Marriage is a deeply rooted institution, but today it is in big crisis. In Italy – with regard to 2015, the latest available survey – 194,377 marriages were celebrated (246,613, in 2008), but separations were 91,706 (84,165 in 2008) and divorces 82,469 (54,351 in 2008). It is a trend in line with European data. Is marriage only an "archaeological" residual? Actually, also today the fascination of marriage survives as it is confirmed in many books on the theme and within the media where, even when the marriage takes place between subjects who have experienced the previous failure, it is described as if it were the first and the last. Of course, so many cohabitations out of marriage are related to a change of mentality, but not so deep to reject marriage as public institution. My short contribution (recently I published a book on the issue) aims to support the challenge of love in the perspective of marriage. In my opinion, the mistake about freedom could be the cause of current fragility, and education to marriage could be the possible strategy to face the problem. I start by focusing on the anthropological depth of the institution of marriage, whose recognition supports the motivation to preserve and promote the value of the wedding.

Child-rearing is an individualist, social and cultural process. This paper proposes that Child-Rearing has invariable characteristics and huge diversity. It has been considered that cultural perspective may contribute to the understanding of such multiple forms of child-rearing. The present paper provides an analytical account of dominant factors of child-rearing and caring. The factors selection is done by reviewing the articles which have either more than 50 Google scholar citations or are indexed in top-class journals. It also aims to ascertain whether or not Indian child-rearing intrinsically has something different in its practices and which child-rearing patterns are global and common among all the countries. This article took majorly dominating factors in the area of child-rearing and provided a qualitative comparative account of India especially in relation to the world. Some factors are individualistic as parental attitude and the parent-child relationship. But the study found that corporal punishments, socialization and cultural factors have a strong impact on child-rearing. Altogether these factors affect the cognitive skills of children. The study will give a critical overview of child-rearing patterns in India and across the globe, which would be helpful for policymakers to create new policies and act accordingly.

There is an ongoing debate on how parents and the cooperation between parents and teachers contribute to educational inequality. In this study, the assumption that information and trust in parent–teacher cooperation mediate the effects of parent socioeconomic status (SES) on student achievement in mathematics and instruction language (German) was examined. The effects of information and trust on achievement were assumed to be mediated by parent self-efficacy expectation in German. The hypotheses were tested using a sample with 1001 students from 4th to 6th grade and their parents in Swiss primary schools using questionnaires and achievement tests at the beginning and the end of a school year. Results from structural equation models with longitudinal data showed that parent trust and parent self-efficacy expectation fully mediated the effect of SES and student achievement in language instruction but not in mathematics. Information did not correlate with SES nor with student achievement, but with trust. Parental trust in the cooperation with teachers affected achievement in both mathematics and German. The model combines the research on parental involvement with the research on educational inequality in school. Teachers need to establish trust in cooperation with low-SES parents to reduce educational inequality in school.

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on placing children in foster care. Our main research aims to explore the connections between the future orientation of disadvantaged young people living in residential care homes and foster families. In our pilot-study, we made it measurable by a comparative analysis of their study results. The sample consists of children raised in the child protection specialist and aftercare system of the Greek Catholic Child Protection Centre of Debrecen and Nyírség. The comparative analysis included 57 children and young people living in residential care homes and 57 children and young adults living in foster care. The members of both groups were born between 1993 and 2003, so are 15-25-year-olds. The comparative analysis was made on the basis of the available documents and study statistics between June 2019 and November 2019, to measure and compare the academic achievement of young people living in residential care homes and with foster parents. According to the statistical analysis, it was found that the academic achievement, based on year repetitions, show a more favourable picture of students living with foster parents. Depending on our results, a number of additional research questions arise.

The aim of the paper is to describe specific aspects of deaf parenting of hearing children, based on an interpretation of research findings concerning the target group. Deaf parents, isolated from the verbally communicating majority by their sensory disability, face the challenge of raising and preparing hearing children for life. Our research based on semi-structured interviews with both deaf parents and hearing children demonstrates, however, that these parents do not primarily describe their parenthood as difficult or complicated. They are reconciled to their handicap and its consequences and use tools in the social environment to overcome the disadvantages of deaf parenting. Some “children” (all our respondents were adults reflecting on their childhood) describe, in contrast, their experience as a gradual reverse of natural family roles, with children eventually navigating their parents around the hearing world. These results indicate the need for further activities with these target groups in social work.

Ethnic minority Deaf people form a social group whose members often share complex and multiple cultural backgrounds. This research explores linguistic socialization and identity development in ethnic Hungarian Deaf families living in a multi-cultural region of Romania, examining the identity related aspects of the family formation and the transmission of identity to children in ethnically homogenous (Hungarian) or heterogeneous (Hungarian-Romanian) families founded by Deaf spouses. Methodologically the research is based on survey among members of the ethnic Hungarian Deaf community in Bihor County and their ethnic Romanian spouses, career interviews with Hungarian Deaf Special School graduates and family case studies of two or three generation Deaf families. The research results reveal that the ethnic homogeneity of Deaf family partners is a key factor in handing down to children the Hungarian ethnic-national identity and the Hungarian sign language / oral language knowledge. The research findings also highlight the fact that within family interactions involving three generations where Deaf and hearing, ethnic minority and ethnic majority family members are present, specific, multifaceted communication models may prevail, and pathways and modes of identity transmission with particular characteristics may occur.

This theorethical article outlines the development of family life education in Hungary. In the early 20th century, as a result of civic initiatives, this specific educational area as an independent professional and scientific field was organized in the United States and Western Europe. In Hungary, however, much like other Central and Eastern European states, institutional education became available much later. A government decree issued in the early seventies draws attention to the fact that "the biological, health, ethical, moral knowledge necessary for harmonious, desirable human relations is not sufficiently widespread among the general public, especially among young people, to create a well-balanced family life and to achieve a broad range of modern family planning. Therefore, measures should be taken to prepare for family life in all forms of public education and in the dissemination of information to the general public” (Mihalec et al 2011, 90) Komlósi points out, however, that despite the first governmental initiative on family life education, for decades there has been no significant change in practice. (Komlósi 1995) ” In Hungarian secondary education, the pedagogical knowledge that can be chosen as subject matter for graduation examinations in pedagogical vocational secondary schools includes a growing proportion of topics related to education for family life.

In social sciences, a more sophisticated way of examining students' school performance, based on the combination of school and family factors, is becoming increasingly popular. Important indicators of schools operating in a given territorial and societal context can be obtained both at student and institutional levels if territorial characteristics are included. In our research we examine the correlation between family background and performance, and investigate the settlement type where the proportion of students from low SES schools is the highest. At the same time we are also curious whether there is a greater chance of resilience in smaller communities. Our results show that the majority of students from low SES schools study in small settlements, but resilience is clearly not more typical in smaller communities.

There are a number of factors around the world that influence the evolution of school structure such as historical, cultural tradition, nature of the economy, demographics, etc. After-primary school further education is a highlight of the Hungarian school system, as it also defines the entire school career and future of the pupils. The choice between the three types of training, the secondary school, vocational academic school and standard vocational school, is backed by different strategies spanning the entire school career of the students, the educational qualifications being the goal. While choosing high school leads to a degree, the choice of vocational school is one of the fastest and easiest ways of the acquisition of qualifications. However, vocational secondary school also offers a chance to study in higher education (Hermann, 2005) In our study, we look at the evolution of secondary school types in light of policy changes from the 1940s to the present day.

In the present study, we examine the social integration of former Transcarpathian students who participated in the university preparatory training of the Balassi Institute. Social integration plays a major role, both among mobile students settling in the destination country and in the sending country. Despite the fact that Hungarian students from Transcarpathia have the same linguistic and cultural background as their motherland, their integration into Hungarian society is often hampered: migration often involves giving up home connections, and the success of building new ones is unpredictable. Successful adaptation to the social environment of the destination country is not always an automatic mechanism. Our research was conducted using a questionnaire method. In the survey, we sought to answer the question of where the former Transcarpathian students participating in the preparatory training of the Balassi Institute settled after completing their studies and how they managed to integrate into the society of their place of residence. We compare the social integration of people returning to Transcarpathia, settling in Hungary and living abroad. In summary, we would like to present the results of the survey.

The statistics show that minority Hungarians’ education and participation in higher education, lags far behind the majority of society in Central Europe. Furthermore, we also know that the smaller the community, the more educated they are.  The explanation for this could be, those who are less educated are more prone to assimilate. As a result, the existential question from these minority groups comes down to the growth of their level of education, a condition of which is university students’ acquisition of diplomas. Those factors deserve more scrutiny, in their identification, that increase the chances of getting a diploma. The goal of our study is (1) to identify the students who are persistent and at risk of dropping out, (2) to define the risk factors, and (3) at the same time to uncover the protective/ supporting factors as well. The theoretical background for our research was constituted by the institutional integrational model. The database used for this study contains data collected during a survey of Hungarian students from four different countries in Central Europe (IESA 2015, N= 2017). We found from our research that though the effect of intergenerational connections among students at Central European minority schools proved significant, the effect of place of residence, of settlement type, and of relationships within the family was even stronger.

Bibliography of the reviewed book: Engler, Á. (2018). Future plans for university students. Debrecen: Center for Higher Education Research and Development. p. 212., ISBN 978-615-80077-6-4.

Bibliography of the reviewed book: Davis, N. Shannon and Greenstein N. Theodore (2020). Why who cleans counts. What housework tells us about American family life. Location: Policy Press Chicago. 172 pp., ISBN: 978-1-4473-3674-7