L’article explore la question de la politique d’emploi et le fonctionnement du système de soutien à l’activité professionnelle des personnes en situation de handicap mental en Pologne. Les analyses sont basées sur des données provenant d’un projet de recherche plus large: Emploi et handicap. Reconstructions des expériences professionnelles des personnes en situation de handicap mental en Pologne. L’objectif du projet était de connaître la situation professionnelle de ces personnes en termes de politique d’emploi, de pratiques d’accompagnement sur les lieux de (...) travail et d’expérience professionnelle des salariés handicapés, de leurs accompagnateurs et des coordinateurs de projets de soutien professionnel. Le cadre méthodologique du projet s’appuie sur la théorie ancrée, basée sur le constructivisme social, dans la version présentée dans les travaux de K. Charmaz, l’analyse du discours et l’analyse sociologique des pratiques. Le matériau de recherche a été collecté dans 25 lieux de travail de personnes handicapées, dans différentes régions de Pologne, principalement au moyen d’entretiens approfondis, d’observations et de notes de terrain. Les analyses portant sur de la politique d’emploi polonaise indiquent une promotion de l’activité professionnelle des personnes en situation de handicap mental. Cependant, sa mise en œuvre est difficile. Les difficultés résultent de la mauvaise qualité du droit régissant l’activité professionnelle, de l’absence de solutions législatives adéquates, de barrières au niveau des employeurs et de l’absence de soutien financier suffisant. (shrink)

We highlight exclusionary practices in management research, and demonstrate through example how a more inclusive management literature can address the unique contexts of persons with disabilities, a group that is disadvantaged in society, globally. Drawing from social psychology, disability, self-employment, entrepreneurship, and vocational rehabilitation literatures, we develop and test a holistic model that demonstrates how persons with disabilities might attain meaningful work and improved self-image via self-employment, thus accessing some of the economic and social-psychological benefits often (...) unavailable to them due to organizational-employment barriers. Our longitudinal study provides evidence of the self-image value of ‘doing’ in self-employment, highlighting the potential to reduce stigma and improve generalized self-efficacy and self-esteem. Implications for self-image theory, entrepreneurship training and development, and public policy related to persons with disabilities are discussed. (shrink)

One of the most significant economic challenges faced by people with disabilities in Turkey and globally is employment. Unfortunately, even in developed countries, the desired level of employment of the disabled individuals has not yet been measured up. The fundamental rights and freedoms of employment and labor have gained a basis of legitimacy through certain principles within the legal system throughout human history. As a matter of fact, in the main references of Islamic law, the principles (...) of justice, rights, equality of opportunity, merit, anti-discrimination, and social responsibility for all people in general and disabled people in particular have been a reference in the development of employment policies. In this regard, the main objective of Islamic economic policies has been determined as ensuring the happiness of the individual in this world and the hereafter since the early period. The study first includes active and passive employment models developed in modern legal systems. It can be stated in this framework that from the early period, both in the practices of the Prophet Muhammad and the Companions and in the later Islamic societies, institutionalization was provided according to the characteristics of the period in which disabled individuals were actively and passively employed, and it can be stated that the developments regarding the employment of disabled individuals in Islamic societies started much earlier than expected. However, we must admit that legal regulations in the modern sense were introduced later compared to the West. The study focuses on the phenomenon of disability, the problems and needs of the disabled, and the studies on employment in Islamic societies from the past to the present. It is determined that many disabled people in Islamic society are actively employed in state positions ranging from imam to judge, from commander to governor according to their abilities, and the disabled people who cannot be employed are compensated for their disadvantages through passive employment methods such as health, care, housing, salary binding, and tax reduction. Determining the principles of employment of disabled according to Islamic law is the main subject of the study, and it has been established that maslahah, custom, siyasa shar’iyya, merit, and sedd-i zerâi constitute the jurisprudential basis of the employment of the disabled in Islamic law. In this framework, it has been stated that the principle of maslahah plays a key role in the development of social responsibility policies, in resolving issues that are not included in verses and hadiths and furû fiqh acquis, in gaining the economic independence of disabled and ensuring the minimum standard of living. Maslahah is also beneficial for the individual, family, society and the state, too. It has been pointed out that the employment of disabled people has become one of the most significant matters of both national and international legal regulations today, and it has been determined that the employment of disabled people has transformed into customary practices in accordance with the criteria of being a source of Islamic law. In Islamic administrative law, active and passive employment policies, legal regulations, and institutional structures related to disabled are carried out by the authority delegated to public administrators under the siyasa shar'iyya. It has been emphasized that administrative and public service appointments in Islamic law are ordered to be made on the basis of merit, that nepotism and favoritism are prohibited, and that disability is not an obstacle to employment. In conclusion, the insufficiency of studies on employment of people with disabilities in Islamic law has been pointed out and it has been suggested that further studies should be carried out on these subjects and exploitation of disability according to Islamic law should be studied. (shrink)

The article elaborates on the emergence of a new social category: the “worker incapable of working,” which has not yet been recognized in the scientific literature. In Germany, people excluded from the labour market are increasingly employed in workshops for people with disabilities due to what is defined as a total incapacity to work. In addition to the objective of labour market participation of people with disabilities, these workshops assume the aim of (re)establishing their performance and monitoring their reintegration into (...) the general labour market. Changes in the profiles of people working in the workshops and their recent expansion are described, as well as the transformation of working processes and conditions, especially through digitalisation. The consequences of these transformations are studied within the framework of “activating” policies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bioethics Commissions: Town Meetings with a “Blue, Blue Ribbon”Susan Cartier Poland (bio)Town meetings are characteristic of New England. In theory, a quorum of registered voters in a small municipality meets annually to decide local public policy. In fact, special interests and the town bureaucracy control the meeting.Like a town meeting, a commission (or committee or council) comes into being, whether on an ad hoc or permanent basis, to direct (...) a government function. Bioethics commissions specialize in one area: the intersection of public policy with developments, either real or anticipated, in the basic and applied sciences.That specialization of commissions carries over into the selection of the members. More often than not commission members are appointed on the basis of expertise in a specific area. Although some commissions are still made up entirely of one kind of expert, usually medical, the majority of these government bodies seek breadth between the fields of law, religion, ethics, and science (including medicine and the social sciences).In the words of Mrs. Rigenbach, the law clerk to Chief Judge Carl B. Rubin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, selection of persons “knowledgeable in the field” constitutes a “blue, blue ribbon” jury. In contrast, a “blue ribbon” jury is composed of those persons having “the greatest amount of formal education” (In re Richardson-Merrill, Inc. (Bendectin litigation), 624 Federal Supplement 1212 at 1217 (1985)). The problem with persons knowledgeable in the field is that their minds may have already been made up. For a jury, this is a disaster; for a bioethics commission, this directs and shapes the research, investigation, and discussion, or, in short, it makes for more efficient decision making.For this Scope Note, the definition of commission begins with the Bioethicsline description of its index term “advisory committees” as committees or commissions set up to advise government bodies on public policy. Furthermore, a commission [End Page 91] (or committee) receives government funding and support in exchange for its expertise in research, investigation, reporting, and recommendations.Six functions served by bioethics commissions have been clearly and succinctly described by LeRoy Walters (Commissions and Bioethics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 14 (4): 363–68, August 1989). The functions are: (1) to legitimize action; (2) to delay action or resolution; (3) to identify duplication; (4) to be representative; (5) to do research and find facts; and (6) to provide education and support (pp. 364–65). Since 1989, however, another government function has moved to the forefront. Instead of remaining within the legislative arena, government commissions serve the judiciary as well, in cases involving complex and technical questions. The now defunct Law Reform Commission of Canada recognized this use when it included in its annual reports a section on its “Influence on Law Reform through Judicial Decisions.”In mid-1997, the United States Supreme Court in its consolidated cases on assisted suicide used extensively the writings from a state commission, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, to support its rationale. Not only did the Court make use of the Task Force’s work, but in so doing the Court extended the efforts of the commission beyond its jurisdiction of New York into another jurisdiction on the opposite coast, Washington state. Furthermore, although the commission was chartered by one state, through the federal court system, its influence became national.Outside the U.S., the United Nations recently adopted its first bioethics text on the ethics of genetic research, and Canada is reworking its human research guidelines into a single set of guidelines that will apply to research in both the natural sciences and the social sciences.This Scope Note attempts to compile for the researcher and the reference librarian those commissions, existing and defunct, that have addressed bioethics issues. Only one other such attempt is known to the author, an Office of Technology Assessment [OTA] Background Paper, Biomedical Ethics in U.S. Public Policy (1993). Due to space limitations, not all publications could be listed; the selections included represent the range of topics from a particular group or the more frequently cited sources. Future updates of this compilation are planned, so please notify the... (shrink)

People with neurodevelopmental disorders are often considered unsuitable or incapable of working in open employment. When employment is available, tasks are often limited, and opportunities for career development are restricted. Policy and funding constraints leave people with disabilities without an opportunity to develop skills due to the additional time and costs for employers. To overcome these barriers, virtual environments have been proposed as a safe and reliable solution for training. An important prerequisite for a wider uptake of training (...) in virtual environments are demonstrations that the training leads to improved performance in the real world. This is particularly true for people with neurodevelopmental disorders, as transferring learnings from one context to another can be challenging. A systematic review was conducted to assess whether training in virtual environments can be used to improve real-world vocational skills in people with neurodevelopmental disorders. After a systematic search in six databases, eight out of the initially identified 1,806 articles met the inclusion criteria. The findings from these eight studies demonstrate that people with neurodevelopmental disorders can transfer vocational skills from virtual environments to real-world settings. With substantial technological improvements, a surge in accessibility, and improved affordability, there is a need to build upon the promising results identified in this review. (shrink)

Raport powstał z inicjatywy Fundacji Pomocy Matematykom i Informatykom Niesprawnym Ruchowo w ramach projektu „Centrum Edukacji i Aktywizacji Zawodowej Osób Niepełnosprawnych - Oddziały Bydgoszcz i Łódź". Stanowi on rezultat badań zjawiska niepełnosprawności i kategorii społecznej, jaką stanowią osoby niepełnosprawne, oraz funkcjonowania ponad 30 agencji zatrudnienia wyspecjalizowanych we wsparciu osób niepełnosprawnych na rynku pracy. Pierwszy rozdział ekspertyzy dotyczy sposobów definiowania zjawiska niepełnosprawności, w drugim zaś - podjęto zagadnienie budowania potencjału niepublicznych służb zatrudnienia osób niepełnosprawnych. Trzeci rozdział raportu zawiera informacje dotyczące przyjętej (...) metodologii badań, a czwarty prezentuje wyniki analiz zebranego materiału empirycznego w odniesieniu do oferty agencji zatrudnienia i jej klientów. Tematem piątego rozdziału pracy jest kondycja agencji zatrudnienia osób niepełnosprawnych, prowadzonych przez organizacje pozarządowe. Motyw przewodni kolejnego rozdziału to otoczenie zewnętrzne agencji zatrudnienia. Ostatnia cześć raportu dotyczy rekomendacji wspomagających rozwiązywanie dylematów rozwojowych, przed którymi stoją agencje zatrudnienia. ** This report was made on the initiative of the Foundation Supporting Disabled Mathematicians and IT professionals in the project "Centre for Education and Vocational Activation of Persons with Disabilities - Branches Bydgoszcz and Lodz." It is the result of research on disability phenomenon and people with disabilities social category. It contains information about operations of more than 30 employment agencies specialized in helping people with disabilities into the labor market. First chapter of expertise relates to methods for defining the prevalence of disability and in the second - it was the issue of capacity building for non-disabled employment services. Third chapter of the report provides information on the methodology of research, and the fourth presents the results of an empirical analysis of the collected material in relation to the offer of employment agencies and their clients. Theme of the fifth chapter of the work is the condition of the disabled employment agency run by NGOs. Theme of the next chapter is the external environment of employment agencies. Last part of the report focuses on solving a recommendation supporting development dilemmas faced by agencies employment. -/- . (shrink)

This article considers the issues of adaptation and organization of the educational process, barrier-free environment and readiness for professional activity of students with disabilities in inclusive education in conditions of inclusive education in a medical university. The relevance of this work is determined by one of the priority areas of state policy in the field of higher education – access to higher education for people with disabilities in inclusive education. Inclusive education at the university is designed to ensure not (...) only the realization of the right of students with disabilities in inclusive education to higher education, but also to solve the problems of socialization and professional demand for such people. In order to improve the process of introducing inclusive education at the Ryazan State Medical University named after Academician I.P. Pavlov, a study was conducted, the main problems and ways of solving them were identified, related to the organization of the educational process, the conditions of the barrier-free environment and the readiness for professional activity of students with disabilities in inclusive education. An increase in the proportion of university teachers who have undergone advanced training in inclusive education also contributes to solving problems. Adaptation of educational programs and educational and methodological support for persons with disabilities includes psychological, pedagogical and tutor support etc. The organization of the educational process using distance education technologies is one of the priority conditions for teaching students with disabilities and/or HIA. The use of this technology makes it possible to significant-ly expand and modify some educational standards for students with disabilities in inclusive education, namely, to create an individual way for each student with disabilities in inclusive education in a medical university. It is proposed to use training techniques such as: online consultation of teachers; VR technologies; availability of training materials 24/7; online webinars that facilitate the inclusion of such students in the educational and research activities of the university. The professionally organized educational space and educational process of the university provide not only a high level of mastery of professional competencies, but also contribute to the formation of personal qualities of students with disabilities in inclusive education, necessary for their successful socialization, life and activity in society. (shrink)

"Kapitał społeczny ludzi starych na przykładzie mieszkańców miasta Białystok" to książka oparta na analizach teoretycznych i empirycznych, która przedstawia problem diagnozowania i używania kapitału społecznego ludzi starych w procesach rozwoju lokalnego i regionalnego. Kwestia ta jest istotna ze względu na zagrożenia i wyzwania związane z procesem szybkiego starzenia się społeczeństwa polskiego na początku XXI wieku. Opracowanie stanowi próbę sformułowania odpowiedzi na pytania: jaki jest stan kapitału społecznego ludzi starych mieszkających w Białymstoku, jakim ulega przemianom i jakie jest jego zróżnicowanie? Ludzie (...) starzy są tu postrzegani jako kategoria społeczna, czyli zbiór osób podobnych do siebie pod względem społecznie istotnych cech (takich jak wiek, posiadane role społeczne i świadomość korzystania ze świadczeń społecznych), którzy są świadomi tego podobieństwa i swojej odrębności od innych. Przyjmuje się ponadto, iż osoby takie przekroczyły 60. rok życia. Zakłada się też, że w zasobach ludzkich skumulowany jest kapitał ludzki, społeczny i kulturowy. Kapitał społeczny jest tu ujmowany szeroko jako potencjał współdziałania osadzony w powiązaniach międzyludzkich i normach społecznych, który może przynosić korzyści osobom, grupom i społeczeństwom. W części teoretycznej przedstawiono informacje o starości jako etapie w życiu jednostki, wyjaśniono pojęcie ludzi starych, omówiono społeczne teorie starzenia się, historyczne czynniki oddziaływające na położenie kategorii społecznej ludzi starych, zmiany ich miejsca w społeczeństwie polskim w trakcie transformacji ustrojowej i na początku XXI wieku, możliwe konsekwencje wzrostu długości życia w warunkach demokracji i kapitalizmu oraz charakterystykę problemu starzenia się ludności Białegostoku jako miasta pogranicza. Zaprezentowano też różnorodne koncepcje kapitału społecznego, sfery jego oddziaływania na rozwój społeczno-gospodarczy, jego stan w Polsce oraz wytyczne do strategicznego budowania jego zasobów. Przybliżono również wybrane informacje o aktywności ludzi starych w życiu publicznym, społecznym i gospodarczym jako kluczowych cechach ich kapitału społecznego. Porządkując różne stanowiska teoretyczne, wyniki badań i dane statystyczne, dążono do powiązania wielu rozproszonych źródeł w przekonaniu, iż jest to istotne w celu określenia i zagospodarowania zasobów kapitału społecznego seniorów, jak również niwelacji opóźnienia polskiej socjologii w zakresie badań nad ludźmi starymi. Pomimo, iż za podstawową perspektywę teoretyczną publikacji uznana została koncepcja kapitału P. Bourdieu, autor bierze również pod uwagę propozycje badawcze J.S. Colemana, R.D. Putnama, F. Fukuyamy, A. Giddensa, P. Sztompki i A. Sadowskiego. Drugi rozdział zawiera określenie ram metodologicznych badań przeprowadzonych na potrzeby tej publikacji. Omówiono przyjęte założenia badawcze oraz przybliżono sposób i przebieg realizacji badań. Przede wszystkim zdecydowano się na korzystanie z metody jakościowej i zastosowanie techniki wywiadu swobodnego ukierunkowanego. Uznano, iż podmiotowy kontakt z ludźmi starymi umożliwi dokładniejsze rozpoznanie kontekstu, w którym znajdują się zasoby ich kapitału społecznego. Jest to ważne, gdyż przenoszenie na rodzimy grunt opracowanych za granicą interpretacji działań ludzi starych i rozwiązań aktywizujących, może okazać się nieskuteczne lub wywołać negatywne efekty zewnętrzne. Ponadto w literaturze przedmiotu zwraca się uwagę na niedostatek badań gerontologicznych zgodnych z paradygmatem interpretatywnym. Badaniu poddano 26 respondentów w wieku od 60 do 89 lat żyjących w mieście Białystok związanych z jedną z dwóch różnych instytucji: Domem Pomocy Społecznej i Uniwersytetem Trzeciego Wieku. Poprzez porównywanie osób znajdujących się na dwóch biegunach aktywności społecznej możliwe było dostrzeżenie podobieństw i różnic w ich wyposażeniu kapitałowym, a zarazem w osiągniętych w ciągu życia pozycjach w strukturze klasowej i zasobach służących pomyślnej starości6. W trzecim rozdziale przedstawiona została część wyników analiz empirycznych. Przybliżono tu sposób, w jaki ludzie starzy myślą o podobnych sobie przodkach i osobach współczesnych, a także czynniki, w zależności od których zmienia się ich pozycja społeczna w mieście oraz problemy społeczne, jakie uznają za najważniejsze dla ludzi starych. Analizie poddano opinie o ich czasie wolnym, szansach i barierach aktywności ekonomicznej. Wyróżniono typy kapitału społecznego ludzi starych w zależności od instytucji, z którymi są związani oraz podejścia do postrzegania i wykorzystywania zróżnicowania wewnętrznego seniorów. Omówiono wizerunek seniorów w środkach masowego przekazu. Publikacja nie zawiera ścisłego zakończenia. W ostatnim rozdziale wskazano jedynie na główne wnioski płynące z badań oraz na potencjalne dalsze kierunki analiz. Uzupełnienie tego podejścia stanowią zamieszczone w aneksie zestawienia oddolnych technik budowania kapitału społecznego oraz podstawowych cech Miast Przyjaznych Starszemu Wiekowi. Z opracowania tego z pewnością będą mogli skorzystać nie tylko naukowcy zajmujący się tematyką ludzi starych, ale i pracownicy socjalni, politycy, pracodawcy, przedstawiciele mediów i organizacji pozarządowych oraz obywatele Białegostoku i innych miast. ** "Social Capital of Old People on the Example of Bialystok Residents" is a book based on theoretical and empirical study, which presents an issue of diagnosing and using of old people social capital in the local and regional development processes. This issue is significant because of the threats and challenges associated with process of rapid ageing of Polish society at the beginning of 21st century. Publication, in particular, is an attempt to give answers to the following questions: what is the state of old people social capital in Bialystok, what transformations it undergoes and how is it differentiated? In this study old people are viewed as a social category, which is a set of people similar to each other in terms of socially significant features (such as age, possessed social roles and awareness of received social benefits), who are aware of these similarities and differences between each other. Moreover, it is assumed, that such persons exceeded the 60 years of age. It is also assumed that human, social and cultural capital is accumulated in the human resources. Social capital is recognized here broadly as a potential for collaboration embedded in interpersonal relationships and social norms that may benefit individuals, groups and societies. The book consists of three chapters. The first, which is the theoretical part of work, includes information about: old age as a stage of individual life and explanation of the old people notion. It discusses social theories of ageing, historical factors affecting on the social position of old people category, changes in their place in Polish society during the system transformation and in the early 21st century. It describes the possible consequences of increased life expectancy for democracy and capitalism - including the concepts of society for all ages, silver economy. It also features ageing population issue, as well as social policy towards the elderly and old age in Bialystok as the borderland city. A variety of social capital concepts were presented; the spheres of its influence on socio-economic development, its status in Poland and guidelines for strategic building of its resources. Selected information on the activity of old people in public, social and economic life as key features of their social capital was brought closer. Putting various theoretical positions, results of research and statistical data in order was aimed to link many dispersed sources considering that it is relevant to identify and develop seniors' social capital resources, as well as leveling the delay of Polish sociology research on the elderly. Fundamental theoretical perspective of publication is the concept of capital according to P. Bourdieu. However, the proposals of J.S. Coleman, R.D. Putnam, F. Fukuyama, A. Giddens, P. Sztompka and A. Sadowski were also used. The second chapter contains a methodological framework for the purposes of study. Research assumptions, method and course of implementation of studies were discussed. The study is based on the qualitative method and the application of in-depth interview techniques. It was considered that the personal contact with old people will be more accurate than other research techniques to identify the context in which they social capital resources can be found. It is important because the transfer of developed abroad activating solutions and interpretations of old people actions may be ineffective or have negative external effects in the Polish context. Moreover, in the Polish science literature attention is paid to scarcity of gerontological research in accordance with the interpretive paradigm. Study involved 26 respondents aged 60 to 89 years living in Bialystok associated with one of two different institutions: nursing home for the elderly and University of the Third Age. By comparing the persons on two extremes of social activity it was possible to see similarities and differences in their capital equipment, and also in achievements of the life positions in the class structure and resources aimed at successful ageing. The third chapter presents the empirical analysis of the research results. This part outlines the way in which old people think about their ancestors and contemporary people. It also shows factors according to changes in their social position in the city, social issues which they consider most important for old people, their opinions about leisure time, opportunities and barriers of economic activity and types of old people social capital depending on the institution with which they are associated. Approach to the perception and use of internal disparities of seniors were also discussed. The analysis additionally contains the evaluation of senior citizens image in the polish mass media. This publication does not contain a strict ending. It only identifies the main conclusions of the research and potential directions of future analysis. Above all, older people could improve their position not by demanding increases in social benefits from which major parts are often taken away by their family members, but by highlighting their human, social and cultural capital. It is necessary to create favorable conditions for social and professional life of old people and their cooperation with members of local communities. Important role in this regard is played by institutions implementing three tasks: stimulating senior citizens' desire to satisfy previously unrealized needs; creating relationships between them so that they can solve their own problems and work for the others; and providing legal, social and vocational guidance. Stimulating cooperation between existing public, commercial and non-governmental sector organizations may serve to achieve these goals. The dissemination of bottom-up techniques of social capital building and checklist of essential features of Age-friendly Cities may also be important. -/- . (shrink)

Self-advocacy organisations support people in a wide range of political activities, alongside providing key social networks. The emergence of formalised self-advocacy for intellectually disabled people marked an important cultural shift. These groups soon became associated with the pursuit of social change and the attainment of rights. The role of the self-advocacy support worker, working together with self-advocates, has been pivotal. However, studies have shown there has been concern over the relationship between self-advocates and those who advise or (...) class='Hi'>support them. Both parties are aware of the potential tensions of supporters teaching people skills to take control, to manage their workers, whilst, perhaps inadvertently, assuming a powerful position in the relationship. This interesting paradox hints at ethical complexities inherent in the role. A key challenge facing these support workers is how they can support their employers to run successful organisations, without ?taking over?. Using material from both Chapman and Tilley's research of self-advocacy organisations in the UK, this article problematises some key ethical issues within the role. (shrink)

Identity, self-sufficiency and disability in the context of educational and vocational activity This study focused on relations between identity and sense of self-sufficiency. These relations were analysed in the context of educational and vocational activity. 204 persons without disabilities and 230 persons with different kinds of disability participated in the study. Participants were divided into three groups: 18-24-year-olds - students, 25-30-year-olds - unemployed and 25-30-year-olds - employed. The results revealed that unemployed people have significant (...) problems with identity formation. This group obtained the highest scores on ruminative exploration and the lowest scores on the scales of commitment making and identification with commitment. Self-sufficiency proved to be a moderator of the relations between educational/vocational activity on the one hand and exploration in breadth and exploration in depth on the other hand. In students, level of exploration was high in individuals with a high sense of self-sufficiency whereas in the unemployed strong exploration was observed in the group with low sense of self-sufficiency. The need to conduct studies where participants are recruited from populations which seldom attract researchers' interest, such as the unemployed and people of low social status, is also noted. (shrink)

One of the key challenges of social policy in Poland in the early 21st century is to adapt its management to the requirements of a service economy. Essential conditions for the mixed economy of welfare have been already created after adjustments of the subsystems of national social policy during the first years of membership in the European Union since 2004. Labour market policies already include the relationships between providers from the public sector, the commercial sector, and the non-governmental sector. However, (...) the tasks and services of individual entities and institutions still lack coordination and integration. This paper focus on the examples of possibilities for their development by combining the activation policy with concepts of the governance and welfare mix. The paper presents the results of the author’s research on the implementation of welfare mix solutions in the field of professional activation of the unemployed people in Poland. Two case studies are included the implementation of outplacement programs that are based on the cooperation between different entities; and the cooperation between the public employment services and non-governmental employment agencies in the activation of people with disabilities in the labour market. Moreover, basic concepts of ongoing reforms of active labour market policies in Poland were discussed. The summary contains the practical recommendations and possible directions for further research in the field of integration of employment services. (shrink)

Argument is a critical component in policy deliberations. In this study, negotiation is viewed as a type of policy deliberation, one characterized by attack and defense of proposals, interdependence between disputants, and mixed motives of cooperation and competition. Argument in negotiation, then, functions as a reason-giving activity to enact policy. Employing a category system based on rhetorical stasis, the researchers examine whether bargainers specialize in their use of argument types and whether this specialization remains consistent throughout a teacher-school (...) board negotiation and whether it differs for the type of settlement of agenda items. Results of the study suggest that bargainers specialize in argument types at different times during the bargaining. In the early stages of negotiation, teachers center on harm and workability arguments to prepare their case and justify the merits of their proposals, but in the latter phases of bargaining they switch to arguments on implementation to reaffirm their demands and to prioritize issues. Board members, in the early stages, rely on disadvantage, workability, and implementation arguments to establish resistance points and to refute appeals for change, but in the latter stages of negotiation they employ harm-inherency and disadvantage arguments to weigh the costs of concessions and to rationalize the settlement. This study, then, supports the existence of phase variation in bargaining and argues for a developmental approach in deciphering how negotiators who hold antithetical positions reach mutually satisfactory settlements. (shrink)

The article analyzes attempts to “normalize” disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities, in contemporary Russia. The NGOs that emerged in the 1990s put a lot of work into reforming the long-term state residential care system and changing the principles of care for people with disabilities. They offered so-called assisted living as an alternative — specially created conditions in which people who have no experience of living outside the state institutions can become familiar with a “normal” life. However, as the author shows, (...) due to the depoliticization of their activities and ongoing financial crises, initiatives that could have influenced the integration of people who spent most of their lives in residential institutions — and could have put an end to Soviet segregationist policies have radically transformed the Western idea of “normalization” by adapting it to the local context. By drawing on Patrick McKearney’s theory of “transparency” on the one hand and Vincento Carpanzano’s “realistic” imagination on the other, the author examines the epistemology of NGO staff and investigates why, even in an intended normalizing project, intellectual disability still serves as a marker of radical alterity. Focusing primarily on practices of imagination and fantasizing about the future, the article demonstrates how the staff of one specific NGO, instead of advocating for their clients’ rights and expanding socializing opportunities, essentialized the psychiatric diagnoses and intellectual differences of its clients and fetishized the hope of financial security, locking former orphans with intellectual disabilities into the status of “disabled.”. (shrink)

Using a policy-capturing approach with a broad student sample we examine how individuals’ economic, social and environmental values influence their propensity to engage in a broad range of sustainability-related corporate actions. We employ a multi-dimensional sustainability framework of corporate actions and account for both the positive and negative impacts associated with corporate activity—termed strength and concern actions, respectively. Strong economic values were found to increase the propensity for concern actions and the willingness to work in controversial industries. Individuals with (...) balanced values were as likely as those with strong economic values to pursue positive economic outcomes, but without the same downside potential for concern actions. We also found significant gender effects, with females being less likely to engage in concern actions and more supportive of social and environmental strength actions. (shrink)

Policy motives for work for people with a disability (PWD) are divergent along two discourses: work as a right vs norm. Work as a right, based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), portrays work as a potential gateway for inclusion. Work as a norm fits a neoliberal agenda. It considers labor market participation of all, including PWD, as a civil responsibility crucial for economic welfare. Critics argue that the work as a norm discourse (...) presents a risk for inclusion of PWD. Work is seen as a necessary condition for and not one of many ways to inclusion in society. To make the right to work for PWD work, critical scholars call to unravel whether and how the discourses of work as a right and norm for PWD become intertwined in policy. In response and through the lens of recontextualization, we study how discourses of work as a right and norm for PWD are received, reproduced and reworked in political debate in Flanders (Belgium) over time. We examine policy texts and parliamentary questions of four government terms (2004–2024). The findings illustrate how the work as a right discourse is gradually recontextualized into the work as a norm discourse to legitimize neoliberal policies of strict activation. In accordance, we see a gradual move towards neoliberal-ableism. Although the UNCRPD aims to eradicate ableism, its recontextualization and appropriation reinforces neoliberal-ableism. (shrink)

Although Olympic athletes are celebrated for their sports achievements, they often face serious difficulties in their post-sport career employment. Factors of development that are affecting the quality of post-sport career transition of Olympic athletes are important to acknowledge in the dual career (DC) development perspective. Due to the side lining of academic activities, athletes are often not well prepared for the labor market. If they do not gain sufficient financial background in their careers, it can lead to a lack (...) of proper economic inclusion of athletes in their post-sport career employment and further impact their lives. Career transitions of athletes have been the subject of research in different aspects of DC support (e.g., athletic, psychological, psychosocial, academic/vocational, financial), but most research is linked to the student-athlete DC perspective. Therefore, the aim of our research was to examine the impact of factors directly contributing to the quality of the post-sport career transition in Slovenian elite and Olympic athletes and the social class position and employment of these athletes after the termination of their sports career. From DC support practice, we learned that although athletes often have a proper level of education, their post-sport career transitions were not successful. To fill this gap, 168 elite athletes (Mage= 33.34, SD = 13.1) from Slovenia were asked to complete online questionnaires. The results showed a significant contribution of education and DC support-related finances (e.g., employment of athletes in public administration) to the quality of post-sport career transition. Regarding developing a national DC model and based on empirical research, this study identifies the social class position and employment status of former elite athletes from Slovenia. It also identifies opportunities for further research on the quality of the post-sport career transitions and perspectives on DC support. Understanding how different factors contribute to the integrated development of individual athletes to reach their potential in sports, education, and their post-sport career employment is important for theorists, DC practitioners, and stakeholders working with DC athletes. To develop a sufficient mechanism, DC support providers should consider supporting education along with the financial support of athletes during their sports careers and recognizing study-training ecosystems, based on good practices to successfully transition to their post-sport careers. These findings can also be useful for athletes and their athletic triangle support network (e.g., coaches and parents) as a support in the decision-making. (shrink)

This volume-"Selected Contemporary Challenges of Aging Policy"-is the most international of all published monographs from the series "Czech-Polish-Slovak Studies in Andragogy and Social Gerontology." Among the scholars trying to grasp the nuances and trends of social policy, there are diverse perspectives, resulting not only from the extensive knowledge of the authors on the systematic approach to the issue of supporting older people but also from the grounds of the represented social gerontology schools. In the texts of Volume VII interesting are (...) both distinct and coherent elements presenting the role of local, regional and global policies in the prism of the countries from which the authors originate: the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Italy, Turkey, and the United States. The chapters show a wealth of methodological approaches to the perception of social policy and its tools. In the texts there are issues related to the idea of active ageing, discrimination against older people in the workplace, comparability of solutions friendly to employment of older adults in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia as well as focused on the importance of educational forms determining an active life in old age. This monograph also attempted to answer the question regarding how to transfer the idea of intergenerational learning into the realm of practice. This issue complements the chapter on the implementation of intergenerational programs in institutions providing long-term care support. The book also outlines a public policy on ageing in the perspective of the changes over the last few decades and the case demonstrating solutions to accelerate self-reliance as a key to active ageing. We hope that seventh volume of our series will be an intellectual stimulus for further international research on change in social policy and will contribute to the dissemination of best practices as well as contribute to positive social change. (shrink)

Joaquin Segura. Untitled (fig. 40) . 2007 continent. 1.2 (2011): 117-124. The interview that follows is a dialogue between artist and gallerist with the intent of unearthing the artist’s working strategies for a general public. Joaquin Segura is at once an anomaly in Mexico’s contemporary art scene at the same time as he is one of the most emblematic representatives of a larger shift toward a post-national identity among its youngest generation of artists. If Mexico looks increasingly like a foreclosed (...) home burning to the ground, Segura could likely be the one walking away, charred matchstick between thumb and forefinger and shit-eating grin on his face. His corrosive attacks on institutions, ideologies, and power reflect a deep general distrust of authority, increasingly evident within the work of younger Mexican artists. It is perhaps most directly the result of President Calderon’s deeply unpopular war against the cartels but no doubt equally the product of decades upon decades of rampant corruption and errant policy within Mexico. Brett W Schultz (BWS): A recurring—if not dominant—theme within your current work and investigation explores ideological extremism in reaction to some perceived political and economic disenfranchisement, especially that espoused and practiced by right-wing groups in United States. That's exactly why I thought of you when I was approached to contribute a piece to an issue on the subject of the moraine—taken metaphorically here to signify a certain set of beliefs that have resurfaced within mainstream American culture in the wake of a probably over-exaggerated political sea-change, marked by Obama's election. You're a Mexican artist who now lives and works in Guadalajara, far from the border cities where such concerns would seem more likely to be relevant to a contemporary artist; of course, you're even farther from the culture that birthed this nature of extremism. What interests you so intensely about this movement, if we can call it that? Joaquin Segura (JS): I think there are several seminal points that you touch on in this particular question. There's a very specific set of interests that make me address the socio-political issues I've been dissecting through my practice in the last few years. First of all, I don't really consider myself a 'mexican' artist. As I've made clear in the past, I don't really believe in the notion of 'identity' or the idea of 'nation', which I find totally laughable and heartwarmingly passé. I'm convinced that these are totally outdated models of understanding our differences and similarities, expanding our already immense and irreconcilable cultural abysses instead of bringing them together, thus resulting in their total dispersion among the complex and extremely arbitrary weaving of contemporary social nucleii. Pretty much a frankly bad joke, if I may say so. The fact that I live and work in Mexico is a completely random geographical and temporal factor, which of course affects what I think and what I do, but I've chosen not to be limited by this specific circumstance. In the past, while working abroad, I've taken advantage of this preconception of Mexico—to be more exact, pretty much all of Latin America—as one of the last barbaric bastions of western civilization. Totally amusing, if you ask me about it. I consider my practice to be, among other things, a gonzo strategy of deceit: there are quite a few roles you can adopt in this approach that may actually reveal themselves to be a privileged vantage point. In my experience, the gentle savage is one of the most effective ones to establish my standing position. Thus, I'm a mexican artist if I need it to prove my point. If it's not necessary in a specific circumstance, I'm not. Quite simple, I think. Said in other words, it's just an ace I can play to win a particular match. It has worked so far, at least for me. L: Hey, America… , 2009. R: The Inaugural Address , 2009. I am interested in the nature of power and the rise and fall of totalitarian ideological and political apparatuses nowadays. But I guess, going even further, I'm essentially fascinated by the fissures and contradictions that have made these structures spectacularly crumble to the ground. I do believe extreme ideologies have played a crucial role in the globalization of socio-political crisis. In the end, our world is nothing more than a fading monument to all things gone wrong—the inspiring triumph of failure, in every sense. I see this as an exciting parable. And of course, it is an undeniable fact that the US, through their influence in world economy, international policies and general attitude towards the rest of the planet is the largest structure waiting to collapse. I think we are all secretly awaiting that moment of splendor, even americans. It'll be disastrous and as nasty as it can get, but it will also be liberating and incredibly inspirational. Not just because it’s the US but because it'll prove that absolutely everything is susceptible to fall. And not only that, most importantly, it would confirm that radical change may actually be possible and not just one more of the unfulfilled promises modernity has left us to struggle with on our own. BWS: I want to talk first about two of your works in particular: Hey, America... and The Inaugural Address . I feel like your more recent work has a subtle —or even hidden—sinisterness, but these two works are perfect examples of how brutally confrontational your earlier work has been. When we showed Hey, America... at Mexico City's Zona Maco art fair in 2010, there were at least a couple visitors to our stand who were absolutely ready to punch me in my gringo face for having done so. Certainly the shock value of these works is crucial to their central ideas, but can you tell me more about your intentions and how these works relate to your general oeuvre? JS: So funny. Perhaps we do deserve to be punched in the face. I think that's what I'm sometimes looking for, but I hardly ever get it. I do think of such works as some sort of logical trap, a somewhat perverse ambush waiting for someone to walk into head-on. I think what I tried to do with those two specific works, as well as some other past projects, is just emphasize issues or themes that do disturb or make me uneasy and restless. I consider my essential intention a need to make clear that we do not have to look the other way, ignore or forget. We must address, understand and solve these manifestations of senseless violence and absurdity because if we don't confront them this way, they'll end up consuming us. In other words, I do consider these works as a personal need of coming to terms with the nonsense of the world we all are living in. I don't particularly consider myself to be someone with a clear set of beliefs. Perhaps my only certainty would be that everything is there to be denied, demolished and obliterated—even my supposed unquestionability of that particular 'dogma.' My practice is a reflection of that paradox, and I do think that's how these two pieces relate to a wider body of work. Every democratic system and so-called developed contemporary society is deeply flawed on the inside, and that is because each has swept things under the rug. Of course, there's tolerance, good will and eagerness to make a difference but there's also hatred, pain and fear lingering all around. We must learn to relate to both sides of the spectrum. In a way, I approach the themes behind these particular works in what I think to be a non-biased, somewhat 'neutral' way. I do think there's an encryption process going on in the way I work, some sort of formal refinement of this somewhat outrageous content. A digest of infamy, if we can refer to it that way. It is up to the individual experiencing the work to decide which way these pieces lean. They can easily be seen from both positions and I'm ok with that. If you look closely at these works, there's nothing that establishes an unrelenting position—neither support nor rejection. I don't want my personal political views to directly set an agenda for the spectator as that’s essentially propaganda, which is one of the things I absolutely despise. To sum it up, I strive for the spectator to complete the piece in that sense. The work then becomes a reflection of his or her own contradictions, a playground of the mind. I'm interested in achieving a deadpan and deadlock state in the observer. So, in a way, those visitors threatening to beat the shit out of you unconsciously became that particular issue the work is alluding to. Just blind and senseless reaction to god knows what people feel must be defended, the overwhelming virtue of ambiguity. Beautiful. Perhaps you can also think of my practice as a uber-sophisticated and snobbish version of Punk'd. And you wouldn't be far from what I'm trying to convey. Untitled (Disturbance Scenarios #2) . 2010. BWS: To me, an important transitional marker in the overall trajectory of your work is the series, Disturbance Scenarios , which evokes a similar generalized state of panic, paranoia, and impending doom through its incorporation of sensationalist newspaper headlines, yet also suggests this slyly mysterious meta-narrative via the context in which the newspaper itself is placed. How did you arrive at this series and why did you choose photorealistic painting as the medium for it? JS: I consider this series to be a by-product of the process I follow when making work. I spend an important part of my time just doing research, going through documentation and accumulating visual or historical references for the themes or episodes I'm interested in, in that particular moment. These are, of course, valuable assets that connect among themselves in a mysterious and almost undetectable manner, sometimes a few years between one and the other. I've employed similar production strategies in the past, in ongoing series like Random Moments of Urban Decay , in which I document what I consider to be physical traces of ethnic, religious or ideological violence in the form of text graffiti, invisibly scattered in different cities of the world, mostly in the US. Disturbance Scenarios was started in early 2010, following a particularly intense period of traveling here and there that lasted for most of the year. I've always felt compelled by text, as I find quite intriguing the idea of how words can create equally intense evocations of what I call a mental panorama of uneasiness than those produced by aesthetically-charged imagery; of course, if handled right. I have a close relationship to print media—due both to my academic background and to my attraction to its ubiquity and almost unlimited influence, which in the end, is nothing else but power—so I found myself with a growing archive of newspaper headlines snapshots from cities like Melbourne, Auckland, London, and LA. Going through them, I noticed that they had in common a very specific thematic slant: they were all about some sort of conflict: energy crisis, political unrest, local episodes of domestic violence, you name it. So as you very well put it, I felt they all connected through this feeling of anxiety and anguish and I decided to start thinking of them as a body of work. Basically, I felt an interest in creating what I think of as my personal fragmented prefigurements of the end of civilization. There were few elements on the shots that could give away its actual location, geographically speaking, and I liked that. I find this sensation of vagueness and uncertainty quite alluring. The more subtle, the more perverse. The formal resolution of the series—as photo-realistic painting—is linked to my intention of creating distance between me as the artist and the themes I work with. I rarely execute my own work, and that is more a personal choice as I'm more interested in the ideas I mingle with than in the actual outcome of that process, understood as an "art-object" with certain market value. I did some tests with light-jet prints of those snapshots and I found them devoid of that nightmarish, disturbing indistinctness that I felt was so important for them to be able to project the turmoil I experienced upon encountering them and in conceiving of them as a series. So I thought that photorealistic painting would be an interesting resource to play with, as I hardly had worked with that medium before because of my lenient animosity toward painters and their craft. So they were executed like that and I think it turned out to be just right. Homemade (Napalm #2) . 2010. BWS: Though Disturbance Scenarios remains ongoing, it's an interesting contrast to another series of yours, Homemade, which are these beautifully banal photographs of the ingredients used to make improvised explosives. Whereas Disturbance Scenarios still confronts the viewer aggressively with its visual emphasis on loaded texts, in Homemade , you've dropped the surface-level bravado entirely. They're pieces that require explanation to someone not already versed in the fine art of amateur explosive-making. You weren't known for subtlety in your past work; why this change in direction? JS: I'm personally convinced that these are just two angles of the same conceptual preoccupation. I mentioned before my obsession with the idea of encryption. I'm quite enticed by how these processes of translation can politically and semantically alter and deviate purportedly subversive materials such as the ones these works allude to. I do think subversion is futile. I was really troubled by that thought for some time, but I think now I understand that it's not really that important. What is really significant is to elaborate on these alternate views, to envision and refine possible escape routes. It doesn't really matter if they go nowhere, but that is because nothing really matters. A "mute" artwork is a notion that captivates me. When you look at the works you mention, you know there's something off, but it's not fully clear how and why that is. I rely on that insecurity—on that moment of hesitation. And that can also be achieved through an approach like the one I'm now interested in. Let's just call it a smoke screen, a surrogate ruse to get to the same point: to talk about impotence and defeat in contemporary life. The notion that readily accessible information is actually a weapon is a double-edged fallacy: sure, you can make use of whatever resources you can lay your hands on, but that doesn't set you free because freedom is impossible. Still, that doesn't mean you can't blow up stuff during the process, metaphorically or not. I didn't understand the nature of subtlety before. I used to think that you needed to be loud and manifest anger and unconformity in the most aggressive manner possible. Then I finally realized that you can actually permeate and rarify a battleground—because after all, this is low-intensity war—if you actually aim at silently building up the contradictions and making the symbolic value of ideas and acts clash within themselves. Or perhaps it is that I am just getting old. I guess I used to be an angry kid until recently. Now I think of myself as a disenchanted post-teenager, and of course that reflects in my work and my approach to art-making. Kind of a rite of passage and I laugh at it because, overall, it has been overwhelmingly fun. And that doesn't mean that I'm not ready to stick it in someone or something's face again if I feel like it. BWS: You're now taking the subtlety of the Homemade series even further with your newest series, Definitive Reader For a Botched Revolution , in which you photograph a series of politically-charged books side-on, negating their content entirely—essentially reducing them to purely aesthetic objects in which the subject matter is only revealed in the title of the work. Can you talk about the ideas behind this series? Furthermore, is your recent interest in this idea of the "botched revolution" an indication of a general attitudinal or philosophical shift you've since adopted? JS: This new series of works is the logical outcome of a brief period I went through. Probably the last couple years, in which due to a number of circumstances that don't really have to do with my art-making, I was forced to renegotiate my ideas, my beliefs and practically everything that surrounds me. It was quite distressful and turbulent, but in the end, I think it was also almost epiphanic. I came to terms with myself and now I'm calm and serene. That is, of course, my personal take on it but I mention it because I do think it's important to address this shift you mention. The idea of an artwork as a container for latent revelations enthralls me quite a bit. That's how I see these particular works: art as an incendiary agent. It's up to the artist and the spectator to do whatever they please with it. I think the detachment and almost surgical cleanliness from the Definitive Reader series is also my take at poking fun of the way some art is totally innocuous and uncompromising. These images may be pleasing to the eye, but there's something twisted and rotten within them, well hidden beneath. You'll either see it or not, but without a doubt, it will not cancel its presence. This series is intrinsically linked to Homemade . I'm pretty much horsing around with similar ideas and statements here. And well, yes, I do think any revolution is a botched one. There's nothing too heavy about their own downfall. Decay and breakdown are here and will not go away. Perhaps we must learn to embrace them in one way or another, for our own sake. L: Untitled (T.A.Z.). R: Untitled (United States Marine Guidebook of Essential Subjects) . 2011. BWS: Finally, let's discuss the near future. You've got an upcoming solo show at the Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros [SAPS] in Mexico City this summer. What can we expect from that? What else do you have planned? JS: I'll go and get seafood as soon as I'm done with this interview. It's pretty good here in Guadalajara. That's my top priority at this very moment. About my solo project at SAPS, it's due to open in late July. I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm still closely working with the curator on the general feel for the show but I can say that it'll be more of a revision of past works that have not been shown in Mexico City except for a couple pieces. It definitely won't be a showcase for new projects, although we may include one or two previously unseen works. What you can expect is a rereading of what I've been working on during the past few years. In a way, that's exciting to me because for some reason I don't really care about, I'm not that active in Mexico City even though that's where I lived and work for years. I've hardly shown there after my solo project at Yautepec in February of 2010. It'll be nice to see how it all comes together and I'm more thrilled about it because I totally love the space and I think they're doing an excellent job with their programming and its direction. And in a certain way it feels like going back home. About everything else, I need a period to reflect and fully understand what I've been thinking and working on. I've got a few group shows here and there: New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne are the ones happening soon. I will present my censored project Untitled ( Gringo Loco ) as part of the programming of the Museo de Arte de Zapopan in Guadalajara, two years after being escorted at gunpoint from the installation site by police sent by the extreme right-wing mayor of the city, which I found pretty amusing for an otherwise typical Saturday afternoon. I'm also involved in a couple "curatorial" projects. In my case, "curatorial" means that I help put together stuff I like and I'm interested in. One of them will open in late September of 2011 at Arena Mexico Arte Contemporaneo, and I will work with three of whom I consider to be some of the best artists in a lively and active scene such as the one here in Guadalajara. But most importantly, I've been doing heavy research so there are also a number of projects that I've yet to finalize. That'll be my main focus during the rest of the year, even though I really enjoy procrastination. There'll be time for that later. Or maybe not. We'll see. About Joaquin Segura The action, installation, intervention and photographic work of Joaquin Segura (b. Mexico City, 1980) has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and Asia. Some spaces that have featured his work include La Panaderia, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Centro de la Imagen and Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in Mexico City; El Museo del Barrio and apexart, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; and Palace Adria in Prague, Czech Republic. In 2008 and 2009, Segura was an artist-in-residence at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, New York, NY and at the 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA. He is represented YAUTEPEC in Mexico City and by Arena Mexico Arte Contemporáneo in Guadalajara. Further Reading Joaquin Segura’s website YAUTEPEC artist page for Joaquin Segura Capps, Kriston. “ID-ENTITY: Washington, DC.” ART PAPERS . 2009. (shrink)

Over the last century, droughts have caused more deaths internationally than any other weather- or climate-related disaster. Like other natural disasters, droughts cause significant changes in the environment that can lead to negative health outcomes. As droughts are becoming more frequent and intense with climate change, public health systems need to address impacts associated with these events. Partnering with federal and local entities, we evaluated the state of knowledge of drought and health in the United States through a National Drought (...) and Public Health Summit and a series of subsequent regional workshops. The intended outcome was to develop public health strategies for implementing activities to better support and prepare public health systems for future droughts. The information gathered from this work identified multiple policy and law options to address the public health issues associated with drought. These policy recommendations include the use of public health emergency declarations for drought events, increased usage of preparedness evaluations for drought emergencies, and engagement of drought and climate experts in state and local risk assessments. As drought events are projected to increase in frequency and magnitude with climate change, taking policy action now will help decrease the health impacts of drought and save lives. (shrink)

Employers often encourage, incentivize, or even require their employees to engage in politics in a variety of ways. For example, employers often encourage employees to vote, press employees to support particular political candidates or policies, require employees to participate in political events, or ask employees to contact elected officials to advocate for the employer’s interests. Such practices are all forms of employer mobilization. This essay considers the threat that employer mobilization poses to employees’ speech rights, specifically employees’ right against (...) compelled speech. I argue that employer mobilization practices are liable to infringe on employees’ right against compelled speech when three conditions are met: (1) the employer asks or encourages employees to express a particular political message that is inconsistent with some employees’ beliefs and values; (2) the employer forces some employees to express the employer’s message; and (3) the employees are not employed in a role or an organization in which expressing or supporting such messages is an essential part of the job. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic triggered a crisis affecting many spheres of socio-economic life. Both the authorities and entrepreneurs found themselves in a new and unusual situation. The lockdown introduced in the Polish economy in March 2020 has changed drastically environment and conditions for entrepreneurs and companies in Poland. The article touches on the problem of changes in the system of formal and informal institutions during that period. An attempt was made to answer the question: to what extent was the institutional (...) state order compatible with the spontaneous order during that period, did the paths of entrepreneurs and the government meet and an agreement was reached in the name of setting a common policy direction to support the economy in the difficult period of the pandemic, or did the paths of these parties diverge? The research hypothesis requiring verification was that the institutional crisis in Poland deepened during the Covid-19 pandemic, as reflected in the slow erosion of the principles of institutional governance. The analysis shows that the progressing institutional weakness of the state during the period under review deepened the crisis of institutions. Its symptom was the gradual disappearance of social dialogue and arbitrary decisions taken by the government. The rules of law did not take into account the needs of entrepreneurs. Over time, the trust in the government and the law has declined. In a response to the prolonged lockdown in many sectors of the Polish economy, some desperate entrepreneurs took steps to circumvent the law, and there were active protests of entrepreneurs against the government’s decisions. The government might defend its authority only with ineffective repressions applied to entrepreneurs. (shrink)

The cultural policy of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland is incorporated into state-run cultural policies. The organs of public authority enforce the objectives of Church regardless of Church’s actual ability to influence the society. It should be pointed out that the secularization of religion in Poland is frequently misinterpreted and usually equated with its deprivatization. It is worth mentioning that Catholicism is the dominant religion of the country and the Roman Catholic Church has hold a special position in Poland (...) and play a major role in the country’s social and political life. In practice, however, Polish society appears to be religiously indifferent. This paper proves that the official, state-run cultural policy in Poland is based on favoritism of the Roman Catholic Church, regardless of Church’s actual ability to wield influence on society. Thus, there is a variety of implicit and explicit cultural policies implemented by the authorities to support Church. This work also aims at addressing the question of social attitudes to women, especially the one concerning the UN and EU law embracing women’s rights, until recently still not implemented in Poland. This paper further explores some peculiarities of this topic as an example of a specific outcome of Church cultural policy and its impact on both the past and present-day society. (shrink)

The Resolution of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on the Approval of the State Sports Development Strategy for 2011-2020 states that it is important to create and develop a horizontal structure of public administration of sport, which includes many state administration areas and municipal institutions, which would allow to develop cooperation with non-governmental sports organizations and private sector of sports activities. To create legal and economic conditions for the fast development of active and healthy lifestyle and universal sports (...) clubs as primary subjects of the national sport system; to promote their contribution to non-formal sports education and employment of children and young people, development of various sports, interaction between amateur and professional sports. In this respect, the tasks have been set to create a multi-tier system of strategic cooperation with non-governmental sport organizations with public administration structures, to expand cooperation between municipal institutions in the field of sport, authorized by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania so that these resolutions include the National Sport for All Development Program implementation, enhancing the vitality of communities through sport, ensuring healthy lifestyle conditions and developing sports infrastructure through territorial planning documents and investment programs; to create and develop a system of partnerships in the field of sport between public and private sectors; to develop cooperation between institutions of all fields of management by developing and implementing physical activity, healthy lifestyles and work ability, social cohesion through sport, leisure employment and social prevention and other interinstitutional programs, accordingly reorganizing and expanding functions of the institution authorized by the Government, strengthening its administrative capacity. The implementation of the strategy is particularly relevant, as is the case at the level of municipal administrations and councils, to which functions are delegated to implement the priority functions of sport policy. Problems in the implementation of sport policy are analyzed by scientists as well as representatives of sports policy legislators. The aim of the research is to analyze how the sports policy of the Republic of Lithuania is formulated and implemented in the activities of municipal administrations and councils. Research methods -analysis of scientific literature, analysis of laws, analysis of sports management system. Research results and conclusions. The real role of municipalities and the priority to develop community sport, to promote the vitality of communities has not been realized yet. The role of private business for private investment in sports infrastructure for the development of sports movement and cooperation with socially responsible business representatives, the independent role of clubs and non-governmental organizations as a priority have also not been understood and finally not implemented. In the functional division of activities in the sport policy process, all chains of interaction between organizations, acting within the competence, must strive to implement laws and strategic goals of sports policy. In order to achieve these objectives, the activities of the institutions depend on the political decisions adopted jointly by the central government, public programs and projects. It is important that the executive structures are delegated the same kind of functions, so that the implementation of the policy is carried out consistently in all areas of the republic.Improvement of the process of implementing sports policy and the search for the improvement, trying to achieve the efficiency of activities of municipal administrations and councils must be the main goal of all institutions involved in it. The whole system of institutions involved in the development and implementation of sport policy is too centralized. Institutional differences in the management of interdependence and in the resolution of structural problems between national organizations and municipal organizations are very pronounced. This has a negative impact on the status of municipal territorial sports divisions, when grants are distributed from the state budget, selecting sportsmen, performing medical technological examination of promising sportsmen, setting up sports bases, and so on. (shrink)

In vocational rehabilitation, empowerment is understood as the notion that people should make an active, autonomous choice to find their way back to the labour process. Following this line of reasoning, the concept of empowerment implicitly points to a specific kind of activation strategy, namely labour participation. This activation approach has received criticism for being paternalistic, disciplining and having a one-sided orientation on labour participation. Although we share this theoretical criticism, we want to go beyond it by paying attention (...) to the practical consequences of understanding empowerment as an activation strategy. Inspired by the field of Science and Technology Studies, we will explore the meaning of empowerment and activation in concrete practices of vocational rehabilitation in the Netherlands. Our analysis is based on the narratives of people with a work disability about their lives and the vocational rehabilitation programmes they participated in. We present five illustrative cases that how empowerment is ‘done’ in the practice of vocational rehabilitation and its unintended effects. Our analysis demonstrates that activation strategies seem to be caught in a paradox: instead of including people in society, they have excluding consequences. Vocational rehabilitation professionals can go beyond this paradox by learning from the ways in which empowerment is ‘done’ by clients in vocational rehabilitation programmes. (shrink)

Based on interviews and observations conducted in France between 2018 and 2019, this article discusses the notion of a “social welfare model” theorised by sociologist Katharina Heyer, by examining of the implementation of sheltered work policies in France. Facing the evolution of public policies in France, and their will to transform sheltered workshops into transition platforms leading to ordinary employment, can sheltered work establishments still be described as parallel and separate paths to the ordinary labour market? This article shows (...) that the organisation of work in a sheltered environment cannot be thought of in isolation from what is practised in an ordinary environment. Sheltered workshops can provide a response to the specific needs of disabled people, given the dysfunctional nature of the rights model in the ordinary workplace. Nevertheless, ordinary employment remains a reference when organising productive activities in the workshops: it helps define what constitutes work from leisure activities, and it constitutes a model from which to distinguish or to aspire to. (shrink)

This article presents the main results of a statistical survey carried out among disability advisors in the civil service in 2019. Through the many tasks they carry out, alone or in cooperation, disability advisors appear to be key players in the implementation of a policy of inclusion of people with disabilities in employment, which aims to go beyond the simple respect of quotas. However, these professionals express the need for better recognition of their function, in particular in (...) terms of allocated working time and access to training leading to a diploma. The survey shows that only one in four disability advisors is employed full-time in this function. Furthermore, although in nine out of ten cases, these professionals were already professionally integrated before taking on the role of disability adviser, three-quarters had never worked in the field of disability and only a minority had taken disability-related training. It is through practice, and in connection with networks, that the skills and the definition of the missions of a function called for to become more professional are built. (shrink)

We współczesnej polityce rynku pracy udział biorą nie tylko takie podmioty publiczne, jak urzędy pracy, lecz także niepubliczne agencje zatrudnienia prowadzone przez podmioty komercyjne i organizacje pozarządowe. Agencje zatrudnienia, mając zróżnicowane cele, struktury i formy zarządzania, podejmują w znacznej mierze działalność aktywizacyjną, zaadresowaną do grup znajdujących się w szczególnej sytuacji na rynku pracy, w tym do osób niepełnosprawnych. Opracowanie ma na celu przybliżenie potencjału krajowych agencji zatrudnienia osób niepełnosprawnych, które są prowadzone przez organizacje pozarządowe. Artykuł zwraca uwagę na teoretyczne koncepcje (...) współpracy publicznych i niepublicznych służb zatrudnienia na poziomie lokalnym i regionalnym. Przybliżono także wybrane wyniki badania własnego, w którym przeprowadzono analizę źródeł wtórnych i indywidualne telefoniczne wywiady kwestionariuszowe. W podsumowaniu przedstawiono rekomendacje praktyczne i potencjalne kierunki dalszych badań. ** Contemporary labor market policy involves not only the public sector as labour offices, but also private employment agencies run by commercial entities and non-governmental organizations. Employment agencies have different objectives, structures and forms of management. They take a large extent of activation services addressed to people in a specific situation on the labor market, including disabled persons. Article aims to introduce the capacity of national employment agencies for disabled people, which are run by non-governmental organizations. Article draws attention to theoretical concepts of cooperation between public and private employment services at local and regional. The chapter also shows selected results of research conducted on the basis of an analysis of secondary sources and individual questionnaire telephone interviews. Summary contains practical recommendations and possible directions for further research. (shrink)

Zakat is mandatory contribution in Islam. It is the command (Pherman) of Allah revealed in holy interaction/discourse of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) with Allah. Islam stands for social and economic solidarity among the followers of Islam. It seeks to provide the basic needs of the individual out of the Zakat contribution pool. For this study, the aim is to discuss the noble and holy idea of employing zakat funds. The employment of Zakat funds are permissible in certain forms and prohibited (...) in some. This distinction is made from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence. The study proceeded with this aim and reached the following results: (i) the employment of zakat funds is undoubtedly meant for helping the poor, disabled, destitute, and sick or orphaned individuals. (ii) Zakat has five forms in which Zakat funds are deployed/dispensed; (iii) Zakat funds take the form of investment; (iv) Zakat funds are meant to be spent in public interests; (v) Zakat funds are converted into endowments. The forms of spending (iii) and (v) are prohibited by some jurists. They contend that the permissible forms of fund-employment are: (a) providing a vocational tool (felicitation giving equipment such as tools, instruments or other things) to the needy; (b) establishing projects that benefit the poor as a privileged group/class. The study makes recommendation that Zakat controlling institutions should take care of employment of Zakat resources-pool/reservoir in providing jobs to the unemployed poor and others eligible as per Islamic philosophy and the provision of vocational tools, instruments or equipment so that the eligible poor skilled individuals are able to work more efficiently to earn their livelihood. (shrink)

The work "Taboos on the teaching vocation" was read by the German social philosopher and representative of critical theory Theodor Adorno as a report on May 21, 1965 at the Berlin Institute for Educational Research. In this report, Adorno considered the socio-psychological and socio-cultural reasons that in the context of Western European culture have historically led to the social emergence of many psychological taboos on the pedagogical work of the school teacher. The philosopher theoretically deduced the dialectical connection between human (...) hostility and disgust for the work of the teacher from the cultural tradition of German society, which historically developed as late bourgeois. A characteristic feature of the attitude of the overly materialistic socio-cultural system was aversion to the work of the teacher as a "hungry job", that is, to a poorly paid profession. Another factor of public disgust for the work of teachers, the philosopher called the socio-cultural tradition of society, which as a closed society willingly practiced physical violence as a means of social coercion. According to this tradition, through the use of violence, the teacher must subordinate students to his authority, subordinate to social and school ideology. The historical result of such dialectics was the socio-cultural distortion of the image of the teacher, the castration of his image in social psychology, his self-alienation from the professional vocation and the ideological elimination of the power of his spirit. As an ideological alternative, Adorno suggested that society, if it consciously seeks democratic change, first of all take into account such young teachers who demonstrate the impulse of their individual spirit in the performance of their profession. According to the philosopher, only the spiritual freedom of such a young educator, a man who is capable of self-understanding, conscious of himself and his vocation, who reflects and is socially active, can democratize schools, devalue society and destroy dehumanized social traditions. First of all – in order to overcome the barbaric tradition of violence. (shrink)

In vocational rehabilitation, empowerment is understood as the notion that people should make an active, autonomous choice to find their way back to the labour process. Following this line of reasoning, the concept of empowerment implicitly points to a specific kind of activation strategy, namely labour participation. This activation approach has received criticism for being paternalistic, disciplining and having a one-sided orientation on labour participation. Although we share this theoretical criticism, we want to go beyond it by paying attention (...) to the practical consequences of understanding empowerment as an activation strategy. Inspired by the field of Science and Technology Studies, we will explore the meaning of empowerment and activation in concrete practices of vocational rehabilitation in the Netherlands. Our analysis is based on the narratives of people with a work disability about their lives and the vocational rehabilitation programmes they participated in. We present five illustrative cases that how empowerment is ‘done’ in the practice of vocational rehabilitation and its unintended effects. Our analysis demonstrates that activation strategies seem to be caught in a paradox: instead of including people in society, they have excluding consequences. Vocational rehabilitation professionals can go beyond this paradox by learning from the ways in which empowerment is ‘done’ by clients in vocational rehabilitation programmes. (shrink)

Sacred texts are important sources for all religions. These resources have a variety of social functions, either implicit or explicit. Therefore, it is important to protect and transfer sacred texts in many cultures. For this reason, in many societies, it has become necessary to memorize these texts after they have been written down and to transfer them orally to the next generations. Thus, over time, various structures related to the memorization of these sacred texts have emerged. Being Ḥāfiẓ is an (...) important activity that emerged for the purpose of memorizing the Qur'an and transferring it in this way when necessary and gained historical and social qualities. People who are Ḥāfiẓ are respected Islamic societies. For this reason, many people make an effort to become a Ḥāfiẓ. In this process, reasons contributed to the spread of becoming Ḥāfiẓ, such as the Prophet Muhammed’s encouragement, and the accepting the memorization of the Qur’an as a virtuous activity for Muslims. The research is based on the lives and experiences of visually impaired Ḥāfiẓes. First of all, it aims to contribute to the relevant scientific literature. In addition to its academic contribution, it also aims to be a source for various social policies in order to reveal new options in line with the inclusion of visually impaired individuals in social life. The research is a qualitative descriptive study. It was conducted on the basis of the phenomenology design, which is one of the qualitative research designs. In this direction, it has been tried to understand how visually impaired hafizes ascribe meaning to their lives and how they evaluate the world, society and relationships. The study group of the research consists of twelve visually impaired Ḥāfiẓ residing in the provinces of Bingöl, Elazig, Diyarbakir and Mardin. During the interviews, it was concluded that the sample reached the saturation point due to the repetition of the data, and so the number of participants was limited to twelve. Snowball sampling technique was used in the research. The interviews were conducted with a semi-structured interview form created within the scope of the research. The interviews were conducted in places such as houses, parks, association offices and mosques. The study was carried out with the permission of Bingöl University Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Committee. Various results were obtained by analyzing the data obtained during the research process. Becoming Ḥāfiẓ is accepted as an important element that directly affects the lives of visually impaired participants. For the participants, it has features that make them at peace with themselves, the world and society, illuminate their dark world, and take them out of living within four walls and include them into life. Being an Ḥāfiẓ, playing role in condolences, reciting hymns in mawlids and similar religious ceremonies, giving voluntary Qur'an trainings in mosques or courses are important examples of social activities provided by the Ḥāfiẓes. The participants stated that being a Ḥāfiẓ provided them an important status in the social context and thus they gained respectability. It has been determined that some visually impaired Ḥāfiẓes are employed informally. Many of the participants earn income by reciting mawlids, hymns and eulogies in various religious ceremonies. They also recite the Qur'an in condolences and on some special days. Being Ḥāfiẓ is an important resource for visually impaired individuals to be included in social life. For this reason, the achievements of the visually impaired due to being a Ḥāfiẓ are an example of a model life for both the disabled and the parents with disabled children. In this direction, the visually impaired individuals should be supported in religious music-supported organizations, religious music associations should be established, and courses like mawlidhan, etc. should be organized. (shrink)

Twenty Years of Poland's Euro-Atlantic Foreign Policy During the years 1989-1991, after a deep transformation of the internal system and the international order in Europe, Poland pursued a sovereign foreign policy. The new policy had the following general goals: 1) to develop a new international security system which would guarantee Poland's national security; 2) to gain diplomatic support for the reforms conducted in Poland, including primarily the transformation of the economy and its adaption to free market mechanisms, (...) which were designed to result in economic growth; and 3) to maintain and increase the international prestige of Poland and the Poles, who had been the first to commence the struggle to create a democratic civil society in the Eastern bloc. Implementing this new concept of foreign policy, Poland entered the Council of Europe in November 1991. The following year, Warsaw started to strive for membership of NATO, which was achieved in March 1999. A few years later, Polish leaders pursued policies in which Poland played the role of a "Trojan horse" for the USA. This was manifested most clearly during the Iraqi crisis of 2003, and in the following years, particularly in 2005-2007. From spring 1990 Poland aspired to integration with the European Community; in December of the following year it signed an association agreement, which fully entered into force in February 1994. In the period 1998-2002 Poland negotiated successfully with the European Union and finally entered this Union in May 2004. In subsequent years Poland adopted an Eurosceptic and sometimes anti-EU position. The new Polish government, established after the parliamentary election of autumn 2007, moved away from an Eurosceptic policy and pursued a policy of engagement with European integration. (shrink)

Industry groups engage in venue shifting when they seek to overturn or alter restrictive regulations imposed by one political venue through another. A critical step in this process is resolving uncertainties surrounding the preference of the targeted venue and the nature of the relevant policy proposal. While existing studies emphasize a long-term trial-and-error process of policy learning, we focus on nascent industries and argue that ventures seek other information sources to resolve these uncertainties quickly. In particular, nascent industry groups are (...) likely to perceive that the targeted venue will support their policy proposal if the targeted venue is ideologically distant from the venue that has enacted the restrictive regulations, if the targeted venue has recently supported other nascent industry groups’ similar policy proposals, or if the industry groups themselves are more exposed to industry peers’ success in promoting the same policy proposal in other jurisdictions. Under these conditions, the industry groups invest more to influence the targeted venue in response to restrictive regulations enacted by other venues. We find support for our theory by examining how from 2013 to 2019 the small unmanned aircraft systems industry trade associations in the United States lobbied state governments to nullify local regulations. (shrink)

Gender mainstreaming has been prioritised within the national agricultural policies of many countries, including Nepal. Yet gender mainstreaming at the national policy level does not always work to effect change when policies are implemented at the local scale. In less-developed nations such as Nepal, it is rare to find a critical analysis of the mainstreaming process and its successes or failures. This paper employs a critical gender analysis approach to examine the gender mainstreaming efforts in Nepal as they move from (...) agricultural policies to practices. The research involved a structured review of 10 key national agricultural policy documents, 14 key informant interviews, and two focus group discussions with female and male smallholder farmers. Results suggest that gender mainstreaming in national agricultural policy and practice has largely failed. The creation of the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) section within the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is paradoxical to gender-responsive agricultural innovation because it has received limited human and financial resources with an expectation for women to manage this policy development in informal and largely unrecognized ways. At the regional and local levels, implementation of fundamental gender equity and social inclusion procedures—such as gender-responsive planning and budgeting—has become staff responsibility without requisite formal training, gender sensitization, and follow-up. In Nepal, women as smallholder farmers or agricultural labourers are recognized as a vulnerable group in need of social protection, but the welfare approach to gender mainstreaming has achieved little in terms of gender equity, social inclusion, and agricultural sustainability. This paper concludes that what is generally missing is a systemic transformation of gender roles and relations in agriculture, with policies that would support rural women's empowerment through the provision of economic and political rights and entitlement to productive resources. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that, even when disability rights activists are most clearly acting as activists, they can advance the scholarly activity of disability bioethics. In particular, I will argue that even engaging in non-violent direct action, including civil disobedience, is an important way in which disability rights activists directly support the efforts of disability bioethics scholars. I will begin by drawing upon Hilde Lindemann’s work on relational narrative identity to describe how certain (...) damaging master narratives about disability hinder the uptake of arguments from disability bioethics. Then, I will argue that disability activism, especially non-violent direct action and civil disobedience, provides an effective counterstory to some of the worst of these master narratives, thereby laying the groundwork for the scholarly argument s of disability bioethicists to be given more serious consideration. Ultimately, I conclude that the field of bioethics is improved when it abandons the gross grained, generalizations about who disabled people are and how they act put forth by oppressive master narratives in favor of the more nuanced self-descriptions offered by the counterstories being offered by disabled people themselves. So it is that, by challenging these oppressive master narratives that constrain and distort the social meaning of disability, disability activism can improve mainstream bioethics. (shrink)

In European nations, the aging of the workforce is a major issue which is increasingly addressed both in national and organizational policies in order to sustain older workers’ employability and to encourage longer working lives. Particularly older workers’ employability can be viewed an important issue as this has the potential to motivate them for their work and change their intention to retire. Based on lifespan development theories and Van der Heijden’s ‘employability enhancement model’, this paper develops and tests an age-moderated (...) mediation model (which refers to the processes that we want to test in this model), linking older workers’ (55 years old and over) perceptions of job support for learning (organizational factor) and perceptions of negative age stereotypes on productivity (job-related factor), on the one hand, and their intention to retire, on the other hand, via their participation in employability enhancing activities, being the mediator in our model. A total of 2,082 workers aged 55 years and above were included in the analyses. Results revealed that the two proposed relationships between the predictors and intention to retire were mediated by participation in employability enhancing activities, reflecting two mechanisms through which work context affects intention to retire (namely “a gain spiral and a loss spiral”). Multi-Group SEM analyses, distinguishing between two age groups (55-60 and 61-65 years old), revealed different paths for the two distinguished groups of older workers. Employability mediated the relationship between perceptions of job support for learning and intention to retire in both age groups, whereas it only mediated the relationship between perceptions of negative age stereotypes and intention to retire in the 55-60 group. From our empirical study, we may conclude that employability is an important factor in the light of older workers’ intention to retire. In order to motivate this category of workers to participate in employability enhancing activities and to work longer, negative age stereotypes need to be combated. In addition, creating job support for learning over the lifespan is also an important HR practice to be implemented in nowadays’ working life. (shrink)

1.Introduction Despite more than two decades of strategies and policies to promote equal employment opportunities and avoid discrimination against persons with disabilities, major employment and participation gaps still remain. Persons with disabilities have significantly lower employment rates, and higher inactivity and unemployment rates than persons without disabilities. If they do work, they are less likely to be in full-time employment and more likely to be in subsidised or supported emp...

In Japan, inclusion policies place great emphasis on participation in the local community. Sheltered workshops are evolving in this direction, and their number has risen sharply while mainstream employment was being promoted as well. The aim of this paper is to examine the forms of participation in local life offered by these workshops to their workers. It analyzes the strategies implemented by workshop managers to develop opportunities for interaction between disabled workers and the outside population, as well as their (...) impact on the image of sheltered work and disabled workers in the eyes of non-disabled members of the community. This study is based on a fieldwork conducted in 12 workshops in Tokyo, Kyoto and Akita. It shows that many Japanese sheltered workshops allow disabled people who so wish to work in contact with the local population, but also that there is a tension between emphasizing disability and asserting the status of the disabled people as workers. (shrink)

Using two firm-level datasets in Korea, we analyzed the effects of corporate social responsibility on employment relations. We propose that participation in corporate social activity may not necessarily reflect an ethical commitment to do “the right thing,” but instead can be associated with mobilizing internal resources to offset the costs imposed by external CSR involvement undertaken because of social pressure. Analysis of the two datasets showed similar results. The results demonstrate that socially responsible actions facilitate employer tendency to (...) use performance-based pay and efficiency-based work practices. We also find that CSR has a negative association with employment growth and increased labor flexibility through contingent employment. These findings shed light on the internal impact of CSR involvement on a firm’s employment policies with respect to resource allocation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:KARL ASCHENBRENNER, 19x 1-1988 Karl Aschenbrenner was born in Bison, Kansas, on November 20, 1911. He received the A. B. degree from Reed College in 1934 and his graduate degrees at Berkeley (M. A., 1938; Ph.D., 194o). After two years as an instructor at Reed College, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve (Lieutenant in Meteorology ) from 1943 to 1946. From 1946 to 1948, he taught in the (...) Department of Speech at Berkeley and thereafter in the Department of Philosophy until his retirement in 1978. His teaching was devoted mainly to aesthetics and to the history of philosophy, most notably his course on Kant. For many years he was active as a trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics, and from 1961 as a member of the Journal's founding executive committee and, after incorporation, of the Board of Directors. Karl's first two years of attachment to theJournal coincided with service as chairman of the Department of Philosophy. This conjunction enabled him to be extraordinarily helpful in dealing with problems of bringing the Journal to birth--problems of funding, editorial appointments, publication policies, and business arrangements with the University of California Press. He welcomed the opportunity offered the Philosophy Department of collaborating in the publishing venture recommended by a special committee of the American Philosophical Association in 1958. The recognition early won by the Journal for its articles and reviews answered to his hope and work for success. At the annual meeting of the Board of Directors in San Francisco in 1987, the twenty-fifth birthday of the Journal was celebrated as was his twenty-seven years of diligent care for theJournafs excellence. Karl was a regular contributor to the philosophy series published by the University of California prior to three books issued by D. Reidel: The Concepts ofValue(1971), The ConceptsofCriticism(1974) and AnalysisofAppraisiveCharacterization (1983). He received Guggenheim, Fulbright, and NEH fellowships. Despite a physically disabling stroke in 1979, he continued his trips to Budapest which he began in 1972. He was concerned to study a non-IndoEuropean language spoken by people of European culture and had selected the Magyar tongue spoken in Hungary. He learned the language to test theories he advanced about appraisive concepts. He discovered in the structure of Magyar a mode of valuing embodied in verb usage differing significantly [333] 334 from the special appraisive vocabularies of English and German. Besides his lectures in Hungary, he responded to invitations to lecture received from universities in England, Austria, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania. Shortly after his return to Budapest on his eleventh trip, he died of a massive stroke on July 4, 1988. He is buried there in a city he loved, especially for its music. He is survived by Marie, his wife of fifty-one years, and three children: Lisabeth, an attorney in Los Angeles; Peter, a judge in Fairbanks; and John, a composer in New York. E. W. STRONG... (shrink)

Recyclable issues do not receive sufficient attention, which thus see low awareness among Malaysians. This paper1 proposes women’s active participation in re-upcycling habits to maintain the ecologically challenging world today. Empowering women-at-home in this way enable them to sustain their own social and ecological well-being. Women can be active participants in community development activities. Even though they may be disinterested to work outside home, their involvement in their community should be encouraged. Embeddedness theory advocates empowerment of women through re-upcycling actions (...) are to be initiated from home. With the support from community, in turn, these actions can be an economic resources for their households. Malaysian women are most affected by employment opportunities, supports and reassurances from various sectors, such as the government, nongovernmental organisations and most importantly, the men in their lives. Depriving them from this socio-economic foundation will further impact the unemployment rate for Malaysia. On the other hand, if strategic planning is implemented by utilising the abundance number of unemployed women-at-home, the socio-economic conditions of the nation can also be improved. Indeed, this paper motivates discussions on the employment policy whereby re-upcycling activities may pave ways for women-at-home to get involved in employment, without leaving their homes. (shrink)

«Youth policy» as an independent term is defined in the scientific literature in the 1960s., which in many ways «was associated with the formation of youth as an independent social force and its self-determination in the socio-political space». By the 1970s XX century youth policy in the vast majority of developed countries is transforming an independent direction of national policy. Youth is a complex, multidimensional and rather controversial social phenomenon. Modern youth acts as the most active and mobile social group, (...) which requires special attention from state institutions in need of socialization and adaptation. At the same time, it is youth that is increasingly viewed today as the most important and promising part of society. It is no accident that already in the mid-60s of the XX century, in the practical activities of a number of international institutions, in particular the UN, a specialized area of cooperation began to develop, in the field of education and social support for the young generation. It should be noted that in the world there are more than 1 billion 800 million young people under the age of 25, which emphasizes the importance of effective youth policy by members of the international community. In the post-bipolar period, youth policy has become one of the priority areas of state policy of most developed countries. A striking example in this regard is the activities of the countries of the European Union (EU) and its structures. Europe is making significant efforts to create a single space in which not only common political institutions, but common values for all Europeans should be formed. And in this process, it is youth that acts as the key object on which measures are aimed at the formation of a pan-European identity. In recent years, the European Union has significantly stepped up youth policy. Its mechanisms were developed (open coordination method), special institutions were formed. It seems extremely relevant to analyze the EU’s activities in this direction, to consider concrete steps taken at the European level to consolidate measures in the field of youth policy. Despite the fact that integration processes in Europe continue, nevertheless, a number of problems have already been accumulated there today, the success of the entire European project will depend on the solution of these problems. In many ways, these problems are connected precisely with the young generation of Europeans, to whom the EU leadership has special hopes. As noted in a recent communiqué of the European Commission, “social and human capital of youth is one of the greatest European assets of the future». Among the studies affecting various aspects of working with young people, one can single out works of S.V. Aleshchenko, V.P. Baskov, Yu.R. Vyshnevskyi, Yu.V. Volkov, T.I. Zaslavskaia, I.M. Ylynskyi, E.Sh. Kamaldynova, A.I., Kovalova, O.A. Koriakovtseva, V.T. Lysovskyi, V.A. Lukov, O.A. Rozhnov, B.A. Ruchkin, S.K. Savin, V.I. Chuprov and several other authors. However, the young generation of Europeans faces serious challenges. The growth of unemployment, absenteeism, deprivation, the growth of radicalism, cultural indifference (including religious) – main youth problems that today require urgent solutions. Moreover, in different EU countries, these problems have varying degrees of severity. Continued heterogeneity continues to be a serious obstacle to pan-European unity. It is likely that youth policy may be another very painful issue for the future of the EU. Thus, it seems necessary to analyze the national and supranational levels of youth policy in the European Union in order to identify their degree of coherence, common goal-setting and specific implementation methods. (shrink)

Performance on working memory (WM) tasks may partially be supported by long-term memory (LTM) processing. Hence, brain activation recently being implicated in WM may actually have been driven by (incidental) LTM formation. We examined which brain regions actually support successful WM processing, rather than being confounded by LTM processes, during the maintenance and probe phase of a WM task. We administered a four-pair (faces and houses) associative delayed-match-to-sample (WM) task using event-related fMRI and a subsequent associative recognition LTM task, (...) using the same stimuli. This enabled us to analyze subsequent memory effects for both the WM and the LTM test by contrasting correctly recognized pairs with incorrect pairs for either task. Critically, with respect to the subsequent WM effect, we computed this analysis exclusively for trials that were forgotten in the subsequent LTM recognition task. Hence, brain activity associated with successful WM processing was less likely to be confounded by incidental LTM formation. The subsequent LTM effect, in contrast, was analyzed exclusively for pairs that previously had been correctly recognized in the WM task, disclosing brain regions involved in successful LTM formation after successful WM processing. Results for the subsequent WM effect showed no significantly activated brain areas for WM maintenance, possibly due to an insensitivity of fMRI to mechanisms underlying active WM maintenance. In contrast, a correct decision at WM probe was linked to activation in the “retrieval success network” (anterior and posterior midline brain structures). The subsequent LTM analyses revealed greater activation in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex in the early phase of the maintenance stage. No supra-threshold activation was found during the WM probe. Together, we obtained clearer insights in which brain regions support successful WM and LTM without the potential confound of the respective memory system. (shrink)

In line with public policies, the French Association of Paralyzed People (APF) promotes the social participation of people with disabilities. This objective can be achieved both through participation in activities and participation in decision-making processes. This dual categorisation raises questions about the compatibility of logics of support and program objectives across these two facets of participation. Arising from work conducted in the context of a PhD dissertation, this article is based on document analysis and 49 indepth interviews with employees, (...) volunteers, members and users of the APF. The results highlight a tension, from the point of view of professional supports, between participation in activities and participation in decision-making. For the sake of swift and tangible results, professionals are encouraged to offer activities and services to achieve faster and more effective social participation. However, this places them in a complex, or even inextricable, position when it comes to enhancing users’ participation in decision-making. (shrink)

Over the last decades, consistent research showed that voluntary work could be considered as a tool for professional development and concrete employment: volunteering could be either experienced as a desire to improve career opportunities or to acquire new skills. The study aimed to investigate voluntary work as a context of informal and non-formal workplace learning and vocational guidance, useful to develop skills and abilities, namely the capital of personal and social resources, that could promote future employability. Participants were (...) 38 young volunteers who experienced the Universal Civil Service, a national Italian program addressed to young people aged up to 28 years, giving them both the opportunity to engage in social activities useful for the community and have the first contact with a working context. In line with the objectives of the study, participants were invited to describe their volunteering experience in a diary, highlighting if and to what extent this context contributed to enhancing their employability capital, namely the asset of skills, knowledge, and networks acquired, that they could transfer to a future professional domain. The narrative data collected were examined through diatextual analysis, a specific address of discourse analysis designed to catch the relationship between enunciators, text, and context of the talk. This qualitative analysis allowed us to investigate the meanings young people attributed to these activities. In light of these results, the paper contributed to investigate volunteers’ perceptions about the conditions that could best foster this specific kind of workplace informal and non-formal learning and at proposing a qualitative perspective on the analysis of the employability capital they developed. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to determine how the economic crisis, and the ad hoc attempts made by the authorities to counteract it, affected the Polish society and, above all, to prepare a multidimensional analysis of how the crisis impacted systemic changes in the Polish social policy. The author will examine both positive changes that followed the relevant global trends and also negative changes that resulted from the developmental lag, the country’s economic situation and especially the generally low involvement (...) of the state via public funding in activities that were part of the state’s social policy. Assessment of Polish social policy during the crisis must be ambiguous. On the one hand, systemic changes in social policy introduced as a result of the economic collapse can be clearly distinguished, on the other hand, however, the severity of the crisis visibly affected many activities of state and local governments in the social sphere. These activities posed unsuccessful attempts to rescue the situation in the labour market. Additionally, an effective response to deepening poverty was missing, amendments adopted to labour legislation were disadvantageous to employees, and finally fundamental sacrifices in terms of social policy were made as the lawmakers passed the Unification Act during the crisis. Polish social policy was unable, for a number of reasons, to essentially redefine its approach to addressing the numerous social issues it had to face. (shrink)

The paper explores the effects of social disablement caused by imprisonment, analyzing how this institution can exacerbate existing disability conditions or create new ones. Through a review of sociological literature, it highlights how the prison context can significantly contribute to an additional level of disablement. Considering the incapacitating effects of imprisonment, it emerges that the prison system acts as a “producer” of social disablement, intensifying marginalization processes and increasing societal disparities. This process is fueled by prison overcrowding, loss (...) of employment and housing, suspension of social assistance, and the breakdown of family ties, creating a vicious cycle that generates and reinforces social disablement. The article underscores the need for greater attention and research in the field of disability within the prison environment, considering the dynamic interaction between individual conditions and contextual factors that influence it. Furthermore, it calls for a critical reflection on the social function and practices of prison institutions, proposing a more inclusive approach that reconsiders penal structures and policies to mitigate the disabling effects of detention. (shrink)

Developments in the provision of care and support services for disabled and older people across developed welfare states have led to the expansion of personalisation (sometimes called cash-for-care, direct payments, care payments, etc.) schemes, whereby cash is paid in substitute for care services and support. Although these schemes vary considerably in their scope and operation (sometimes paying carers directly, sometimes enabling disabled and older people to act as direct employers, sometimes mixing paid and unpaid care), they share the (...) characteristics of commodifying care and support services and will have a potentially profound impact on the relationship between individuals, families, communities and the welfare state. Although the schemes have been evaluated within their own national contexts, little work has been done so far to explore the theoretical implications of their development and extension, particularly from an ethics of care perspective. This paper intends to fill that theoretical gap by drawing on comparative evidence from several schemes across different national contexts to develop an analysis which draws on feminist theory and an ethics of care approach to examine (a) the gendered policy outcomes and impact of such schemes; (b) a feminist analysis of the governance implications of personalisation; (c) the implications for the gendered division of work, particularly between paid and unpaid care work and between different groups of paid and unpaid carers; (d) an ethics of care analysis of the impact of personalisation over the lifecourse of disabled and older people, and carers; and (e) a discussion of the relationship between commodification, empowerment, citizenship and choice drawing on the work of care ethicists. It will draw conclusions about the outcomes of a range of types of personalisation schemes and thus have implications for theory, policy and practice. (shrink)

For the last eighteen months, I have worked with a group of disability and health policy researchers. I began this interview-based project trying to learn how these researchers’ disability identities shaped their work. How did their disability standpoint contribute to the liberatory nature of their research? I found that the disability standpoint of these researchers was in fact hard-won and grew not just out of their own disability experiences but out of their connections with the (...) larger disability community. These connections, for the most part, helped researchers come to “claim crip,” and that later influenced their research. (shrink)