Suchergebnisse

The author examines the regional factor's influence on integrative and activating functions of political culture of the population of Ukraine. As a factor of influence on the above-mentioned functions, the region is treated as a territorial organization of socio-political and socio-cultural aspects of a community's activity. The congruence of common socio-cultural values, as well as the level of political solidarity is researched on the basis of historical identity, spatial-territorial self-identification, a desirable line of the regional development related to the opposition "nationally integrated — regionally autonomous", as well as the degree of authoritarianism in a territorial community. Empirical data allow concluding about political culture of all regions of Ukraine that can be defined as tending to the integrative-passive type with slight differences.

This chapter explores the extent to which selected writings of French philosopher Michel Serres and a health care model created by Brian Hodges in the UK can augment and inform the development of social informatics. The volume of Serres' output contrasts markedly with work devoted to Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains – Model. Since the concept of health is universal culturally, and informatics disciplines are emerging fields of practice characterised by indistinct boundaries in terms of theory, policy and practice, various ethnographic and cultural associations will be made. Placing Hodges' model and Serres' work together is not intended to suggest direct equivalence, other than the common themes this author intends to bring to the attention of the social informatics community. Central to the above, is the notion of holistic bandwidth, utilising Hodges' model as a tool to develop and disseminate socio-technical perspectives.

"Disintegration of the USSR, formation of the new independent states onto the post-Soviet space became a significant event in contemporary history and human biographies. Majority of these states have begun market and democracy reforms, which pushed dramatic system transformation of their societies. It was expected, that reforms would provide the economy growth, increase of welfare and life chances of citizens unlimited by the centralized economy and authoritarian state. However already from the mid 1990th sharp social polarization (Gini coefficient was multiplied almost in 2 times, except for Belarus and Georgia), decline of life chances for most citizens, considerable reducing of life expectancy (above all things, capable of working men) showed up in these countries. The daily life of the people living in the former USSR has been transformed, with the certainties of everyday life being eroded as the bureaucratic redistributive order has taken on the guise of the market. In parallel, vertical social integration has been undermined alongside a significant increase in social inequalities; at the same time increase of social integration within strata has been showed up. What vectors of social inequalities are most strong? And what reasons of these phenomena are? In spite of the wide-spread opinion that age, gender and ethnicity are the independent factors of increasing of inequality; the author argues significant dependence of these factors on the objective class positions. Investigation of objective medium shows the expressly structured allocation of resources and life chances belonging to 'new' and 'old' social classes. On a base of survey data on Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, and Kazakhstan, the paper concludes with some tentative projections concerning future social inequality development in these societies, in which relations of power, appropriation of property, social capital and high-quality education entail deep distinction in life chances of people. The author underlines that post-Soviet societies now mirror elements of traditional class societies with acquisition classes being not numerous, and in which a significant proportion of the population is social excluded. The paper is based on a data source of the EU-founded project on living conditions, lifestyle and health (LLH, with project leading by Ch. Haerpfer) as a multi-level survey conducted in 8 post-Soviet states during 2000-2002 years." (author's abstract)

"Martina Fischer's article gives an overview of the problems of reconstruction, rehabilitation and (re)integration in war tom societies. In the context of post-war situations reconstruction turns out to be an ambiguous or even contradictory concept: it is considered as useful by some actors and others refuse the notion that society can and should be reconstructed. The author argues that (re)integration of refugees and displaced persons is one of the main challenges and precondition for conflict transformation. Support and intervention from external actors are all too often reduced to material reconstruction of houses and infrastructure whereas the need for rebuilding communities is forgotten. In order to move from reconstruction to constructive conflict transformation and peacebuilding, joint efforts are needed which combine development approaches, economic perspectives and empowerment of local actors for civil society issues, peace-education and social work. In order to make third party intervention effective, co-ordination of activities is needed. Positive and negative lessons can be drawn from the Balkans." (author's abstract).

"The use of the concept 'underclass' has been the subject of considerable debate among scholars of urban poverty. Many question the meaning of the term and its value as a social category, and react critically to the way the term has been appropriated by those intellectuals and journalists whose ideological views and orientations strongly influence their perceptions of the urban poor (Hughes 1989; Aponte 1990; Katz 1993; Gans 1995; O'Connor 2001). However, in their critical commentary the scholars of urban poverty do not address, in theoretical terms, the scientific import of the concept 'underclass;' that is, its role in the description, explanation and prediction of social behavior. Rather they object to the way the term is used to label a subgroup of the urban poor whose cultural traits are thought to be different from those of the larger society. In this paper, the author considers whether a theoretically defined concept of underclass - as opposed to the nonsystematic and atheoretical usages - can be helpful in social scientific discourse. But first, by way of background, let him examine briefly the various ways the term 'underclass' has been used in published writings down through the years." (excerpt)

The present article is a summary of a quantitative Social History in three volumes (can be obtained directly from the author) treating of the 24 cathedral chapters of the Old German Empire in the 17th and 18th Century. The research on the cathedral chapters which were as well spiritual as secular corporations, until now is rather traditional in its methods, i.e. focusing on the constitutions and the biographies of the canons. Actually there are only a few monographies. Our study which comprehends all chapters examines 5 725 cases. The case-unit is not the person, but the prebend. The following variables are taken up: name (locality) of the chapter, dignitaries, degrees (for commoners), the ways of applying to and retiring from the chapters, social status (seven categories for the nobility, two for the commoners), advancements in rank, origin, cumulations. The completeness of the data is generally more than 90%, often towards 100%. All data is published in form of chronological lists of the canons in every chapter, besides an index of names is given. Therefore our work serves as a reference-book too. The data were processed with SPSS, crosstabulations and other statistics are published also. For regional inquiries the chapters were classified into three groups: Northern Germany, the chapters of the Knights of the Empire (i. e. Rhineland and Franconia), Southern Germany and Austria. To show the chronological development we divided the entire period (1601-1803) into four periods of about fifty years. The article presents some important results for every variable. Some general Statements are possible. From the viewpoint of social history the hypothesis of three regional types has been verified. Chapters at the border of the Empire form a particular group which shows more and more deviations to the Standard. On the other hand the chapters in the center assimilate. Spatial mobility decreases, local recruitment increases. There are tendencies to closeness and occasional provincialism. Cumulations increase in the second half of 18th Century. Canons from the middle and lower classes were almost completely eliminated during the two centuries. Thus the European feudal reaction can clearly be demonstrated using the example of the German cathedral chapters. Our research shows that the chapters get into a crisis in the late 18th Century. They could no more accomplish their functions as providing institutions for the German nobility. For many reasons the run to the prebends grew as well as the commoners' criticism influenced by the Enlightenment. They disapproved the loss of the chapters' spiritual functions, the prevalence of the nobility, the grewing exclusion of the commoners and the enormous cumulations. Proposals to a reform failed. The difficult Situation in the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars forced the secularization (1803) which brought the end to the old German cathedral chapters.