Suchergebnisse

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.

The current article introduces the issue of race and racism in the United States of America with focus on two specific contemporary concepts that have a big attention and have formed the discussion in the last years. The first one is laissez-faire racism from Lawrence D. Bobo who stresses the reluctance of government and political parties to engage in racial questions. The second one is concept of white privilege of Peggy McIntosh who points at advantages and privileges of white race. Both concepts attempt to raise awareness about still present racial discrimination in the United States of America, although in the last years this topic has begun to be perceived as clichet and for some the problem is considered to be solved.

Every country in the world is currently trying to reduce opportunities for corruption in the country. Fighting corruption is very challenging and difficult. The corruption occurs primarily in the public sector, where the object of interest is funding from public sources. Corruption has a negative impact primarily on the economy of the state in terms of their current, but also potential investors and strategic partners in the area of production. Second, it can not ignore the negative impact on the society, respectively citizens of the state affected by corruption. The paper aims to quantify the interdependence between the Corruption perception index and selected indicators of economic health in selected countries of the European Union. In terms of proven relationship between defined variables can then infer the interdependence of achieved Corruption perception index value in selected EU countries and to determine whether are these states in the problem unified or differentiated.

The article documents the development of life satisfaction in four transitional Central European countries since 1991, in comparison with Germany and Austria. After presentation of data sources and the overview of the literature regarding the effect of transition on life satisfaction, surveys of European Values Study 1991, 1999 and 2008 are analysed together with macroeconomic data. First, satisfaction levels are correlated with GDP and then, individual characteristics of income, gender, education and family status are regressed to as explanatory variables of life satisfaction. While the explanatory power of GDP is found as very weak for the entire period, the effect of objective characteristics has peaked in 1999 and the effect of subjective perceptions in 2008. The survey information on trends after 2008 differs but no dramatic change of the life satisfaction due to the economic recession has so far appeared. Adapted from the source document.

This study is an attempt to outline some initial insights into the practice of PA professionals in the Czech Republic. The main goal of our research study was to describe and analyze the state of the field of public affairs (PA). Our main research focus thus was to describe the current situation and build a solid background of the profession and emerging field for further research: first, we characterize professionals working in the field (their professional background, education, income and goals). Next, we attempt to define the main issues they deal with professionally (such as politics, lobbying, the energy sector, etc.). This is followed by a description of the market itself and the level to which it is institutionalized. Finally, we attempt to analyze how PA as a field is understood and perceived by domestic and foreign professionals working in the Czech Republic. In our conclusion, we also state openly a few challenges we encountered during our research and set goals for future research. Adapted from the source document.

This contribution is dealing with an evaluation of tourism position in the Czech society in the end of the 19th century and in the first decades of the 20th century. Tourism depending on social and economic state of society is examined as one of the attributes of modern society. The attention is preliminary paid to tourism development trends in the 19th century and to its position in the modernizing Czech society. The main part analyses tourism importance for individual social strata of the Czech society in the period under consideration. Analysis of tourism form from individual tourists' view and their preferences didn't stay out of attention.

The study deals with pilgrimages to Esquipulas, Guatemala, and patterns of miracle in terms of their perception by the pilgrims reaching this prominent religious hub of Central America. Two key pilgrimage discourses are distinguished: traditional Maya pilgrimage, based on regular, calendar customs, and conventional Catholic pilgrimage, founded on occasional journeys to fulfil a vow. The Western understanding of miracle as a transgression of "natural laws" or "common course of nature" is relativized and contested arguing that the ethnographic evidence of Esquipulas shows not only different, but also opposite conceptions. Then, the study presents a spectrum of miracle ideas drawing from the Maya as well as European - the case of Lourdes is exemplary here - traditions in terms of the degree of their uncommonness. It is concluded that anthropology has to comprehend miracles as marvels in its cultural context; nevertheless, there is a widespread idea among many cultures that miracle is something wonderful, related to the awareness of non-obviousness of certain things and phenomena. Miracles find its content and meaning within particular cosmology, but, anchored in the psychological characteristics of the astonishment and the difference between usual and unusual or ordinary and extraordinary, they refer to features of human mind in a more general way.

The article describes the role of the Chicago School of Sociology in the development of empirical social research. It traces the increase in the significance of the education of doctoral students on American universities at the turn of the 20th century, and the role of philanthropic foundations. It focuses on the contribution of prominent individuals: W. R. Harper, rector and founder of the University of Chicago, obtained top figures and founded journals in some major fields. A. W. Small was the first chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, founded the American Journal of Sociology and wrote the first two textbooks of sociology. W. I. Thomas was responsible for the famous study Polish Peasant in Europe and America and for the theoretical foundations passed on to his successors. In 1916 R. E. Park published a project in which Chicago became a social laboratory and he inspired and was an advisor for numerous doctoral projects that later were published as sociological monographs. The methodologist E. W. Burgess organized empirical research for the school of doctoral studies that emerged in Chicago and successfully worked there for twenty years. It is beyond the scope of one article to discuss also the monographs by doctoral students at the University of Chicago. Paper examines in detail only the monograph by Park, Burgess and McKenzie titled The City.

After the First World War an anti-alcohol movement requiring the prohibition intensified both in Europe and the USA and it also resonated strongly in the Czechoslovakia. The main representative of this movement was the Czechoslovak Teetotal Union. It struggled for eradication of alcoholism as a serious social and health problem. The activities of the movement were in conflict with the interests of groups of alcoholic drinks producers and distributors, which represented a strong lobby connected to political circles, especially the most powerful political party, the Agrarian Party. Financially strong alcohol lobby with one exception (Holitscher Act of 1922 restricting access to alcohol for the youth) quite successfully neutralized the attempts of the anti-alcohol movement to gain a bigger state support in the fight against alcoholism. Only after the methyl-alcohol scandal in 1935 the government did establish a permanent advisory board for the fight against alcoholism in the Ministry of Public Health and Physical Education. It elaborated a many recommendations (such as blood tests for drivers after car accidents), which, however, were not implemented until the end of the First Republic. An important benefit of the Czechoslovak Teetotal Union was the founding of alcohol treatment counselling.

Why are things different on the other side of national borders; and how can this be explained sociologically? This inaugural lecture tries to answer these questions, starting from the example of the bicycle in the Netherlands. It distinguishes four processes that have contributed to increasing similarity within nations: growing interdependence within nations; increasing density of networks and institutions; vertical diffusion of styles and standards; and the development of national we-feelings. Together, these processes have contributed to the development of national habitus: increasing similarities within nations, and increasing differences between people living in different countries. These processes have reached their apex in the second half of the twentieth century. Since then, they have diminished, leading to increasing variations within countries, and growing similarities between comparable groups in different countries. This analysis poses new questions and challenges for sociologists. First, it leads us to rethink comparative research: what are we comparing when we compare nations, and is this still a viable unit of analysis? Second, it leads us to consider how the transfer of styles and standards occurs in our informalized, globalized, and mediatized age. Third, sociologists should analyse the new forms of inequality resulting from these processes, such as the growing rift between 'locals' and (bike-loving) cosmopolitans.

The Czech Republic is often said to be one of the most secular countries in Europe, or even in the world. For this, in accord with the secularization thesis, the modernization is often mentioned, where it was supposed that it automatically leads to the decline of religion in society. In my paper, I recapitulate the basic points of the secularization thesis and dissect its criticism which seems to be aimed at the idea, that secularization represents just an unintended effect of modernization. Based on this criticism, I deduce resources for analysis of the religious situation in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, I prove that Czech society is not so much atheist, but more dechristianized, and I focus on reasons of this dechristianization in political, social and class conflicts, which had, according to my opinion, a great impact on Czech church's religionism. In this paper, I address the conflicts between socialist movement and the Catholic Church, which as a result had a substantial effect on the dechristianization of the czech working class.