"This article deals with the relationship between public opinion and rumour from ancient times, through the Middle Ages and right up to today. It will examine the terms which were used and which often depended not just on a particular author but usually an entire social class. The most often used terms to describe opinion, fama and existimatio, occurred in the speeches of politicians which were presented as the valuable opinions of the elite whereas the concepts opinio, rumor or sermo were considered as low value and unreliable opinions of plebeians to whom the ruling classes attributed the spreading and creation of rumours. The concept of fama, more often fama publica, indicated in the Middle Ages a local network of knowledge, a mechanism for the collective evaluation of an individual. In this sense it played an important role in the courts of law. The issue of rumours is common to all subsequent historical periods because public opinion usually both generated, and was supported, by rumour. The article also puts forward a hypothesis why the all-powerful fama dissapeared from the courtrooms, why it lost its significance and became purely a rumour." (author's abstract)
Im Verlauf des Transformationsprozesses verändert sich die Siedlungsstruktur besonders augenscheinlich im Umland von Groß- und Mittelstädten durch Siedlungswachstum in den Außenbereichen. Dieses Siedlungswachstum führt in untergeordneter Form zur Zersiedlung der Landschaft. Es erhöht das Verkehrsaufkommen und belastet die Luft insbesondere durch steigenden Individualverkehr. Gleichzeitig kann diese Stadtrandwanderung ausgewählter Bevölkerungsgruppen zur Verödung der Kernstädte und Gefährdung etablierter Versorgungssysteme beitragen. Diese brisante und aktuelle Problematik der Suburbanisierung wurde von der ARL als Thema ihres dritten transnationalen Planerforums im Rahmen des CADSES INTERREG II C-Projektes aufgegriffen, um den gegenseitigen Wissenstransfer zwischen Wissenschaftlern und Praktikern in den Ländern Mittel-, Ost- und Südosteuropas zu grundlegenden und aktuellen Fragen der Regionalentwicklung fortzusetzen. Seine Ergebnisse sollen mit dieser zweisprachigen Veröffentlichung Nutzerkreisen in Tschechien, der Slowakei und Deutschland vorgestellt werden.
The enlargement crisis of the EU has been triggered by problems related to enlargement toward the East, but its roots extend far beyond that issue. To date, European integration has developed in a structure of a wealthy core territory & concentric circles around this centre. The emergence of this pattern has been driven by the dialectics of integration & expansion. But the institutional obstacles & legitimation problems linked to EU enlargement to the East indicate that very little room to maneuver will remain for future expansion. As the expansion process reaches its limits, differentiated forms of EU integration, creating different classes of EU members, are likely to appear.
International migration & development are among the most often cited issues in contemporary scholarly & political discussions. Reduction of socioeconomic disparities through development of economically less developed countries or liberalization of workforce movement are positioned very high on the political agendas of particular countries, as well as on those of supranational & international organizations. Therefore, it is not surprising that relations between migration & development attract more & more attention not only from the scientific community but from other individuals & organizations as well. In a limited amount of space, this paper uncovers the impacts of international migration, above all of the phenomena of remittances & skilled migration on the development of both receiving & sending countries. The article discusses the challenge of whether international migration is a better development strategy than traditional development tools such as Official Development Assistance (ODA) & argues against some traditional migration myths. This article wants to contribute to the discussion in the Czech Republic on relations between international migration & development with an emphasis on developing countries. The article is structured as follows. The first part is a brief description of international migration theories with development aspects in mind. The second part deals with international migration in the contemporary global world, stressing quantification of migration flows with respect to the level of development. Finally, the third chapter summarizes the most important findings from specific domains of relations between international migration & development (particularly remittances & skilled migration). Adapted from the source document.
"The main topic of the text is the history of the only Czech village in Bulgaria - Vojvodovo. The article covers the whole "Czech" period of this village from the migration of some twenty Protestant families from Banatian Czech village of Svatá Helena to Bulgaria and the foundation of Vojvodovo in 1900, to the post-war period when almost all Czech inhabitants of Vojvodovo left the village and moved to the South-Moravia region in Czechoslovakia. In a rather classic way the author describes the spheres of language, folklore, kinship and economy of the community, and proves that its main core was its religiosity described as the community-differentiating and community-maintaining principle." (author's abstract)
Text reflektuje úlohu vysokých škol ve společenských změnách, konkrétně v procesech transformace společnosti k udržitelnému rozvoji. Vychází z dokumentu Úmluva o vysokoškolském vzdělávání pro udržitelný rozvoj, který vznikl a byl představen u příležitosti konference Rio+20 v roce 2012 a který předkládá vizi celkové proměny univerzit související s celospolečenskými požadavky na udržitelné vzdělávání ‑ zahrnuje všechny aspekty života vysokoškolských institucí (výuku, správu, vzdělávací politiku). V tomto rámci autoři ukazují hlavní, v současné době probíhající změny ve vysokoškolském vzdělávání, a to v šesti okruzích, které zahrnují: hodnotové předpoklady akce, holistický přístup, změny v nakládání se znalostmi, důraz na procesy učení a na kompetence (jejichž význam mezi vzdělávacími cíli roste), a způsoby hodnocení kvality procesu a výsledku učení. Rekapitulují dopad těchto trendů v českém vzdělávacím prostředí i možnosti budoucího vývoje; ukazují, jak reálně probíhající změny souvisí s proměnou vědeckých paradigmat i vzdělávacích teorií. Navrhují popsat tento vývoj jako proměnu vzdělávacího žánru, tedy především s ohledem na to, jak jsou poznatky komunikovány, jak se proměňuje způsob jejich přenosu či sdílení ve vzdělávacím procesu. Ukazují, s jakými novými charakteristikami tohoto procesu bude postupně nutno počítat, a nabízejí možná budoucí výzkumná témata s tím související. ; This paper reflects on the role of universities in social changes, particularly in processes of societal transformation towards sustainable development. It is based on the document Peoples' Sustainability Treaty on Higher Education Towards Sustainable Development, produced for and introduced on the occasion of the Rio+20 Conference in 2012, which presents a vision for an overall transformation of universities related to the society-wide requirement for sustainable education involving every aspect of higher education institutions (curricula and teaching, campus operations, community engagement, cultural change). Within this framework, the authors demonstrate the main changes currently underway in higher education within six spheres that include: value-based preconditions for action, a holistic approach, knowledge management, an emphasis on learning processes and competencies (the importance of which is growing among education objectives), and methods of evaluating quality of learning process and learning outcomes . They recapitulate the impact of these trends within the Czech education environment and opportunities for future development; they show how real world changes in progress are related to the transformation of both scientific paradigms and education theories. They propose describing this development as a change of education genre, primarily with respect to how knowledge is communicated. They show what new processes in education will gradually have to be taken into account, and offer potential future research topics related to these.
This paper focuses on "The Philadelphia Negro": a community study that stands at the start of American social research. This somewhat forgotten empirical study from 1899 describes the historical conditions and the economic and social causes and circumstances behind the formation and existence of the "Seventh Ward", a slum neighbourhood in Philadelphia inhabited by African-Americans. The study used survey and other methods of observation and analysis of historical, economic and social data. The study was written by the erudite Harvard University graduate William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, an African-American, and an economist, historian and sociologist. Using primary and secondary literature and archive sources this paper shows that Du Bois was the author of the first empirical social research study in the United States. It looks at his life, his research, and his opinions on racial issues. He created a programme of research on the African-American population and from 1898 to 1910 he headed the first school of sociology on the American continent at the University of Atlanta. He published the results of scientific analyses of the lives of African-Americans in the south of the United States in sixteen volumes of the Atlanta University Studies. Racial prejudices among the American sociological elites prevented both Du Bois and his work from receiving the attention they rightly deserve.
Kvalitu veřejné správy lze definovat jako stupeň splnění požadavků občanů na kvalitu života v jejich komunitě, regionu či národa. Pokud se podíváme na vývoj ukazatelů kvality správy, vidíme značné rozdíly nejen mezi jednotlivými zeměmi, ale také uvnitř těchto zemí. Navzdory těmto zjištěním, je tato oblast stále velmi málo prozkoumána. Současné průzkumy jsou založeny na předpokladu, že rozdíly na národní úrovni jsou významnější než rozdíly regionální a že rozdíl v kvalitě správy v evropských zemích jsou velmi malé. Tento dokument analyzuje pravděpodobně jediný přístup k posuzování kvality veřejné správy na regionální úrovni. Analýzou indikátoru The European Quality of Governance Index byly zjištěny významné rozdíly v regionální kvalitě veřejné správy. U některých zemích je hodnocení kvality správy na národní úrovni velmi zavádějící, jelikož jeho sub-národní posouzení se může v některých regionech výrazně liší. ; Quality of governance could be defined as the degree of fulfillment of the requirements of citizens for the quality of life in their community, region or nation. If we have a look at the development of any indicators of quality of governance, we can see significant differences not only between countries, but also within these countries. In spite of these findings, this field is still very little explored. Current surveys are based on assumptions that differences at the national level are more significant than the regional differences and that difference in the quality of governance across the European countries are very small. This paper analyzes probably the only approach for assessing the quality of governance on the regional level. Using European Quality of Governance Index were revealed significant differences in the regional quality of governance in some European countries. For some states the evaluation of national-level quality of governance is very misleading, as its sub-national assessment may differ considerably in some regions. National variability data may exhibit even a higher degree than the variability international in some cases.
