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Social policy model change in Hungary in the light of post-2010 governance
28-42Views:314Hungarian social policy underwent a major shift in emphasis following the change of government in 2010. The aim of this study is to examine the direction of these changes of emphasis compared to the models used by Esping-Andersen to typify welfare states. The analysis uses the classical criteria of the models and analyses changes in social policy principles, goals and instruments in five areas. In the areas of employment, family policy, tax policy, housing policy and crisis management, we would like to show that in Hungary we cannot currently speak of a purely conservative social policy model as declared by the government. The conclusion of our study is that the Hungarian system currently uses mixed elements, although the declared values are conservative and the authorities try to preserve conservative structures and actors, there is a significant shift in emphasis in social policy, and the mixed model shows strong liberal elements.
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Women’s Work and Land Reform in Zimbabwe: A Feminist Political Economy of Social Reproduction
59-80Views:121While the future of work in Africa is increasingly becoming an important area of research, a feminist political economy of social reproduction holds potential to illuminate the gendered and geographical nature of women’s work in a context of radical land reform. Time-use surveys data was gathered across three study areas, two land reform and one non-land reform sites. This was complemented with in-depth and focus group discussions in the land reform sites with participants drawn from participating female and male-headed households. While literature on women’s work is accumulating, this has not been extended to integrate a feminist social reproductive lens on African rural women’s work in a context of land reform. The none or malrecognition of social reproduction by the State makes the latter an agent of depletion – a gendered form of structural and everyday violence on women. While liberating, radical land reforms, of their own, do not necessarily improve the care burden of women. This is compounded by the debt crisis crippling many countries of the global South.
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Interconnections between social work and the natural environment
96-112Views:160The aim of my study is to examine the appearance of ecology and natural environment in the
theory and practice of social work. By reviewing international literature, my aim is to review and
systematize basic theories and professional directions. I also consider it important to look at the
Hungarian aspects. Global environmental changes and social changes interact, and the social
work profession evolves, and incudes new trends and approaches while reflecting ever-changing
challenges. The relationship between the person and his/her environment has always been one
of the central themes of social work, but the pursuit of sustainability and the focus on the natural
environment may bring a new dimension to the interpretation of the person-in-environment
approach. In my paper, I attempt to understand the values and motivations of ‘green social work’,‘environmental social work’ and ‘eco-social work’ and I attempt to understand the relationship
between social work and the natural environment, and examine the roles social workers may
carry on related to the global environmental changes. -
Exploring the possible expressions of social dominance in an online context: Discourse analysis below the video contents of the representatives of Finn’s Party
104-127Views:149In the course of the study, discourse analysis was used to examine the comments posted under the videos of three representatives of the Finns Party with the largest YouTube following. The aim of the research was to identify discoursive manifestations of social dominance in the comment field. In addition, we also aimed to validate a word list of socially dominant terms. To this end, we have identified four linguistic categories that could form the basis of socially dominant communication, based on the literature of social dominance. The words with the highest number of elements in each category were presented in a word cloud. After collecting the most frequent terms, three external groups were identified against which social dominance orientation may be relevant. These suggest that the European Union, immigrants and the domestic left may constitute the out-group category in the eyes of populist supporters. Finally, the hierarchical terms were not validated as they occured in a negligible number of items in the sample. The successfully validated categories were plotted on a cross-tabulation, from which we created four different types of Finns Party supporters based on the out-group they named and the dominant common words and phrases in the comment categories. The presence of authoritarian, political out-group category points to the spread of political polarization in Finland. Since social identity underlies both social dominance orientation and political polarization, it may be relevant to examine both together in future research. Nonetheless, social dominance was not expressed in the way that was initially assumed and commentators perceived “real Finns” as the sufferers of a socially dominant situation. The background to this phenomenon is presumably the populist political rhetoric of the Finns’ Party, which tries to portray Finns as people left behind in disadvantaged social positions.
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Family perspectives for young people growing up in child protection care
67-87Views:237The study examines the factors of family perspectives among vulnerable youths – children and youth living in alternative care – with qualitative method. The target group is children who live in the Hungarian child protection system as juveniles. Children and young people experiencing different family substitute arenas may result in various family perspectives. These family perspectives are examined within a theoretical framework of family sociology and human ecology.We used a complex approach to describe the experiences and changes of these structural and family-replacer dimensions together with their impacts on the family perspective. We have found that the family perspectives of the young people are diverse and their narratives about their visions of the future are often linked to dominant family and life events previously experienced in family milieus and forms of care. At the same time, the complexity of life events and the diversity of future plans are not necessarily reflected in the institutional background and the professional-young relationships that could support young people’s autonomy. Based on the interviews, the family and community levels of the human ecology model can also be a significant factor in young people’s family perspectives, so cooperation between family and community, institutional actors can be one of the keys to providing adequate support for young people. In order to realize future plans for family perspectives, professionals need to focus more on individual needs and the diversity and variability of family perspectives.
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Family plans and career plans among higher education students in the field of social sciences based on a pilot study in Eastern Hungary
71-93Views:229Our paper explores the family and career plans of social sciences students at Hungary’s second largest university based on a questionnaire-based pilot study. Nowadays, careers include more than the traditional vertical promotion within an organisation, as seen from the emergence of the self-directed “protean” career type, which prompts organisations to adapt to individuals’ values, attitudes, and own career definitions. In addition, the Kaleidoscope Career Model sets out that individuals adapt their career goals to their life stages. Thus, students’ career and family plans matter to prospective employers. Our results show that a modern self-directed career type has emerged among students, for whom it is a priority to meet their own expectations. In several cases, starting a family is preceded by career goals. Furthermore, despite the “feminine” nature of social sciences, our pilot study shows that male students in the field still tend to conform to traditional gender roles regarding the importance of family and career. Our research implies that prospective employers need to adapt their HR strategies to young people’s family and career plans. Moreover, organisations should support students in gaining relevant work experience and in achieving their subsequent career plans.
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Online activities of Alzheimer Cafes in the 6 months preceding and following the coronavirus outbreak
42-64Views:186Alzheimer Cafés may play an important psychosocial supporting role in the life of people living with dementia and of their family caregivers by providing a community of understanding, inclusion, solidarity and mutual support. They can promote policy-, professional- and social discourses, the recognition of dementia as a social reality, and overall awareness of this complex challenge. They can also foster transdisciplinary collaboration among professionals as well as between professionals and lay people affected by dementia based on mutual understanding, catalysing the formation and operation of acting communities and networks of interest.
The active and purposeful presence and activities of Alzheimer Cafés on Internet platforms, in the increasingly prominent channels and fields of social discourse and community life in the 21st century, can be an important tool in the realization of these benefits.
This two-part paper analyses the publicly accessible online footprint and behaviour of Alzheimer Cafés from this perspective as measured by a list of 10 possible functions. It scrutinizes the realisation of possible benefits and advantages offered by Internet platforms between September 2019 and August 2020, with a special focus on technology-based adaptive responses to the coronavirus-outbreak midway through that period.
The first part of the paper (Kucsera – Holpert 2021) briefly overviewed the Alzheimer Café concept and its history in Hungary, presented the methodology of the study and the first half of the research results. This second part of the paper presents the rest of the results, and makes recommendations for making more effective use of the potential of online platforms to realise the goals.
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Online activities of Alzheimer Cafes in the 6 months preceding and following the coronavirus outbreak
19-41Views:210Alzheimer Cafés may play an important psychosocial supporting role in the life of people living with dementia and of their family caregivers by providing a community of understanding, inclusion, solidarity and mutual support. They can promote policy-, professional- and social discourses, the recognition of dementia as a social reality, and overall awareness of this complex challenge. They can also foster transdisciplinary collaboration among professionals as well as between professionals and lay people affected by dementia based on mutual understanding, catalysing the formation and operation of acting communities and networks of interest.
The active and purposeful presence and activities of Alzheimer Cafés on Internet platforms, in the increasingly prominent channels and fields of social discourse and community life in the 21st century, can be an important tool in the realization of these benefits.
This two-part paper analyses the publicly accessible online footprint and behaviour of Alzheimer Cafés from this perspective as measured by a list of 10 possible functions. It scrutinizes the realisation of possible benefits and advantages offered by Internet platforms between September 2019 and August 2020, with a special focus on technology-based adaptive responses to the coronavirus-outbreak midway through that period.
This first part of the paper, which briefly overviews the Alzheimer Café concept and its history in Hungary, and then presents the methodology of the study and the first half of the research results. The second part of the paper will continue to present the results, and will make recommendations for making more effective use of the potential of online platforms to realise the goals.
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’If a worker’s hostel – let it be good’: The status of worker’s hostels in state and corporate social policy in Szabolcs-Szatmár county in the 1970s
43-61Views:193The presentation of the commuter’s ’second home’ is inevitable in connection with the research of commuting as one of the most defining social phenomena of the Kádár era. This is particularly justified in Szabolcs-Szatmár county, which area was closely connencted to the phenomenon of short-distance commuting. One of the main goals of the intertwining state and corporate social policy implemented in the era, especially from the first half of the 1960’s, was undoubtedly to ensure satisfactory living conditions and cultural services provided by workers’ hostels. While from the beginning of the 1970’s, the county’s political leadership, one of the companies employing the most commuters, the Szabolcs County State Construction Company, prioritized the matter of workers’ hostels, which had been operated since the beginning of the fifties, from the end of the sixties. The company’s efforts were mainly shown in connection with the creation of suitable hygienic conditions and the provision of cultural opportunities. However, despite the significant financial outlay, a lasting result was not achieved, as a result of which the corporate goals set in previous decades were also prioritized in the 1980’s.
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The characteristics of social contact intensity, contact frequency and contact structure in Hungary in 2006 and 2015
102-138Views:183The study aims at comparing the Hungarian results of the questions on the frequency of personal and distance contact with relatives and friends in the 2006 and 2015 ad hoc modules of EU-SILC. According to our results, in line with the findings of previous Hungarian research, compared to 2006, there were fewer contacts in Hungary in 2015. Relations with friends, especially those held in person, were less exposed to weakening compared to relations with relatives. Among the different social groups, the already disadvantaged were typically negatively affected by either the change in intensity or the structure of relationships. However, the situation of the elderly and the inhabitants of deprived households deteriorated in all three dimensions examined: their relations weakened more strongly, and those related to relatives and personal ones further narrowed by 2015. This result indicates that the social disintegration of these groups has accelerated particularly between the two years, which poses a serious social policy challenge.
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Similarities and Differences of Students’ Labour Market Paths Graduated in the Field of Social Science
109-140Views:164We study graduate trainees’ (short) paths of four „social courses” and their transition from higher education to the labour market. We have thought in cases of the chosen social courses, that differences can become perceivable besides similarities. It has also been assumed that sociologists of the four chosen professions can be characterized by a diverse labour market behaviour from the other ones. It can be partially explained by the objectives, the content of their courses and the flexibility of the prospective institutional system. Compared to the above in cases of other social courses a diverse picture has been experienced by us based on the socio-demographic background and experience in labour market, expectations and satisfaction. Social workers and socio-politicians’ socio-demographic indicators are quite similar just like the socio-politicians and sociologists’ indicators are. This may be due to the effect of the level of master/academic education. We analyse the results of Graduate Tracking System (GTS) 2015 data collection in our presentation. The research was carried out by the Educational Office in co-operation with higher education institutions in the form of an online questionnaire. We sorted the respondents of the four chosen courses (828) out of all graduated (20 579).
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An Old-New Group on the Labour Market: the Precariat
3-40.Views:173The Precariat as social class is a core issue in social sciences. The authors contribute to this debate by introducing two approaches to measures the size and the social charateristics of the Precariat using two quantitative database. They estimate the size of the Precariat as a group on the labour market, and compare its social position with two other labour groups of the seg-mentation theory (the secondary and the lower primary). They found that while the standard of living condition of the Precariat is more akin to the secundary segment, the values and the level of satisfaction is more similar to the lower primary segment.
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Alternatives of how to prepare for the future labor market
146-160Views:184What happens if among the members of a society and among the smaller and larger units and groups making up the society trust and confidence seems to be disappearing at once? What happens if confidence reposed into each other fall victim to social differences as well as to the economic / cost-of-living boxing of modern information society? How to stop the crisis symptom that seems to be developing this way and which is shown in the fragmentation of communities?1 With other words, is it possible to “stick again together” a community or even a whole society started to disintegrate? The questions, even if not so characteristically phrased, provide sociologists actually with the scope of understanding our modern, individualistic world (Habermas 1994). Gusfield (1975) depicts dichotomy of community and society in a way that we should interpret community as a pervading, significant contrast. By now literature seems as if it was only be able to picture the changes taking place in the images both of the society and community describing them by even more pronounced, contradictory processes. The changes that send messages on the disintegration of categories and frames becoming insecure instead of the security and integration quasi missed by Habermas. It also seems as if—quasi as an answer given to this process—occlusion/seclusion both on the part of community members and the various communities from the seemingly unknown and insecure changes were more intensive (Légmán 2012). We intend to construe these phenomena on the next pages, but due to extension limits without the need for completeness of social interpretations. We want to do it with the help of mainly one dimension: value preference through the example of a given society, namely the Hungarian one. Thus we get to the stability and the solidarity of the members of the smallest unit of society, one which accepts and expresses various value preferences, the family.
From time immemorial, one of the crucial questions of mankind has been what the future has in store for us. The future, however, has remained unfathomable up to this day, and even future studies promises only as much as prognosticating what is likely to continue and what will plausibly change in the world. Thus, no wonder, that already the first “real” economists of the 18th century (Adam Smith et al.) considered the creation of the future model of labor economy as a challenge. At the present era of modern labor market, this task is closely connected with the future status of labor market since in a consumer society income acquired by work forms the basis of satisfying needs (Ehrenberg – Smith 2003, Galasi 1994).We are not saying anything new by stating the fact that the demand for labor force is determined by new places of work and that an ideal supply of labor force must be adaptable to the requirements of demand. To meet requirements and to be adaptable is possible only if we are armed with the necessary competencies and capital (Hodges – Burchell 2003, Bourdieu 1998). The question, to what extent students in higher education are prepared for changes in the demand for labor force, arises at this point. What can young people expect on the labor market in this ever changing world? What kind of job opportunities and work conditions are there for them, and how much are they prepared to face these changes?
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Territorial integration and development policy. : The case of Vértes Nature Park
41-63.Views:135The paper seeks to understand the influences of development policy initiatives on territorial in-tegration. Through the analysis of Vértes Nature Park case study we aimed at exploring whether the territorial relationships of the stakeholders can be restructured by spatially based develop-ment. The aim of the paper is to present the mechanisms of territorial integration by a case study analysis of rural territorial development.Our findings show that the participation and involvement of stakeholders in rural develop-ment are determined by their role and status in the initiative, thus the initiator actors are the more active ones. The territorial relationships of stakeholders are increased and strengthened by the level of involvement in the activities of Vértes Nature Park. Nevertheless, the territorial closeness also affects the stakeholders’ involvement. Csákvár and its surroundings have central position in this territorial relationship. The acceptance of the principals of the initiatives is also affected by the territorial closeness and it limits the contested development initiatives.
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Social representation of rural youth identity
101-113.Views:141In this paper, we investigate the local and self-identity characteristics of socio-cultural groups based on social representation theory and one of its methods (association method). Carried out on a sample of rural youth, the analysis focused on the relationship between the four groups, distinguished by their social representations of identity, with different intensities of meaning and the sociological background variables. In addition to the expected results, the hypothetical explanation for the contradiction in the emotional attachment and mobility variables can be further empirically confirmed.
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Equal opportunities and integration in the career choice: The relation between school competences and job market integration
173-190Views:147The competences manifested in the career choice decisions refer to the success of integration
and equal opportunities. They are able to forecast these social processes in a predictive way. The
career choice competences connect the individual features and the social scenes, so by analysing
them already the secondary school age group’s labour market success can be predicted.
By studying and analysing of the competence fields with the method of revealing the sociological, psychological and pedagogical correlations it is possible to determine the labour market competences of students facing career choice, which determines the success of their social
integration into the society at a personal level. Career choice plays a connecting part between education at schools and the labour market; therefore it has an important part concerning equal
opportunities and integration, beyond the effect of qualification. In my study I am describing this
process via displaying the affected competence fields. -
Knowledge, power and discourses in Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis
94-112Views:353Critical Discourse Analysis (or Critical Discourse Studies – CDA/CDS) examines the relationship between texts, discourses and power, dominance, power abuses and social inequalities. Critical discourse analysis is a multidisciplinary research perspective, which not only examines the interactions between the text, the micro level and its surroundings, the macro level, but its main goal is to uncover social inequalities, expose the forms and modalities of abuse of power. The representatives of CDA are committed to social equality and justice. Present paper presents the work of one of the outstanding representatives of Critical Discourse Analysis, Teun A. Van Dijk, by presenting the history and possibilities of CDA, and also the key elements of Van Dijk’s approach. This study aims to show how knowledge, power and discourse are connected in Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis.
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Social contacts and spending of leisure time of the elderly
86-104Views:468The phenomenon of the aging of societies is now well-known, demonstrating its demographic, economic and social impact in many countries around the world. The increase in average life expectancy at birth and the low number of children have naturally triggered the emergence of declining, aging societies. All this has led to a number of tasks for policy makers, domestic and international organizations, primarily to promote active, healthy aging. This article describes some of the results of an empirical study of 167 people conducted jointly with St. Luke’s Greek Catholic Charity in the winter of 2019 in order to assess the situation and needs of the elderly. This article presents the results of our study, which focuses on community activities, leisure, and social relationships. During our analytical work, we found that those living in residential care homes are more open to community-based activities to maintain physical and mental activity.
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The situation of Roma education in Harghita county – attitudes of pedagogues
75-92Views:132The study presents the attitudes and behaviours of pedagogues, based on interviews with
teachers working with Roma children which constitute the quotidian educational practice. In
absence of institutional programs, infrastructural and personal conditions, the teachers need
to find solutions for the given difficulties. They become the key figures of the integration process
and hence their attitudes and approaches are determining from the point of view of Roma
children’s school efficiency. The target audience of the research are composed by pedagogues,
who teach in elementary schools in the Csiki Basin in Harghita county, where the rate of Roma
learners exceeds 25 percents. Signalling the main directions of the national policy and the
presentation of literature examining the Hungarian-Roma relationship in Szeklerland offer a
broader framework for the interpretation of the subject. -
The Career-building effect of volunteering in higher education
146-160Views:258Nowadays the motives for volunteering are changing among higher education students, and
besides traditional altruistic motives, career-building motives also appear (the acquisition
of work experience and professional knowledge, professional development, networking,
the presentation of voluntary work in the resume). In this paper, we use data from a survey
conducted in five Central and Eastern European countries (N=2,199) to examine through linear
regression analysis the factors affecting the strength of career-building motives and to analyse
through a logistic regression model the determinants of whether or not volunteering is related to the field of study. Our hypotheses are formulated based on the literature. Our results show
that career-building motives are more pronounced among women and students who have a
close relationship with external friends outside the university, study outside Hungary, and study
something other than engineering, computer science or science. Voluntary work is more likely to
be related to the field of study among teacher education students, students with an unfavourable
financial situation, those who study in Romania, and those who have a close relationship with
faculty. -
Causes of the educational and labour market overrepresentation of women among NEET youth – Trends in Hungary’s Northern Great Plain region
32-51Views:106In the member states of the European Union, the gender distribution of the NEET generation (young people aged 15–24 or 15–29 who are not in education, employment, or training) does not follow a uniform pattern. While in Western countries men tend to be overrepresented in this group, in Eastern European member states, including Hungary, women are affected disproportionally. In this study, beyond a review of the relevant literature, we also present the results of our qualitative research from 2024 carried out in Hungary’s Northern Great Plain region (Hajdú-Bihar, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg, and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok counties). In this research, we examined the forms of gender inequality among NEET youth in terms of education and the labour market. Our key finding is that although men have, on average, lower levels of educational attainment and a higher rate of early school leaving than women, their long-term labour market prospects are more favourable. This is due to their greater geographic and occupational mobility, broader employment opportunities, and smaller burden of family responsibilities.
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What’s the matter? A text mining analysis of political topics and user engagement on politicians’ Facebook pages during the 2018 Hungarian general election campaign
94-123.Views:141The research investigates the way users interact with leading topics of the 2018 Hungarian
general election campaign on candidates’ Facebook pages. It expects that the prominent
(immigration, corruption) and campaign-related topics generate more user engagement, while
policy topics and mobilization content are less interacted. It also tests the theory of issue ownership
in relation with user engagement. These expectations are tested on a dataset that includes all
posts (38030 posts) posted by all candidates during the campaign (511 candidates). Topics
are identified by text mining methods. The study demonstrates that corruption, development
policy and campaign are highly engaged topics, while immigration was more interacted only on
opposition politicians’ pages since the followers of pro-government candidates engage less with
immigration-related content. The most surprising result is that a reversed issue ownership effect
can be detected since politicians are generally less successful with their own topics. -
Basic income: Sugar-coating over a bitter pill?
159-181Views:143Current and future evolutions in labour markets may be blurring lines between traditional
employment and new types of atypical employment, making it harder to reliably assess whether
someone is receiving any benefits at all. The basic income should be seen as a serious option in
the future, given the changing labor market and the findings from existing cash transfer schemes.BI is not means-tested, so the amount received does not depend on individual or family income or
assets and does not require any work performance, or the willingness to accept a job if offered.
In this study I examine the created image by the media through the method of content
analysis, in relation to basic income. Furthermore, it is analyzed to what extent this effect creates
a negative image of basic income among the students of the University of Debrecen, strengthening
the fear towards this social policy tool. Particular attention is paid to the value choices of young
people focusing on their individualization, motivation of working and willingness to take risks.
