim vegans want to live and behave according to the specific religious identity and continue life as vegans without exploiting innocent living beings at the same time. On the other hand, some of the interviewed individuals mentioned that the notion of sacrifice in Islam has changed in time and it is no longer correct to sacrifice animals for Allah in Islam. According to the obtained data, Muslim vegans do not usually put the vegan identity forward and avoid politicization. Muslim vegans also reported that they stay away from activist vegan groups. The common aspect among Muslim, Atheist and Deist groups is that they are against capitalism.
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In this study, Don Quixote, the famous work of the Spanish writer M. Cervantes, is analyzed in the context of the sociology of literature through content analysis as one the qualitative research techniques. Nowadays, although Don Quixote generally attracts readers with its humorous aspect, it is a very important and pioneering work in terms of being the first example of modern novels and a modern narrative about the social facts-events and conflicts in the social structure of its time. Firstly, the importance of Don Quixote as a literary work is emphasized, and subsequently, the main focus of the study is on Cervantes’ emphasis on modern individual and reader in his work within the context of being the first example of the modern novels. In this work, Cervantes criticizes restricted and passive reader established by the authors of classical narratives, and highlights active readers that stand out with their freedom of interpretation. In this work, it is also emphasized that a modern individual needs to comprehend the social facts of their time correctly, rather than pursuing life habits and dreams of the feudal era.
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The Holy Quran, as the greatest source of Islam, has always been the origin for multiple interpretive attitudes throughout the history of Islam. The existence of Mūtashābīh (multivalent or ambiguous) verses in the Holy Quran has opened new room for the introduction of various approaches in the interpretation including social approach and Feminist interpretation as one of its examples. After a brief introduction of Islamic feminism, this essay elaborates on the most important principles of feminist interpretation in contrast to traditional or classic ones such as gender equality, equality of rights, avoiding patriarchalism, complete freedom of intellect in understanding the Quran, the principle of non-contradiction among various sections of the Quran, and etc. Finally, the above principles are evaluated and criticized upon different elements including non-patriarchal nature of traditional interpretations, true viewpoints of the Quran regarding the equality of rights and gender equality, invalidity of eisegesis or subjective interpretation and matriarchally oriented approaches of feminist thinkers in exegesis of the Quran.
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It is seen that the concept of “social capital”, which is used in the social sciences literature to reference the resources and potentials, embedded in human relations in general and which over time form a detached faction of its own in social theory, tries to fill the structural gaps of Marxist social theory that has a normative character and explain the nature of social practice through “social networks” by centering on human relations. In this respect, it is understood that fictive kinships such as “blood brotherhood” or “kirvelik”, which are based on the symbolic roles of kinship and turn friendship relations between individuals into an institutional pattern, are directly related to social capital theory and appear as a very important field of study in terms of theory with the resources they contain or their potential for conversion to other capital. Therefore, in this article, the situation of the kirvelik institution in Sivas city center, which is seen mainly in the eastern and southeastern provinces of Turkey and connects people tightly by bringing friendship relations to an institutional basis, was discussed through social capital theory and the functions of this tradition for the local people were tried to be analyzed in detail based on the field research conducted in 2012.
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