Súčasná perspektíva sociálnej inklúzie ľudí s mentálnym znevýhodnením

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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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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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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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Jozef Bavoľár - Ladislav Lovaš - Simona Ďurbisová

The process of achieving goals is one that has traditionally received significant attention in psychology. This attention is not only directed by researchers focused on motivation, with which the process of achieving goals is classically associated, but also from a wide range of other areas (e.g., emotions, personality). One aspect of goal-directed behavior that has received minimal, if not virtually no, attention is decision-making.

It is surprising to realize that various aspects of decision-making are present throughout the entire process of achieving goals - from evaluating different aspects of multiple alternative goals, through selecting among them, deciding on resource allocation (effort, time, finances, relationships...), continuously monitoring progress, to evaluating the outcome and its impact on future goal-directed behavior.

Even more surprising is that decision-making is directly addressed by one of the dominant theories explaining goal-directed behavior - the theory of mental action phases (mindset theory of action phases; Gollwitzer 1999, 2012). This theory distinguishes the pre-decisional and post-decisional phases as the first two phases of this behavior, separated precisely by the decision about which goal to pursue.

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Marcela Gbúrová - Daniel Dobiaš - Jana Šutajová - Gabriel Eštok - Ján Ruman - Tomáš Dvorský

Research Into Correlations Between Deformations of Political Awareness and the Increase of Political Extremism Among Secondary School Students in the Košice Self-governing Region and the Prešov.

Self-governing Region The issue of political extremism has a relatively long research period, and it should be emphasised that, especially in the recent period, it has received increased attention in the political science community not just in Slovakia but also abroad. Given the specifics of this anti-democratic form of political discourse, which has not only explicit forms, but also highly sophisticated manifestations against democracy (extremism of the centre, or centrist extremism), it is also addressed by experts of other humanities and social disciplines: history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc.

The common interest of this professional community is both to analyse different forms of extremist discourses and narratives, to search for national specificities of extremism that are anchored in their historical, social and cultural contexts, but at the same time to reveal transnational extremist influences within a globalizing world and to propose evidence-based strategies to counter extremist discourses.

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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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Barbora Linhartová - Peter Dubóczi - Dávid Gajdoščík (eds.)

Proceedings of the Xth Annual International Scientific Conference of Students and Young Researchers organized on October 1, 2021, by the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Arts at Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, in cooperation with the Institute of Political Science and Public Administration of the Faculty of Political Science and Journalism at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, the Institute of Social Studies of the Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies at Mendel University in Brno, the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Miskolc, and the Res Publica Civic Association.

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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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Margita Mesárošová - Jozef Bavoľár - Miriam Slavkovská 

The current situation in the world education system, which declares the need to educate students for knowledge society, for improving the graduate employability is behind the motivation of authors to address competencies and key competencies for the knowledge society.

The authors present theoretical and empirical investigations based on the application of scientific methods of competency assessment and the use of contemporary scientific paradigms. The starting point is the concept of competencies in the context of current approaches of scientific psychology, which resonates in the official documents of the European Union and has been elaborated and enriched by the authors. The monograph focuses on a selected set of competencies, namely: competence to act as a self-regulated person, self-development, decision-making competencies, social and metacognitive competencies in the context of motivation. Knowledge about nature, the structure of competencies are presented, as well as their relations with personal and environmental variables.

The effort of the authors is also aimed at making available knowledge about the possibilities of assessing these competencies using current methods. Authors communicate the results of the creation and verification of competency assessment methods. The implementation of the research results presented in the monograph is perspective in the education and counseling of the target group of university students.

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Oľga Orosová - Beáta Gajdošová (eds.)

This publication considers social, economic, political, and psychological indicators of emigration behavior and emigration intentions as appropriate predictors of future behavior.

Theories of motivation and theories of behavioral intentions and their effectiveness are popular in migration research. On the other hand, the Health Belief Model and its adaptation in the research of emigration intentions bring a relatively new and perspective view on this topic.

According to the results presented in this publication, the factors that attract students to emigration (pull factors) are language skills and career opportunities abroad, the desire for change and new experiences, perceived feasibility of emigration, and self-efficacy.

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Zuzana Boberová

The aim of this university textbook is primarily to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of the basic legislative documents related to pedagogical activities and the educational work of teachers in school practice. The textbook is primarily intended for students of academic teacher training programs, as well as recent graduates of teacher education who are beginning their teaching careers.

This publication is unique in that it does not focus on specific legislative documents and their descriptions, but rather presents the meaning and wording of various legislative documents in the context of key concepts of educational activities and typical school situations. The publication does not include the full text of cited paragraphs from laws, decrees, and ministerial guidelines, but only excerpts that are relevant to the focus and needs of the textbook.

In this way, we aim to help teacher training students and beginning teachers orient themselves regarding their rights and responsibilities as defined and delineated by school legislation, and especially to help them understand the basic legislative requirements placed on every teacher in school practice. This includes participation in the preparation of the school educational program, understanding the professional development of teachers, student assessment, approaches to students with special needs, as well as handling common school situations such as disciplinary measures, school accidents, ski training, or school events.

Given the scope of these areas, we have divided the topics into two publications according to their thematic focus.

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Štefan Jusko

The goal of the monograph is to highlight the significant problem of interpreting the Socratic question, as its approach represents a method of interpreting the history of philosophy, specifically in our case, the interpretation of Socrates and Plato. The Socratic question can be grasped in diametrically different ways, as shown by Patočka and Nietzsche, among others. The former aligns with Socrates and innovatively updates his question for the present. The latter is ambivalent towards Socrates but ultimately labels him a decadent.

In the first part of the monograph, Patočka's characterization of human existence is presented, which he formulates as unified and morally firm. Patočka interprets the Socratic question as care for the soul, for its well-being, without deriving the concept of good from something positively defined but from the whole world, which can only be defined negatively due to its constant openness. This sphere of negativity is for Patočka something immensely positive because transcendence lifts humans from relative goods to the overall meaning, making them morally capable in the true sense. The good, i.e., the requirement for a surge, for a turn of humans from the world of things to the whole world, is for him a program that Socrates first formulated through his knowing ignorance.

The second part of the work is dedicated to Nietzsche's concept based on the non-unified nature of human existence, which is not derived from the whole world or overall meaning but from situational meaning. Nietzsche strives to prove that in every situation, human existence is exposed to two opposing perspectives, between which it is impossible to decide which is correct. He concludes that both perspectives are equally valid and mutually conditioned, meaning that the opposite of good, what threatens meaning, is a beneficial condition for situational meaning. He labels this level as immoral, as a sphere where human existence creates meaning outside the thinking of good and evil in opposition.

The conclusion of the work is open because, as it turns out, we do not have a common denominator that could decide on the correctness of one or the other concept. Precisely in this lies the fact that the Socratic question remains a serious philosophical problem even today.

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Dušan Šlosár

The monograph "Risk as a Social Category in Adolescence" by Dušan Šlosár was created as part of the VEGA project No. 1-0285/18, which focuses on risky behavior among adolescents as clients of social work due to their loneliness. The monograph explores the issue of risk in a theoretical context and integrates risk as a component of social relationships, contacts, and information exchange. From this theoretical foundation, it defines risk within helping professions. Assessing the level of risk is left to leading managers; however, it currently affects those helping professionals who work with specific client groups, and thus their involvement in assessing the level of risk cannot be overlooked.

The monograph pays special attention to risky behavior among adolescents and discusses the most serious forms of such behavior, ranging from suicidality to crime, substance abuse (both material and non-material), and issues related to sexuality. The conclusion of the monograph consists of three empirical studies that address the topic of risky behavior among adolescents.

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Ivica Hajdučeková et al.  

The four-year grant project VEGA No. 1/0736/15, titled Methodological Approaches to the (Re)Interpretation of Works of Slovak and World Literature (led by Prof. PhDr. Ján Gbúr, CSc.), conducted at the Department of Slovak Studies, Slavonic Philologies, and Communication at the Faculty of Arts, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice between 2015 and 2018, yielded several outputs during its duration. In addition to individual scientific studies published in journals both domestically and internationally, the project resulted in: A proceedings volume from the international scientific conference Text in Contexts: Text in Interdisciplinary Interpretations (2018). A scientific monograph titled Spirituality in the (Re)Interpretation of Slovak Literary Works (2016). The collaboration culminated in two key complementary publications forming an interconnected whole:

Methodological Inspirations in Literary Research I (a collection of selected lectures and abstracts).

Methodological Inspirations in Literary Research II (a monograph).

An electronic collection of abstracts and video recordings from ongoing lecture colloquia—featuring notable figures from Slovak and Czech academia—and the scientific monograph were conceptually aligned, as evidenced by their shared titles differentiated numerically. This approach adhered to the project's aim of continuing a tradition of precision in literary research while emphasizing methodological pluralism. It also sought to promote contemporary, generationally diverse research within the academic environment of Eastern Slovakia, historically linked to Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.

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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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Drahoslav Magdoško (ed.)

Hlavný zámer zborníka, ktorý držíte v rukách, predstavuje práve vzdanie pocty historikovi, ktorý svojim úctyhodným vedeckým dielom výrazne prispel k utváraniu slovenskej historiografie, predovšetkým medievalistiky. Zároveň sa tu vyslovuje uznanie za rozsiahlu a v nemalej miere priekopnícku prácu archivára, ktorý pomáhal rozvíjať moderné archívnictvo na východe Slovenska. A v neposlednom rade ide o formu poďakovania za prácu vysokoškolského pedagóga, ktorého predmety absolvovali stovky študentov, a ktorý si svojim podnetným prístupom získal ich srdcia. Na všetkých týchto troch rovinách má cenné zásluhy prof. PhDr. Ferdinand Uličný, DrSc. (*18. 8. 1933, Ploštín), ktorý v lete roku 2023 oslávil životné jubileum 90. rokov.

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