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Digital transformation is now one of the most important topics in all EU countries in creating and managing strategies and visions for states, businesses, organizations, and citizens. The ICT sector is currently one of the most important sectors with significant added value. The main purpose of the paper is to identify the efficiency of the digitalization of the economy and society concerning the performance of the ICT sector. This paper uses multi-criteria efficiency evaluation methods – Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA models). Inputs in the basic DEA model are the dimensions' values of the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which are also used to express the DESI summary indicator, such as human capital, connectivity, digital technology integration, and digital public services. Output in the DEA model indicates the ICT share of GDP. Finally, output-oriented DEA models are used to express the efficiency score. The analysis results show that Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Malta have a below-average level of DESI, but they can be classified as efficient. Italy, Lithuania, and Slovenia are the worst performers in the efficiency score. The next step was to express the efficiency scores in the DEA models in terms of different combinations of inputs and outputs. Malta was efficient in all fifteen DEA models. Based on these findings, Malta is considered significantly positive. Its approaches can serve as an example for other countries.
AcknowledgmentThis paper was supported by the Slovak Ministry of Education's Scientific Grant Agency VEGA: "Digital Economy and Changes in the Education System as a Reflection on Labor Market Requirements". Project registration number: [Reg. No.: 1/0689/20].

The study aims to identify the EU's trends in the use of flexible forms of working time and to determine the specifics of individual EU countries. The study monitors the flexibility of working time based on the following indicators: persons employed part-time (as a percentage of the total employment); involuntary part-time employment as % of total part-time employment; the share of employed persons by the flexibility to decide on working time by a country; the share of employed persons who can easily take one or two days off at a short notice by working at home. The paper uses descriptive statistics, analysis of the development of time series using the growth rate, sigma convergence, and weighted sum approach. All analyzed indicators were taken into account to express one value, based on which it is possible to compare countries. Thus, the study expressed the overall benefit using the weighted sum method. The maximum value of the total benefit expressed using all the indicators among the EU countries was reached by the Netherlands. One of the reasons may be the short period of parental leave and the large share of women working part-time for a long time. The second reason is the large share of young people working part-time. On the contrary, Bulgaria, where women spend a relatively long time with their children after birth and then start full-time employment, ranked the last. This should be justified by the fact that flexible forms of work are mainly used by women and their prevalence is largely dependent on the length of maternity and parental leave.
AcknowledgmentThis paper is created within the project funded by the Scientific Agency of Slovak Ministry of Education VEGA reg. no. 1/0689/20 "Digital economy and changes in the education system to reflect labour market demands".

Gibt es einen Vertrauensverlust in die Wissenschaft? Politische Entscheidungsprozesse werden maßgeblich durch wissenschaftliches Wisse n und wissenschaftliche Expertise bestimmt – doch das ist gesellschaftlich nicht immer akzeptiert. Prof. Dr. Eva Ruffing von der Universität Osnabrück und Prof. Dr. Eva Barlösius vom Institut für Soziologie stellen das Projekt "Wissenschaftliche Expertise als Basis politisch administrativer Entscheidungen – Herausforderungen in Zeiten umstrittener Wissensbestände" vor.

Ergebnisse des Projekts "Wissenschaftliche Expertise als Basis politisch-administrativer Entscheidungen - Herausforderungen in Zeiten umstrittener Wissensbestände".

The purpose is to investigate process drama for teaching civics, mainly democracy and migration. Process drama implies students and teacher to take on roles, to explore a subject content collectively. The study is based on a secondary school educational initiative where a drama pedagogue was invited to address civics through process drama. Four civic lessons were video recorded and analyzed through an activity theory framework. From this perspective, process drama can be understood as two activities with different motives/objects, the educational and the fictional, where the fictional activity should have a playful format. The results show that the dialogical approach used by the drama pedagogue created a democratic opportunity and also established the playful format. The students&rsquo ; engagement was notably high. However, it was obvious there were no challenging or probing questions being asked by the drama pedagogue or the civics teacher, neither in nor out of role. As a consequence, the full learning potential of process drama in civics education could not be achieved. We suggest a co-teaching approach between civic teachers and drama pedagogues, to overcome challenges in using process drama in civic education for learning objectives to be attained.

Auf der Grundlage eines Interviews, das Pierre Bourdieu mit zwei jugendlichen gesellschaftlichen Außenseitern aus einem Pariser Vorstadtviertel geführt hatte, sollen verinnerlichte Muster von Stigmatisierungen aufgezeigt werden, die mit der sozialen Ausgrenzung aufgrund eines Lebens in Armut einhergehen können. Damit wird Position bezogen gegen neue Tendenzen in der Armutsforschung, wonach Armutskarrieren durch aktives und selbstverantwortliches Handeln der Betroffenen in eine Normalisierung der Lebensverläufe führen können. Die psychische Konfliktlage der Jugendlichen, welche sich in dem subjektiven Gefühl des An-sich-selbst-Verzweifelns niederschlägt, wird als Folge internalisierter gesellschaftlicher Wirkzusammenhänge aufgefasst. Die häufig wiederkehrenden ambivalenten Beziehungsmuster der Jugendlichen im sozialen Nah- und Fernbereich stehen für eine Gesellschaft, die sich über Mechanismen sozialer Ausgrenzung definiert, gleichzeitig aber den Wunsch nach Anerkennung und Zugehörigkeit produziert sowie Konformität im Hinblick auf das herrschende Werte- und Normensystem einfordert.