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Family perspectives for young people growing up in child protection care
1-21Views:19The 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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The place and role of field studies in teaching medical sociology
44-55Views:43Introduction: The goals of the subject of Medical sociology are to familiarize and explain the relationships between social environment and health. The theoretical and practical elements of the medical sociology education and the field studies that form a part of practical work serve these goals. During filed studies, we build on the previous knowledge and experience of the
students. Method: The themes of the field studies change from semester to semester. From the series of studies we picked three themes that were connected to and built on each other. We present the role of field studies through their description and the explanation of our experiences. Results: Field studies add empirical skills and experience to the knowledge acquired during the
theoretical and practical training of medical sociology. The field study assignments also serve to strengthen the effects of the “hidden curriculum”, the process of the indirect professional socialization at the medical school. Furthermore, the new knowledge and skills give the students a better understanding of the scientific literature helping them in the interpretation of statistical
and methodological aspects of biomedical results and concepts. Conclusion: Our experiences show that field studies are an efficient teaching method. Its most important outcome is sensitizing medical students towards health related social problems and helping them to understand and handle such problems. -
Hungarian Academics Working Abroad: Female and Male Career Paths
23-48Views:31Transnational mobility has not only become an integral part of the successful, internatonally driven career path of academics, but is emerging to a great extent as a major performance requirement. Similarly to academic careers in general, international mobility of researchers is also a gendered process to a great extent. This paper aims to assess the most important characteristics of Hungarian researchers working abroad with special attention put on the similarities and differences identified in the career path of female and male researchers. With an online self-administered questionnaire distributed through a snowball sampling methodology
among Hungarian PhD-holders working abroad for more than one year, we investigated the motivation for international mobility, the career path, work contracts, work-life balance, future career plans and the perception of the value of the PhD degree. Our key findings indicate that male researchers’s labour market position is more advantageous abroad than female researchers’ and overall they are more convinved of the positive value of their PhD degree, while female academics were statisfied, but at a more moderate level. -
Deficiencies in the doctor-sick people/patient relationship. Chances and possibilities at the intersection of bioethical and sociology of health investigations
Views:36This paper brings into focus the theme of doctor-sick people/patient relationship by means of boethical principles interpreted in sociocultural perspective. The author, based on German literature, holds that the transformation of docor-sick people relationship [Arzt-Kranke-Verhältnis] into doctor-patient relationship [Arzt-Patient-Verhältnis] is one of the conditions and elements
of modern medicine. Its realization requires disseminate and making general the patient’s principle of autonomy, his right to self determination and his right to informed consent in Hungarian patient care. This civilization challenge – namely the adjustment of the quality of all elements of medicine (including attitudes) to the criteria and standards of modern medicine – is the interest
of all concerned in health care. In this setting interdisciplinary work is being offered by bioethics, for example to the sociology of health. -
Themes of medical profession and professional socialization in medical sociology textbooks
79-97Views:35Introduction: The present study examines the information on the medical profession and how the changes occurring in the medical practice, the social role and the evaluation of the physician are reflected in the English and Hungarian language medical sociology textbooks used in Hungary. Method: We analyzed chapters of Hungarian language medical sociology textbooks of the
last 25 years that discuss medical profession and student choices, and textbooks used in English language courses of Semmelweis University. Results: The corpus of the Hungarian textbooks (history of medical profession, medical role models, models of doctor-patient relationships, medical socialization) stayed relatively unchanged. While preserving the myth of the medical profession, there are criticisms towards the role and relationship models. The theme of the medical education gradually disappears from the
English language textbooks. The social positions of the medical profession and health care are discussed in a broader context, focusing on the health care system and health care provision, incorporating the allied professions, and taking aspects of patients/consumers into greater consideration. Summary: Both textbook types reflect on the changes in the social position of the medical profession. However, the English literature approaches the modernization processes from the angles of the health care system and health care provision, resulting in the diminishing importance of the topic of medical profession while the Hungarian literature focuses on the profession and professional education of physicians. -
Challenges in rural Hungary in the post-pandemic period: Perception of problems in „emerging settlements” of Sellye district
5-31Views:147The social problems of marginalised rural areas have intensified and transformed in recent years, particularly in the context of pandemic and economic crisis. In the countries of the Central and Eastern European region integration of marginalized areas is a major challenge. Unlike in the West, segregation and ghettoisation are problems of small rural settlements far from prosperous centres. In Hungarian countryside, the life of small villages, which are located far from economic centres and lack institutions, continues to be characterised by negative migration trends. In this article, we present the situation of seven small villages in southern Baranya, which are covered by the programme to help the 300 most disadvantageous Hungarian settlements to integration, in the light of the perception of problems of the population living there. Our survey aimed to explore the difficulties related to the pandemic and everyday life at local level. The assessment of subjective perceptions provided an opportunity to structure the disadvantaged rural population from a specific perspective and to analyse the problems of the characteristics of each group.
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Touristic entrepreneuring: „Szeklerland, the East of West and West of East”
206-226Views:23The present article analyses the touristic market in Covasna/Kovászna county, Transylvania, Romania. The basis of the paper are 30 semistructured deep interviews and one
focus group interview which had 6 participants who are all representatives of organisations active in the field of tourism. As the result of our research we can clearly state
that there are four different regulation levels: the level of governmental regulations,
professional organisations, cooperation and level of informal economy. Through the
presentation of these four levels we will also touch upon the issues related to professionalization, trust and quality. -
Alternatives of how to prepare for the future labor market
146-160Views:42What 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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The Career-building effect of volunteering in higher education
146-160Views:70Nowadays 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. -
An "integrated" volume on social inclusion
256-264Views:33In 2012, an important volume was published again by the Institute of Sociology, which seeks to answer the question raised by the previous volumes, such as "Social Intersections", as a possible new framework for approaching and interpreting sociology, but also perhaps as a new paradigm. In the volume's Introduction, the editors conceive of social integration as the central element of this possible new conceptual framework, conceptual system, assuming that it can carry a new synthesis of social inequalities, new redistribution, new market order, consumer society and relational society - the volume as a whole provides convincing answers to the theoretical questions raised in this regard.
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Literature review of the national identity of hungarians in Vojvodina between 1920–1898, I.
109-135Views:32Our paper follows on the observation made by Ferenc Pataki who stated that national identity is
a collective identity shaped by both political/citizenship-related and cultural elements. While
these two elements are usually similar, the national identity of people from ethnic minorities
differ along these two identities. Our analysis discusess the changes that happened during the
hundred years since the Treaty of Trianion to these two elements of the national identity of the
following three generations of Hungarians in Vojvodina: between the two World Wars, those
who grew up during the communism and those who became adults after 1990. We conclude that
the first generation retained their cultural-historical national identiy formed before Wold War I
but they did not develop Hungarian or South Slavic national idenities. To replace the South
Slavic identity they developed a regional identity to Vojvodina. The second generation, who were
born and raised after 1945, developed Yugoslavian political/citizenship-related national identy
through socialisation in a new political system and a regional identity to Vojvodina, which meant
an alienation from Hungary. As a result of their shattered cultural-historical national identity,
they started to assimilate, some of them lost their Hungarian cultural-historical identity and
acquired a Serbian or Yugoslavian national identity instead. The national identity of the third
generation who grew up after 1990 will be discussed in a second paper. -
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:68Our 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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Peer-group ties and a prison sentence: a chance to enhance successful re-entry
52-82Views:43Interpersonal relationships of prisoners are of key importance from the aspect of their reintegration. We focus our attention on non-kin, primarily friendship ties on a sample of young Hungarian males convicted for the first time, for a relatively short period of up to 3 years. In our longitudinal qualitative research, 80 offenders from eight penal institutions were interviewed while serving their sentence and 31 of them could also be reached 6 months after they left the prison. We analyse what significance prisoners attribute to their friendship ties, how these change during the prison sentence, which factors influence their sustainment or dissolution, weakening or strengthening.
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Changes in reproductive policies in Hungary between 2010 and 2022
32-57Views:154This paper examines Hungarian reproductive policies, their changes and their restrictions in relation to pronatalist objectives between 2010 and 2022. The aim of the study is to present and interpret legislative changes in reproductive policies in the context of the pronatalist policies in Hungary. Reproductive policies include the regulation of assisted reproductive technologies, adoption, abortion, contraception, and sex education. In the development of these policies, we assume that a fundamentally pronatalist approach prevails, but we also identify various specific related constraints: heteronormativity, marriage-centredness, and the maintenance and reinforcement of traditional gender roles. We assume that Hungary’s reproductive policies have become increasingly selective since 2010 after the second Orbán government. These policies can be considered selective because they do not encourage all social groups to have children. These result in the exclusion of for example socially disadvantaged groups, single people and same-sex couples from reproduction due to legal constraints, a lack of financial support, access, and transfer of information. In conclusion, selective, heteronormative and marriage-based pronatalism is most identifiable in the adoption context, but abortion regulation, the legal environment for assisted reproductive technologies and sex education, in general, may reinforce pronatalist objectives.
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Mechanisms of power, victimization and autonomy in the health care system
60-80Views:20The aim of this paper is to describe power relations, doctor-patient relationships among the
many ongoing changes in health care from sociological point of view. This paper is based on
interviews with 17 people who work in various fields of health care. To conduct the interviews as
well as to write the paper, a number of concepts and theoretical approaches were resorted to:
Dominique Memmi’s ’delegated biopower’, Eve Bureau and Judith Hermann-Mesfen’s notion of
’contemporary patient’, François Dubet’s concept of institutional programme as well as results of
Hungarian health sociology. The main focuses of interest of the paper are role models in health
care, the characteristics and consequences of new doctor-patient relations, their manifestations
in Hungary as well as potentials of defencelessness and autonomy in Hungarian health care. -
Structure and communitas: Subcultural problemsolving knowledge in an alternative high school
153-174.Views:19The paper describes the relationship between subcultural and school/institutional interpretations
in the inner discourse of an alternative school (the ’Diákház’) in Budapest. Interpretations and
practices, that belonging two different interpretive frameworks, appear simultaneously and
intertwined in the Diákház communication scene. This contributes to problem-solving
capacities/knowledge that individually do not appear in either of the two. In this discourse, the
subcultural manifestations of difference, deviance, marginality, resistance or communitas, and
the manifestations of knowledge, autonomy, responsibility and the hierarchical structure of the
school sometimes appear in opposition, sometimes in reinforcement to each other. The knowledge
formed in the discourse can be used by the Diákház to keep (formerly drop-out) students within
the institution, and by the students to reduce their own feeling of invalidity. In this way, the
Diákház is able to use the two opposite social states, communitas and structure, to its own
benefit -
Fenntartható fejlődés és szabadság
1-7Views:47... „Ha a szavakat nem használjuk helyesen, akkor nem azt mondjuk, amit szándékunk szerint közölni szeretnénk. Ha nem azt mondjuk, amit szándékunk szerint közölni szeretnénk, az elvégzendő elvégzetlen marad. S ha ez történik, erkölcs és művészet romlásnak indul; az igazság eltűnik. S amikor az igazság eltűnik, az embereken ... zavarodott tehetetlenség lesz úrrá ... emiatt tehát nem használhatjuk helytelenül a szavakat. Ez mindennél fontosabb”.
Confucius: Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4-7,Konfuciusz fenti gondolatait a társadalmi harmónia megőrzése érdekében ajánlotta saját kora döntéshozóinak figyelmébe. S habár azóta közel 2500 év telt el, mégis, meggyőződésem, hogy fenti mondatai ma ugyanúgy megszívlelendők, mint amikor annak idején tanítványai lejegyezték a mester szavait.
