Sociálne a politické analýzy 2-2011

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Ľubov Vladyková

The university textbook presents a panorama of ecological-ethical concepts - ecological ethics, as a possibility of cultural development and indicates the continuing search for relationships with the aim to recognize the importance of ethics and its influence on our understanding and our relationship with the natural world, including scenarios adequately reflecting human-nature interaction in all their complexity.

Special attention is paid to the question of internal evaluation of nature, human and non-human life, both at individual and holistic levels (biocentrism) and the value of physical elements of ecosystems (ecocentrism).

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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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E-journal

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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Katarína Gajdošová - Lucia Jasinská

Book of Abstracts from the XXXI Colloquium of Young Linguists (Danišovce, November 30 – December 1, 2022)

In the present book of abstracts from the 31st Colloquium of Young Linguists, VARIA XXXI, we offer readers an overview of the current research efforts of its participants. The volume contains 23 thematically and methodologically diverse contributions by 24 authors from Slovak as well as Czech linguistic institutions. From the perspective of language components, the book includes abstracts from the fields of corpus linguistics, onomastics, morphology, dialectology, syntax, stylistics, lexicology, phraseology, didactics, and also with overlaps into literary texts.

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Margita Mesárošová - Miroslava Köverová - Radka Miháliková

The publication is a follow-up to the university textbook Progress in Educational Psychology. It is intended for both bachelor and master degree students.

It contains questions, tasks, practical exercises, case studies and topics for discussion in the field of educational psychology.

The aim of the publication is to support the active involvement of students in teaching, consolidation and deepening of their theoretical knowledge in educational psychology, as well as practicing and improving practical skills.

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Renáta Gregová

This textbook is designated for the students of translation and interpreting study programmes. The increase of linguistic competence in foreign language, but also in mother tongue is an inevitable part of the preparation of translators and interpreters. The low linguistic competence is often one of the reasons of the unsatisfactory quality of translation. The main aim of this book is to provide the material for the consolidation of linguistic terminology and for the improvement of oral and written utterances in the Slovak language.

Consequently, the textbook encompasses the theoretical and the practical part. The theoretical part summarizes the basic knowledge of language levels. In the practical part, there is the brief description of the selected orthoepic, morphological, syntactic, lexical and stylistic norms of the standard Slovak with the reference to the relevant literature offering deeper analysis of the given problem. Then practical exercises verifying the mastering of linguistic norms follow. At the end of the book, there is the little Slovak-English dictionary of the selected linguistic terms that may help students in their study of the English linguistics.

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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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Jozef Bavoľár

Decision-making is an everyday activity for us, whether it involves decisions about routine matters such as what to have for breakfast or more significant choices like selecting a career after finishing school. Due to the far-reaching consequences that a single decision can have on our entire lives, this area has received considerable attention in psychology. After all, the classic goals of psychology—describing, explaining, and predicting human behavior—are essentially attempts to understand decision-making and identify and describe the factors influencing it. Fundamental psychological disciplines such as the psychology of emotions and motivation, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology all strive to achieve this understanding.

The presented text primarily adopts a cognitive approach, focusing on the processes of information processing and utilization. Since there are very few events in the future we can be completely certain about, key concepts include terms expressing uncertainty about the future, such as uncertainty, risk, objective probability, and subjective probability.

The central question thus lies in processing information from the environment and utilizing it in the decision-making process.

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Oľga Orosová - Marcela Štefaňáková - Mária Bačíková - Beáta Gajdošová - Anna Janovská

The research monograph is focused on studying the effectiveness of the Unplugged prevention program conducted at primary schools across Slovakia.

Using two large datasets with repeated measures, the monograph contributes to research knowledge about substance use prevention. The authors studied protective and risk factors, developmental trends of smoking and alcohol consumption as well as the effectiveness of the Unplugged prevention program – its effect on psychological and behavioural indicators of health-related behaviour.

Considering the complexity of the analyses on two datasets with 5 waves of data, each chapter is presented as a separate research study. The findings serve as a basis for recommendations for parents and teachers and also for school management at primary schools that support effective school policy aimed at the prevention and promotion of the health in schoolchildren.

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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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Božena Velebná

The following material has been created during the two years of teaching English for Chemists at the Faculty of Science of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University and is therefore designed to meet the needs of this course. The main motivation was the lack of appropriate materials, especially as the groups generally comprise students with a very diverse level of English. This diversity therefore became the main criterion determining both the form and the content of this text.

In the ten units that provide material for a one semester course, the emphasis is put on teaching the students vocabulary and terminology, which is introduced via authentic texts, depending on the topic of each unit. Students are encouraged to learn the meaning of new words in context. Grammar is included too, with the aim of demonstrating and explaining grammatical rules by means of examples taken directly from the texts. For the more advanced students, grammatical exercises in this material can serve for revision while the beginners might need more supplementary materials.

I hope that this material, the preparation of which has been a challenging as well as enjoyable experience will be useful for future teachers and the students of this course.

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Kristína Bosáková

Pokus o konfrontáciu Gadamerovho učenia nielen s velikánmi gréckej filozofie, ale aj s Hegelom a Heideggerom nie je jednoduchá úloha. Celá Gadamerova historicko-filozofická tvorba je však najvýraznejšie spojená s týmito antickými mysliteľmi a s dvoma géniami nemeckého filozofického myslenia. Preto niet vyhnutia. Bez tejto konfrontácie by bolo celé moje úsilie v istom zmysle zbytočné. To, či a ako sa mi to podarí, je už iná otázka. Každý čitateľ si určite vytvorí svoj vlastný úsudok.

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Magdaléna Halachová - Denisa Rovenská

The monograph theoretically analyzes the virtual environment and its aspects, offers insight into the identity of the child in the virtual environment, the necessity of social support and the diversity of social relationships in the real world and virtual reality.

Furthermore, it contains the fundamental training program designed to minimize the risks of the virtual reality, because adolescents are often exposed to risks uncontrollably. For that reason it focuses on adolescent and empowering optimal self-image, as well as creating and maintaining real social networks.

The set of experiential-educational activities is conceptually divided into two main areas. The first one is content-focused on the adolescent, his/her psychological capability including opinions, attitudes, emotions, competences, and self-reflection.

The second one focuses on interpersonal real and virtual relationships, the recognition of the advantages and disadvantages of internet communication and face-to-face interaction, and last but not least for more optimal use of the Internet and preference for real social interaction.

Authors

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Tatiana Žiaková - Dušan Šlosár

The last decade marks not only the average life expectancy increase in healthy population, but also life expectancy increase in group of people with intellectual disorders/disabilities. Due to their diagnosis that defines and classifies them into specific categories, people with intellectual disability are finding themselves in a constant confrontation with obstacles negatively affecting the saturation of their existential needs. It creates mostly educational, social, cultural, psycho-social and economical disadvantage in the context of their lives. Consequently, their active potential is weakened, making it unable for them to influence public affairs in society from a position of an adult or elderly citizen. Building up on this condition, the focus of this monograph is on understanding and explanation of prevailing concept of social inclusion and related concepts of social exclusion. These concepts influence the way we tend to define and think about the character of society, as such.

Simultaneously, we are examining that the quality of coexistence between dominant population and people with intellectual disabilities is dependent on the development of attitudes and opinions of major population towards this specific minority. These attitudes reflect the extent of social tolerance and at the same time serve as a quantification of moral values and equity in the society, whether it concerns any type of small everyday help or professional and institutionalised long-term support.

This monograph focuses on presenting professional care for people with mental disability in form of social services as a dominant type of support in our local environment. We show that the quality of social services inevitably depends on degree of professional competences social workers possess. The significance of professional competences social workers are capable of using is reflected in the degree of the competence and adequacy of their performance. The primary aim, in relation to which professional competences should be accustomed, is to enhance meaningfulness and dignity in life of mentally disabled receivers of the social services.

Competences of social workers are a dynamic phenomenon that modifies along the development of society and also with the frequently altering needs of people with intellectual disability as receivers of the social service. For this reason we designed the presented research to reflect our goal to reappraise the scope of professional competences and define the required professional functions of social workers working with people with intellectual disability.

This monograph is dedicated not only to professionals working with this group of people but also aims at answering basic questions to practical issues that families with a intellectualy disabled member are coming into contact with.

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Katarína Šiňanská - Františka Petriková (eds.)

The present proceedings is devoted to different perspectives on the problems addressed by the field of social work and also the changes in the orientation of social work with respect to the current requirements of society. Proceeding is made up of a wide range of contributions from various spheres belonging to the sphere of social work. Contributions are devoted to the cyber world of social work, supervision, self-care, risk behavior, but also social work in the past.

The cyberspace in social work is elaborated in several contributions, suggesting a new dimension of social work. In the contributions about cybe world, the authors consider “cyberspace” as a new form of counseling and assistance to clients, as the present time is more online-oriented. Proceedings of international conference "What has brought social work 100 years?"

The past and present forms of social work are therefore devoted to various themes, incentives and insights into the benefits of the contribution of social work over 100 years, examining and evaluating past, present but also future forms of social work as a science.

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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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