Sociálna práca s ľuďmi so zdravotným znevýhodnením I - Sociálne potreby ľudí so zmyslovým znevýhodnením

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Tomáš Dvorský

The attention devoted to the issue of Chinese activity is highly relevant. Creating a positive reputation abroad is a legitimate tool of every state in its effort to generate influence. The People's Republic of China has been very successful in this regard since the beginning of the millennium, which has allowed it to start occupying positions in the international system that it legitimately claims based on its own history, size, and potential.

Examples from abroad also highlight the fact that Chinese foreign policy should not be accepted uncritically and deserves a cautious approach and thoughtful discussion. All of this must be done while respecting not only China's particularity but also taking into account the realities of the great power rivalry visible at the beginning of the 21st century.

In this context, one cannot abstract from a detailed look at Chinese soft power as one of the key tools for generating influence in the world. Understanding it is an essential prerequisite for a relevant evaluation of the practices and motivations of China's foreign policy, while it can also serve as a guideline in the effort to create an adequate approach toward this resurgent global great power.

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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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Jozef Bavoľár

On June 8 and 9, 2023, the 22nd edition of the Psychology of Work and Organization conference took place at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pavel Jozef Šafárik in Košice. The conference program was divided into six blocks and one poster section and supplemented by three invited lectures.

This collection contains selected contributions from this conference, with contributions in English first, then in Slovak. The variety of contributions reflects the variety of topics in the field of work and organizational psychology, with the most represented topics being the quality of life and work load, aspects of the work of a school psychologist, factors affecting the achievement of work goals in emerging adulthood, and the presentation of new measures with possible application in the work environment.

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Katarína Duffeková - Benita Feketeová - Katarína Lörincová (eds.)

The presented work is a collection of contributions from the 9th International Online Scientific Conference of Students and Young Scientists, organized on December 4, 2020 by the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, the Faculty of Social Sciences UCM in Trnava and the OZ Res Publica.

The aim of the publication is to provide a platform to discuss important issues which could influence the course of events in next decade in Slovakia, Europe and world.

The publication consists of more than twenty articles, which are primarily in Slovak but also in English. The contributions deal with both domestic and foreign policy with focus on the third decade of the 21st century.

In addition to geopolitical issues, the contributions also cover migration, regional integration, populism and nationalism, the influence of the media and social networks in the political sphere and also the development of liberal democracy. The authors also address issues of municipal policy, the electoral system and the referendum.

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Gabriel Eštok

The university textbook Citizenship of the European Union is structured into four parts. The first chapter focuses on the characteristics of citizenship in a historical context (concepts of citizenship in the ancient, medieval and modern periods).

The second chapter deals with a theoretical introduction to citizenship. It comes up with the characteristics of citizenship, introduces the ways of acquiring and losing citizenship and the transformations of citizenship in the context of globalization and multiculturalism.

The third chapter focuses on European Union citizenship itself, its historical development and the process of introducing and strengthening citizenship in the European Union.

The fourth chapter presents the specific rights of citizens deriving from European Union citizenship - the right to free movement, the right to vote and stand as a candidate in municipal and European Parliament elections, the right to diplomatic and consular protection in the territory of a third country, the right to petition the institutions of the European Union, the right of access to documents of the institutions and bodies of the Union, and the right of initiative of the citizens of the European Union.

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Lucia Jasinská

The submitted monograph, "Colloquial Lexemes in Journalistic Texts," presents an original perspective on the analysis and description of lexical and grammatical expressive means in the examined communication field.

The main research problem is the colloquialization of expressive means as a marked feature in publicly published journalistic texts. The starting point of the research itself was the search for lexical units with the stylistic qualifier of colloquiality in the "Short Dictionary of the Slovak Language." Their presence and frequency, as well as any potential shifts in meaning, were verified in publicly accessible media communications.

Since this is research into "living language," the source material consists of journalistic texts in the Slovak National Corpus database.

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Štefan Jusko

The stimulus for this monograph was my two studies on Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s ideas of the will to power and eternal return of the same, published in Heidegger and Modern Metaphysics (supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency, APVV-14-0706, under the leadership of V. Leška and M. Sobotka). In the submitted monograph, I present both studies in expanded (particularly “Will to Power as Art”) and refined versions (“Eternal Return of the Same”) and add a third chapter addressing the question of the meaning of interpreting philosophical texts, which themselves are interpretations of other texts.

In seeking an appropriate approach to the meaning of interpretation, I conclude that—generally—the purpose of interpretation is to uncover the productive dimension of the interpreted text, which can only be revealed if the interpreter enters the text openly and as neutrally as possible. If the interpreter does not open themselves to the text, allowing it to interpret them in turn, interpretation remains trapped. I believe that without mutual openness between interpreter and interpreted, interpretation has no meaning and typically becomes either rejection or misinterpretation—a form of violence.

In the third chapter, which I consider foundational, I attempt to “balance” the interpretive context of “Heidegger–Nietzsche” from the first two chapters through a reversible context of “Nietzsche–Heidegger,” albeit with the risk that my interpretation of Nietzsche’s thought—specifically his ideas of eternal return and will to power—may remain subjective, even if unintended as misinterpretation. Ultimately, the ambition of the third chapter is to explore intersections between the two philosophers, one of which—a rudimentary yet significant overlap—I identify as Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world, reinterpreted through Nietzsche’s lens. It is Nietzsche who challenges us to adopt a self-defined stance toward the world, to confront what it means to be in the world.

The challenge for me—and perhaps the reader—is to remain faithful to oneself, which is only possible by persisting in the context of mutual interpretation between interpreter and interpreted, regardless of who/what is interpreting or being interpreted. For the context of being-in-the-world is always co-created by both sides.

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Renáta Orosová (executive editor)

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The scientific and professional journal Edukácia focuses on issues of education and upbringing in primary, secondary, and higher education. It emphasizes the current state and future perspectives of educational practice, the latest aspects of pre-service teacher training, social pedagogy, special pedagogy, as well as pedagogical and psychological aspects of upbringing in basic educational institutions from the perspective of the broader pedagogical community. It is intended for researchers, young university lecturers, doctoral students, as well as professional and pedagogical staff, with the aim of presenting trends in education and sparking discussions on current issues in the areas of education and upbringing covered.

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Ján Juščák - Milan Darák

 The aim of the monograph was to analyze and address the issue of educational systems within children's and youth organizations, with an emphasis on those focused on the age category of children up to 15 years.

The starting point was an analysis of the current state of the educational environment in terms of the systemic nature of education and the basic categories of the educational system. The collected available materials on the educational systems of selected (most representative) children's and youth organizations in the Slovak Republic were subsequently processed according to a unified methodology and using generally accepted pedagogical terminology.

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Katarína Šiňanská - Dušan Šlosár

The presented monograph deals with various views on of the community issue and community work, with which  area of social work or other helping professions is closely connected. It offers theoretical analysis as a basic theoretical framework of the issue, which is necessary to know in the study and in the performance of the practice in the helping profession. The authors consider community work to be one of the possibilities for fully involving the inhabitants in co-responsible decision-making on things that fundamentally affect their lives.

The monograph characterizes in  fifteen chapters the community and the processes that takes place in it, outlines a brief history and approaches in community work. It offers theoretical background, which is used in community work as a necessary prerequisite for a professional approach practice. The monograph also points to the important position of professional help in community.

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Margita Mesárošová

Giftedness and creativity represent closely interconnected phenomena that attract attention in various contexts from the perspectives of different scientific disciplines. Psychologists have long been engaged in understanding giftedness and creativity, as well as in developing them through scientific methods, in order to provide valuable insights to educators, parents, students, and even policymakers, with the aim of fostering the potential of gifted and creative individuals.

This textbook offers information about the essence of giftedness and creativity, about model approaches used for their identification, development, and support, with an emphasis on psychological aspects. In addition to theoretical knowledge, the text also includes various types of exercises—self-discovery activities, activities focused on development, case study solutions, as well as questions and tasks for problem-solving.

The textbook is intended for psychology students and anyone interested in the issues of giftedness and creativity.

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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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Mikuláš Jančura

The presented annotated source edition represents the first systematic attempt to process selected documents related to the history of personal automobilism in Slovakia during the interwar period. It addresses a notable research and publication gap in Slovak historiography, where the topic of automobilism has long remained marginal. Although research in this field has progressed over the last two decades, Slovak scholarship still lags behind Czech historiography. The main ambition of the edition is to present a broad selection of sources to highlight key thematic lines in the development of personal automobilism. The sources are divided into two main thematic groups: economic-legislative issues and cultural-social dimensions. Special attention is given to car accessibility, infrastructure, legal frameworks, visual advertising, and the activities of motoring associations. The typologically diverse corpus includes archival records, printed materials, visual sources, and photographs. The edition builds on a 2017 authorial monograph, expanding it with new insights and sources. It draws from collections housed in the National Archives in Prague, the Slovak National Archive, and various regional archives. The work also benefits from the application of modern methodological approaches, such as Business History and cultural history. The project was carried out under the scientific grant VVGS-2022-2431 at the Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. Its results are closely linked to the teaching activities of the research team. The edition is the result of several stages – from heuristics, selection, and processing to peer review and publication. The publication contributes to a vivid understanding of the historical aspects of automobilism and expands knowledge of modernization processes in Slovakia. It also offers potential for use in educational practice and further academic research.

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Vladimír Lichner

The presented university textbook presents a basic overview of statistical theory and practice intended for students of social work, including examples of their use in specific studies. This text deals with the first part of statistical practice, namely descriptive analysis, which we perceive as a basic condition for the processing of any empirical research and is also important in grasping typical statistical principles and concepts.

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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.

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Kristína Bosáková

Attempting to confront Gadamer's teachings not only with the giants of Greek philosophy but also with Hegel and Heidegger is no easy task. However, Gadamer's entire historical-philosophical work is most prominently associated with these ancient thinkers and the two geniuses of German philosophical thought. Therefore, there is no avoiding it. Without this confrontation, all my efforts would be, in a certain sense, futile. Whether and how I succeed is another question. Every reader will surely form their own judgment.

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