Philosophical Education in Košice in the Continuity and Discontinuity of Historical Development

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Renáta Orosová - Zuzana Boberová

The university textbook "Pregraduate Teacher Preparation – Organization of Pedagogical Practice at UPJŠ" reflects the changes that have occurred in the pregraduate preparation of students of academic subject teaching in connection with the comprehensive accreditation in 2015. It is intended for students of the second level of university studies in the study programs of Academic Subject Teaching at the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science at UPJŠ in Košice. The aim of the university textbook is to provide theoretical foundations and methodological guidelines for the organization of all types of pedagogical practice carried out under the conditions of UPJŠ.

Preparation for the teaching profession has both theoretical and practical components. While theoretical academic preparation focuses on acquiring and developing knowledge, skills, and competencies in pedagogy, psychology, and the scientific disciplines of the teaching subjects, practical professional preparation is oriented towards preparing for the actual performance of the profession, i.e., the didactic aspect of the teaching process. A significant part of the practical preparation for the teaching profession is realized within the subject of pedagogical practice, which at UPJŠ takes four forms/levels – Observational pedagogical-psychological practice, Ongoing teaching practice, Continuous teaching practice I, and Continuous teaching practice II.

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Jana Bajusová - Dušan Šlosár

The integration of immigrants into society is currently of interest to many professionals and to the general public. Immigration is a consequence of a variety of factors, mainly due to political, social, economic or security conditions in the countries of origin. Immigration is subsequently linked to the process of integrating immigrants into the host country. The integration of immigrants into society or integration, as this process is called in the monograph, is a complex phenomenon that extends to many spheres of everyday life for the citizens of the receiving country, and at the same time is often difficult for immigrants. Many governmental and non-governmental organizations are involved in the process of social integration of immigrants, who develop different strategies and mechanisms to streamline the outcome of this process.

In relation to immigrants, the Slovak Republic is bound to provide social and legal protection and therefore it is necessary to deal with the issue of social services, which could potentially significantly contribute to their social integration into Slovak society. From the legislative point of view, however, these services are unified and do not take into account the differences of immigrants resulting from their culture, religion, social, ethical or other characteristics. That is why the monograph focuses on social integration of immigrants in Slovakia in the context of provided social services.

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Pavel Štekauer

The book is intended as an introduction to English linguistics for students entering on the study of the English language at Faculties of arts and Pedagogical faculties. It has been written with the purpose of filling the existing gap in the available literature on general linguistics, and in this way to help both students and teachers. However, since the scope of the book surpasses the immediate requirements of an introductory course, it may also be helpful to students within specialized disciplines. In addition, it may be used by undergraduates when preparing for the state-leaving examinations.

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Vladimír Leško - Zlatica Plašienková (eds.)

In 2007, the philosophical world commemorated an extraordinary anniversary - two hundred years since the first publication of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's brilliant work The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Of course, we can have different value scales of the most important philosophical works written in the history of philosophy, but the above-mentioned work of Hegel should certainly not be absent from the top places in them. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit decisively changed the philosophical discourse of the 19th century and greatly influenced philosophy in the 20th century. Few of the great philosophers after Hegel could afford to pass over the philosophical work of the 1807 supreme representative of German classical philosophy and not draw, either positively or critically, on his philosophical legacy.

The philosophical conference entitled Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" and the Present, dedicated to Hegel's work Phenomenology of Spirit, was prepared by the Department of Philosophy and History of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in cooperation with the Slovak Philosophical Association at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava on October 4, 2007 and was organized by the Slovak Philosophical Association in Košice.

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Juraj Schenk et al.

The scientific journal Sociálne a politické analýzy (Social and Political Analyses) serves as an interactive electronic platform for communication and the presentation (publication) of experts and their work in the fields of basic and applied research and analyses within sociological, psychological, political, and methodological contexts. It is a medium focused on intensively supporting research activities and analyses within an interdisciplinary framework, facilitating the exchange of experiences, fostering collaboration, and revitalizing the production of scientific work in this area.

The publication section of the journal offers space for works such as:

- Original sociological, psychological, and political studies and analyses in any areas of social life

- Methodological studies

- Research reports

- Studies from qualification theses Research and analysis projects

- Reviews

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Eva Žiaková (ed.) 

The 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on November 25, 2016, in Košice

The issue of re-education and resocialization is not new, but it is an increasingly urgent problem as various types of dependencies grow in both scope and content. It can be said that this issue represents one of the central themes of social work in its theoretical foundations as well as practical contexts.

This was the main reason for selecting this topic as the central theme of the 5th edition of the Košice Days of Social Work, which was the sixth continuation of the professional community’s gatherings to address social problems currently troubling our society. The presented proceedings include nearly three dozen contributions from more than twenty authors from Slovakia, as well as Poland and the Czech Republic. The content of the contributions deals not only with theoretical foundations and perspectives on the issue of resocialization and re-education but also with the consequences of these processes in various client social risk groups—whether it involves the addicted, aggressive, chronically ill, convicted, divorced, bullied, cyberbullied, etc.

I believe that such a wide range of contributions will enrich all those who work and study in the theoretical, research, and practical fields of social work.

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Adriana Jesenková

The ethics of care offers inspiring ways to think about the relationships and connections we are part of. It provides a new and unconventional reading and understanding of human relationships, thereby enabling us to respond in new and appropriate ways to certain empirical challenges (Pettersen 2011, p. 51).

Just twenty-five years ago, thinking about care was associated with women’s decisions in the private sphere concerning their personal dilemmas and problems. Over the last two decades, advocates of the ethics of care have demonstrated that the ideal of care has the potential to regulate not only private behavior but also human interactions in general.

Today, ideas about care have the power to change how we evaluate personal relationships, professional conduct, public policy, international relations, and global issues. The relevance of the ethics of care in such a wide range of areas of life, many of which are characterized by mutual incompatibilities and conflicting interests, is conditioned by several factors. However, one of the most significant is the creativity and fruitfulness of the thinking of the representatives of the ethics of care, who develop ethical concepts, models, and methods capable of grasping and analyzing human relationships in all their diversity (Pettersen 2011, p. 52).

Compared to traditional ethical concepts and theories in moral philosophy, the ethics of care introduces radically different sets of models and normative concepts. Today, it is precisely feminist ethics of care that offers a critical reflection on care within the realm of moral philosophy, ethics, and social philosophy. The aim of this publication is to identify the concept, subject, approach, philosophical foundations and starting points, as well as the possibilities for applying the ethics of care as a specific moral approach and, at the same time, as a specific moral theory in the field of social science and humanities research.

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Lukáš Šutor

Proceedings from the International Scientific Colloquium "The Folk Tale in Contexts" (December 12, 2022, in Košice)

We present the proceedings "The Folk Tale in Contexts" to the professional public as the outcome of the eponymous international scientific colloquium, which took place on December 12, 2022. Our aim was, among other things, to open a discussion on verbal folklore in broader interpretative, transcultural, and ultimately also interdisciplinary contexts—a goal that was achieved especially in the latter respect. Although the contributors primarily work in the fields of folklore studies and literary science, their methodological approaches from other—sometimes even more distant—disciplines expand the current discourse to a remarkable breadth. This is proof that research on the folk tale remains vibrant and open to new challenges.

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Lukáš Šutor

Currently, the eighth issue of the Doctoral Miscellanea consists of thirteen contributions from four study programs. The publication of these contributions is traditionally associated with the Autumn School for Doctoral Students at the Faculty of Arts of UPJŠ in Košice, where third-cycle students have the opportunity to first try out the conference format of presenting their research results and subsequently expand them into full studies.

Unlike last year, when the proceedings were non-conference due to the pandemic situation, we consider the return to plenary dialogue beneficial. A distinctive feature of our proceedings is its multidisciplinary nature, encompassing humanities and social science fields. Despite this diversity, interesting connections often emerge among the topics, relating to generational reassessments of regularly recurring issues as well as research on highly current phenomena.

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Vladimír Lichner - Dušan Šlosár

The scientific monograph focuses on the issue of adolescent risk behaviors on the internet in the form of its problematic use in the context of valid theories and practices of a social work. Text of the monograph is divided into four parts.

The first part focuses on the multidisciplinary definition of a risk behavior on the internet. It offers an up-to-date literary overview of the issue through the latest, especially foreign, theoretical knowledge.

The second part focuses on the problematic use of the internet in contexts of valid origins of the social work. The third part focuses on the presentation of the most important psychosocial factors correlating with the problematic internet use in the adolescent´s group. The theoretical knowledge is supplemented by the authors research into the present factors.

The final part is application-oriented and focuses on the possibilities that the social work offers at the praxis level to prevent and solve the presented problems.

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Margita Mesárošová - Miroslava Köverová - Soňa Lovašová

Intervention Program for Supporting Self-Care in Helping Professions: "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" The intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" was developed as part of the research project APVV14-0921, "Self-Care as a Factor in Coping with the Negative Consequences of Engaging in Helping Professions." Its uniqueness lies in being created based on specific research outputs from the program's authors and project.

In the first chapter, the authors offer insights into the preparation of the intervention program, justifying its theoretical foundations, methods, and specifics of the program participants. They also provide an overview of research on the effectiveness of various intervention programs aimed at reducing the negative consequences of helping and enhancing self-care and other positive effects of engaging in helping professions. Subsequent chapters focus on a detailed analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" and its comparison with the effectiveness of other programs, which were differently focused, targeted at different populations of helping professionals, and had different theoretical and practical orientations and foundations. Most of these studies demonstrated positive changes only in isolated cases, due to various methodological shortcomings often related to practical application.

What differentiates the intervention program presented in this monograph is the participation of helping professionals actively practicing in the social field, unlike most intervention programs compiled and validated for students of these professions. The student population, being more accessible to researchers, allows for better methodology, including a larger number of participants, as well as experimental manipulation and group balancing. In the case of participants in the validation of the program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?", it involved practitioners who are engaged in the daily work process and completed training during their work breaks, which placed high demands on balancing their work and personal tasks. We believe that the effects we discovered during the validation of the effectiveness of the presented intervention program were not always clearly mathematically graspable but were evident from individual feedback.

We present the text of this monograph to the professional public with the aim of highlighting the benefits, limitations of the intervention program, as well as inspiring researchers and practitioners to further work in this area.

Authors

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Eva Žiaková - Tomáš Šeďo (eds.)

Peer-reviewed collection of contributions from an online scientific conference (9^th year of Košické dni sociálnej práce) with international attendance held on the 26^th of November 2021.

The present peer-reviewed collection of contributions titled “Metanoia in social work theory and practice” is an output of the 9^th year of Košické dni sociálnej práce, an online conference with international attendance held on the 26^th of November 2021. As the name of the conference implies, the pivotal topic of submitted contributions is metanoia, which represents a change in life attitude. Various interesting and actual issues concerning diverse aspects of social work are discussed in the individual contributions.

The present collection comprises contributions oriented towards the issues of social pathology and its prevention, supervision, the importance of digital technologies in social work, research methods, self-care and so forth. The collection further contains several contributions devoted to the exceptionally actual issues of radicalism and extremism, which are widespread and serious occurrences in the present time. The contributions are highly original and beneficial from the point of view of theoretical conceptions and methodological procedures apart from offering quality empirical processing and interesting results.

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Magdaléna Hovanová

The university textbook offers a view of the family in social contexts. It deals with the basic characteristics of the family, the life cycle of the family from the choice of partner, through the arrival of children in the family to the end of the family. During its duration, the family performs various functions. A functional family is ideal for a harmonious relationship between partners and a suitable environment for raising children.

However, a number of factors enter the life of the family, which directly or indirectly affect the performance of these functions and can cause various disorders. It is here that the task of social work is to offer help to families to cope with their big and small problems. A specific feature of social work is the focus on the whole and a comprehensive assessment of the family, where it is necessary to take into account both the client's point of view and the aspect of the environment in which he lives and which constantly affects him. Therefore, the university textbook offers procedures for social work with the family, from the assessment of the life situation, through the plan of work with the family to social intervention.

The university textbook is intended for students of social work, who have the opportunity to practice complex issues within the assessment of the case through the enclosed case studies.

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Eva Žiaková - Lucia Tóthová (eds.)

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on December 8, 2017, in Košice

6th Annual Košice Days of Social Work

Social work addresses a wide range of social issues, some of which have been tackled since time immemorial, while others can be considered modern.

The proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation, titled Transformations in Social Work Over Time, are therefore dedicated to diverse perspectives on social work questions that remain relevant across time.

The contributions in this volume highlight not only the broad scope of the proceedings but also the multifaceted nature of social work itself.

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Katarína Šiňanská

For a non-governmental organization to be successful, it must focus, among other things, on its main goal of spreading its vision and mission to another area. It can achieve success by increasing its visibility and raising awareness about its activities in society, sending a clear message, and maintaining transparency.

The monograph deals with specific areas in which non-profit NGOs are active, i.e. marketing and fundraising. Both these areas are of key importance for the NGO’s success, therefore they require particular attention. It is well known that NGOs lack proper support in Slovakia and their funding is insufficient given the demand for their services. NGOs therefore search for multiple sources of funding and use marketing as a tool.

The monograph explains the importance of NGOs in the non-profit sector and justifies the tools they employ when navigating the commercial space.

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Marianna Sedláková a kol. 

The worksheets, based on the direct specific needs of teaching medical students in Košice, respect the real situation of teaching Slovak as a foreign language at UPJŠ.

They also reflect the relatively high number of Slavic students, especially from neighboring countries, who, although just beginning with the Slovak language, are at a higher communicative level compared to students from non-Slavic countries. Therefore, a special part of the worksheets with exercises is dedicated to them, which includes special exercises and dictionaries aimed at eliminating Slovak-Polish or Slovak-Ukrainian interference phenomena. Since some non-Slavic students come from the Czech language environment, we also add a glossary of the most common different expressions in Slovak, Czech, and, for the aforementioned reasons, Polish and Ukrainian. In the part intended for all students, both Slavic and non-Slavic, communicatively focused exercises for practicing grammatical phenomena predominantly at the A1 and A2 communication skill levels (according to the Common European Framework of Reference) prevail, and last but not least, exercises thematically focused on medicine and healthcare.

The texts from the thematic area are, of course, supplemented with realia of the city of Košice. As a functional supplement in the working material, we also publish test samples.

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