Pull and push factors of radicalization in the scope of helping professionals

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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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Vladimír Leško - Milovan Ješič - Eugen Andreanský

The philosophical work of Immanuel Kant, the founder of German classical idealism, is one of those which, by the strength of its theoretical legacy, is permanently inspiring even in contemporary philosophical activities. This is an indisputable fact that cannot be seriously objected to. The philosophical teachings of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, his successor Martin Heidegger, as well as several representatives of analytic philosophy, are proof of this fact. The above fact led the authors of this work to the idea of devoting a separate collective monograph to the indicated problem. 

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Martin Škára

Philosophy is interwoven throughout its history with several principles that bring light and order to this kind of thinking, whether it is a systematic or a non-systematic form of philosophizing.

Each of the principles represents in its own way the origin (ἀρχή) of all deductive reasoning, but not all philosophical statements and conceptions are obliged to proceed in the same way, for not all philosophical statements and conceptions are calculus. Actually, such a form of rationalist philosophizing is really a minority in the history of philosophy. But in spite of its minority presence, it will always attract attention to some extent, whether by becoming a pillar of thought itself and finding a permanent place in its foundations, or by becoming an indispensable mainstay of philosophical reasoning. In fact, there are not many principles in the history of philosophical thought.

The state of affairs is primarily due to the heterogeneous and in many cases irrationalist nature of philosophical thinking.

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Ján Šimko - Dušan Šlosár

The monograph is dealing with the issue of homosexuality and homophobia in the context of social work and it is divided into five chapters, which are devoted to individual fields of the tackled issue. The first chapter is describing the phenomenon of homosexuality in the society; the focus is put on human sexuality and sexual orientation. The following chapter is clarifying the formation of homosexual identity in connection to coming out and it describes its frequently utilized models. The third chapter is devoted to the concepts of heteronormativity and heterosexism in the social context.

Furthermore, the chapter is dealing with the formation of attitudes towards this issue from the point of view of religion and masculinity. Another chapter is describing homophobia as the result of heteronormativity, stereotypes and prejudice.

In the last chapter, the authors are introducing selected social work theories dealing with the homosexual minority, the approaches to LGBT+ community and suggestions towards elimination of homophobia within the social work environment.

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Štefan Jusko

Selected chapters from axiology are the result of the author's multi-year research work and also a certain fulfillment of the requirements from pedagogical practice in this subject. The chapters in this synthesizing form have not been published yet, and I am convinced that precisely in this form they can acquire higher value and greater real impact on our philosophy students.

Individual chapters focus on the problem of the collapse of traditional values, often leading to nihilism and loss of meaning in human existence. It is no coincidence that Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who first called for a reevaluation of all values, is a common denominator among these texts. Another key figure is F. Dostojevskij, a Russian philosophising writer who views nihilism—the problem of value destruction—differently. The goal of these texts is literally to provoke our students so that they independently and creatively address questions related to the meaning of their own existence.

As I am convinced, our time presents a great challenge for new, original ideas and axiological judgments that have always preceded cognitive ones. To what extent my intentions and goals have been fulfilled remains up to the reader to decide.

Autor

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Vladimír Leško - Věra Schifferová - Róbert Stojka - Pavol Tholt  a kol.

Filozofické dedičstvo Jana Patočku ponúka vo svojom celku významné reflektovanie novovekého filozofického myslenia. V našich doterajších domácich historicko-filozofických skúmaniach sa však doposiaľ tejto skutočnosti venovala len veľmi malá pozornosť. Z uvedeného dôvodu je preto prirodzené, že sa chceme po prvýkrát pokúsiť o celostnejšie zachytenie Patočkovho chápania novovekej filozofie. Kolektívna monografia Patočka a grécka filozofia, ktorú sme spracovali ako prvý výstup riešenia projektu APVV, dostáva tak svoje pokračovanie v druhej monografii Patočka a novoveká filozofia. Zavŕšenie nášho úsilia bude potom predstavovať kolektívna monografia Patočka a filozofia 20. storočia.

V predkladanej práci nám ide o predstavenie rozhodujúceho odkazu novovekej filozofie v Patočkovom filozofickom diele. Význam jeho filozofickej výpovede k tomuto dejinno-filozofickému útvaru je prekvapujúco stále živým, aktuálnym filozofickým dedičstvom, bez pochopenia ktorého sa dá len veľmi ťažko komplexne uchopiť hodnota Patočkovho filozofického odkazu. Tomuto poznaniu sme podriadili ako výber, tak aj obsahové naplnenie jednotlivých kapitol našej novej práce.

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Miriama Filčáková (ed.)

Proceedings of the 11th Scientific Conference of Young Historians, organized by the Department of History at the Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, in cooperation with the Slovak Historical Society at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, on October 19-20, 2021.

Currently, these histories are often presented as an extension of the history of science. The history of knowledge not only expands the boundaries of the history of science but also explores the boundaries between different forms of knowledge and ignorance. Just as studies of historical memory have expanded and complemented their interest in researching forgetting, the history of knowledge includes studies of ignorance. They focus on the change that has occurred over the past decades: from the sacralization of science and respect for professional knowledge to the rejection of science and constant questioning of professional knowledge, to which the history of knowledge must also respond. Findings as a product form the basis of human interactions and have their own past. What was the significance of knowledge and cognition in different historical periods? How did state power influence the development of knowledge and cognition? What can be considered knowledge in a particular historical era or culture? Finally, is there any human activity that cannot be considered knowledge?

Currently, in the field of the history of knowledge, a significant surge in research, publishing, and the emergence of new institutions can be observed. The eleventh doctoral conference—Meeting of Young Historians XI, organized by the Department of History at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in cooperation with the Slovak Historical Society at the Slovak Academy of Sciences—will contribute to expanding the perspective on the past of knowledge and cognition. The conference, intended for Slovak and foreign doctoral students, aims to provide a space for presenting the latest results of scientific research, professional discussion, establishing contacts, developing cooperation, and exchanging experiences among the broader historical community. The starting point for the conference is a peer-reviewed proceedings volume consisting of publication outputs from active participants.

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Tomáš Dvorský - Lucia Laczkó - Mária Petriková  (eds.)

The collection of articles from the VII. International Scientific Conference for Students and Young Scientists, organized by the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Arts of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, in cooperation with the Res Publica Civic Association the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, held on 17 May 2019 in Košice.

The aim of this publication, entitled The Turning Eights, is to point out the importance of the years ending with number eight, which have significantly affected historical development and appear to be justified in the current political context.

The almanac consists of 11 articles, which are primarily in the Slovak language. The individual contributions deal with aspects of national and foreign policies that are united in theme called The Turning Eightswith the individual interest of each author.

The topics of the almanac are the municipal elections, the position of municipalities at the public administration system, development in self-governing regions and the non-governmental organizations. The presented publication also contains articles that deal with topics in specific countries, such as China, Israel and Russia.

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Magdaléna Hovanová - Dušan Šlosár

The monograph deals with the issue of social protection of the family, where the basis is a view of the family as a natural part of human and social life. The starting point is provided by the institutes that create and structure it, influence its value orientation, the development of social relations within the family, but also relations to the social environment.

In broader contexts, the monographic treatment of social protection provides the results of transdisciplinary knowledge. It deals with the work of helping professionals with functional and non-functional families and families with special needs. It offers problem solving through tailored methods, techniques, procedures and measures used by various helping professions in the field of social protection and social guardianship.

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Gabriel Eštok- Mária Hrehová- Jakub Bardovič (eds.)

Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Scientific Conference of Students and Young Researchers held on May 23, 2014, by the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

On May 23, 2014, the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice hosted a conference entitled “Challenges and Perspectives of Domestic and Foreign Policy.” This was the third conference for students and young researchers organized by the Department of Political Science in cooperation with the civic association Res Publica. The event featured numerous young people interested in contemporary political issues, each presenting on a topic related to domestic or foreign policy. It can be stated that these presentations were of a high professional standard and stimulated discussion on the topics and problems raised.

The publication you are holding is a collection of scholarly works by students and young experts who focused on a variety of subjects. Some authors addressed issues of foreign policy, particularly the analysis of selected countries’ policies (Slovak Republic, USA), examined the Iranian nuclear program, or explored the possibilities of federalizing Ukraine as a solution to the emerging situation. Another contribution offered a perspective on foreign policy from the viewpoint of Slovak emigrants in Australia. Despite the wide range of topics addressed in the individual contributions, a common denominator can be found: the effort to highlight a particular problem or propose its solution, thereby contributing to the fulfillment of the ideal of democracy, the improvement of policy-making and functioning, and, above all, making the world a better place for all of us.

Editors

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Katarína Hromuľáková (ed.)

Proceedings of the Scientific Conference. Košice, October 16-17, 2019

The proceedings titled "Ako sa píšu dejiny? Metódy – prístupy – pramene" present the contributions from the conference "Meeting of Young Historians IX," annually organized by the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, UPJŠ.

In the individual contributions, which span from the Middle Ages to the most recent history, the authors propose various theoretical and methodological research approaches to history, which currently represent fundamental prerequisites for historical research.

The ambition of the authors, as the next generation of historians, is not only to open up current questions of theoretical reflection in historiography but also to offer concrete examples supported by their own research.

Mgr. Katarína Hromuľáková

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Iveta Bónová

The foundations of the presented work were developed alongside the emerging research on child language in Slovakia. An enthusiastic team of individuals from several scientific fields—psychology (Marína Mikulajová), speech therapy (Svetlana Kapalková), and linguistics (Daniela Slančová, Jana Kesselová, Zuzana Ondráčková, Stanislava Zajacová, Iveta Bónová)—met regularly, discussed, and sought ways to mobilize efforts to achieve their set goals: conducting research on the language of intact (healthily developing) children based on actual longitudinal observation.

I am very pleased and grateful to have been part of the team at the beginning of systematic research in the field of child language acquisition in Slovakia. As a member of this team and a co-researcher on several projects in this area, I had the opportunity to participate in research on child language, which is no longer "on the fringes" of scientific interest. It has become a serious, exact study supported by quantitative and qualitative data, conducted systematically "at an excellent scientific level" (Průcha, 2011, p. 14).

The research itself was naturally preceded by data collection. The technologies of the late 20th century enabled the replacement of the outdated diary recording method with what is now the most commonly applied approach to material collection—audio-visual recordings. The synthesis of analyzed data collected over time, its explanation, generalization, and integration into a broader interdisciplinary research context is all the more interesting and beneficial as it contributes to speech therapy practice. Thanks to the results of the latest research, intervention possibilities in speech therapy are expanding, and methods for (early) diagnosis and stimulation are being developed and refined.

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Michaela Ružičková - Patrik Furik - Lukáš Jakabovič (eds.)

The collection of articles from the XI. International Scientific Conference for Students and Young Scientists, organized by the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Arts of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, in cooperation with the Res Publica Civic Association, the Department of Security Studies of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations of the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Institute of Political Sciences and Administration, Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Marie Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Institute of Social Studies, Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies, Mendel University in Brno, and the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, University of Miskolc, held on 20 May 2022 in Košice.

The aim of this publication, entitled Truth vs. Post-Truth. „It is not true, but it could be.”, is to highlight the threats arising from the issue of the spread of disinformation, conspiracies and hoaxes today, reflecting not only on the national context, but also on the impact of these elements in the international environment.

The proceedings consist of 12 articles written in Slovak and English. The individual contributions deal with selected topics and aspects of the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories or hoaxes, among others in the context of elections, media landscape and politics.

The topics of the contributions are the limits of freedom of expression, media freedom and regulation in the media space, the issue of propaganda or information warfare. The present volume also includes papers focusing on issues in the field of political ideologies or the issue of false narratives about the COVID-19 disease.

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Lucia Tóthová - Katarína Šiňanská (eds.)

Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation held on November 30, 2018, in Košice

Current social work addresses the serious development problems of society such as poverty, unemployment, chronic diseases, socially vulnerable groups and others. We must not forget that enough attention must be paid to the discovery of causes and a detailed analysis of these problems. The thing is that social problems have been around for a long time, they just changed their shape, old forms of social risks were replaced by the new ones that need to be explored and analyzed in order to be able to perform measures and remove the causes of social risks of the 21st century. Proceedings of the scientific conference with international participation entitled Social Risks in the Society of the XXI. Century is therefore devoted to various perspectives related to social risks of modern society in the variety of contributions, indicating the broad-spectrum not only of the proceedings, but also the social work itself.

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Adriana Jesenková

The textbook "Literary Story as a Tool for Moral Education" aims to contribute to the preparation of future teachers of ethical education, as well as students from other fields, particularly in the humanities. It focuses on an area that remains trivialized and marginalized—gender-sensitive education and training. The author operates under the assumption that applying a gender-sensitive approach in education requires an understanding of what a gender perspective entails.

Experience from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, along with teaching experiences where ethical questions and themes—such as those related to gender, gender equality, gender justice, and gender relations—are presented, taught, and explored through various media or texts (not only traditional scientific and professional ones but also artistic, especially literary), inspired the author to present such an approach in a relatively coherent form.

This includes summarizing existing knowledge and experiences on the topic so that they can serve as a suitable starting point for enhancing the competencies of future teachers (not only) in ethical education when applying a gender-sensitive approach in education and teaching issues related to gender and gender relations in the context of applied ethics and ethical education.

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Dušan Šlosár - Vladimír Lichner

This university textbook aims to provide readers with knowledge of the philosophical foundations, meaning, and purpose of mediation, based on research and analysis of mediators' activities. In countries where mediation services operate, their staff often include graduates of social work departments.

An individual approach to both the perpetrator and victim of a criminal offense requires knowledge and skills from social work, psychology, sociology, communication, and related fields tied to social work. The principles of social work apply not only in social policy and social care but also in justice. A mediator’s mission is to facilitate alternative resolutions to unlawful acts while preserving the purpose of legal proceedings as defined by valid legal norms. They fulfill this mission through specific methods of individual social work applied in the justice sector. The mediator’s focus extends beyond the current conflict to uncover related issues, activate parties to resolve disputes, and prevent new conflicts.

Special attention is devoted to the philosophical foundations of mediation in Slovakia. We provide an overview of mediators’ core activities and mediation types used to uphold justice in Slovakia. We analyze mediation goals, the roles of parties involved, and procedural steps. In applying mediation, we explore its potential and implementation in both legal and social work contexts.

As indicated, mediation cannot be understood solely as a specialized activity in criminal justice, as it has broader applications in non-judicial dispute resolution, such as family or community work, which are often overlooked by the public. The mediator’s approach to diverse target groups is grounded in theoretical frameworks. From this foundation, we derive activities expected of mediators in the future. Expanded activities arise from concrete situations encountered during mediation.

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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

Download the e-book for free (pdf)

E-book

Vladimír Leško - Milovan Ješič - Eugen Andreanský

The philosophical work of Immanuel Kant, the founder of German classical idealism, is one of those which, by the strength of its theoretical legacy, is permanently inspiring even in contemporary philosophical activities. This is an indisputable fact that cannot be seriously objected to. The philosophical teachings of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, his successor Martin Heidegger, as well as several representatives of analytic philosophy, are proof of this fact. The above fact led the authors of this work to the idea of devoting a separate collective monograph to the indicated problem. 

Download the e-book for free (pdf)

E-book

Martin Škára

Philosophy is interwoven throughout its history with several principles that bring light and order to this kind of thinking, whether it is a systematic or a non-systematic form of philosophizing.

Each of the principles represents in its own way the origin (ἀρχή) of all deductive reasoning, but not all philosophical statements and conceptions are obliged to proceed in the same way, for not all philosophical statements and conceptions are calculus. Actually, such a form of rationalist philosophizing is really a minority in the history of philosophy. But in spite of its minority presence, it will always attract attention to some extent, whether by becoming a pillar of thought itself and finding a permanent place in its foundations, or by becoming an indispensable mainstay of philosophical reasoning. In fact, there are not many principles in the history of philosophical thought.

The state of affairs is primarily due to the heterogeneous and in many cases irrationalist nature of philosophical thinking.

Download the e-book for free (pdf)

E-book

Ján Šimko - Dušan Šlosár

The monograph is dealing with the issue of homosexuality and homophobia in the context of social work and it is divided into five chapters, which are devoted to individual fields of the tackled issue. The first chapter is describing the phenomenon of homosexuality in the society; the focus is put on human sexuality and sexual orientation. The following chapter is clarifying the formation of homosexual identity in connection to coming out and it describes its frequently utilized models. The third chapter is devoted to the concepts of heteronormativity and heterosexism in the social context.

Furthermore, the chapter is dealing with the formation of attitudes towards this issue from the point of view of religion and masculinity. Another chapter is describing homophobia as the result of heteronormativity, stereotypes and prejudice.

In the last chapter, the authors are introducing selected social work theories dealing with the homosexual minority, the approaches to LGBT+ community and suggestions towards elimination of homophobia within the social work environment.

Download the e-book for free (pdf)

E-book

Štefan Jusko

Selected chapters from axiology are the result of the author's multi-year research work and also a certain fulfillment of the requirements from pedagogical practice in this subject. The chapters in this synthesizing form have not been published yet, and I am convinced that precisely in this form they can acquire higher value and greater real impact on our philosophy students.

Individual chapters focus on the problem of the collapse of traditional values, often leading to nihilism and loss of meaning in human existence. It is no coincidence that Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher who first called for a reevaluation of all values, is a common denominator among these texts. Another key figure is F. Dostojevskij, a Russian philosophising writer who views nihilism—the problem of value destruction—differently. The goal of these texts is literally to provoke our students so that they independently and creatively address questions related to the meaning of their own existence.

As I am convinced, our time presents a great challenge for new, original ideas and axiological judgments that have always preceded cognitive ones. To what extent my intentions and goals have been fulfilled remains up to the reader to decide.

Autor

Download the e-book for free (pdf)