Suchergebnisse

Vincze, E. Petrovici, N; Rat, C and Picker, G. (2019)Racialized Labour in RomaniaSpaces of Marginality at the Periphery of Global CapitalismPalgrave Macmillan, London

The article investigates educational and career paths of educated Roma youth in Hungary as striving to enter quality employment in the business sector. While the employment rate of well-educated Roma youth is high compared to the general Roma population, their sectoral distribution is skewed towards self-employment, and towards the public sector vis-à-vis private sector. Our article investigates the reasons for the low presence of educated Roma in the business sphere, a sector which holds the greatest potential of occupational and social mobility. We use a survey dataset of educated young Roma (N=381), and also rely on in-depth interviews with youth from the same group, which provided us with a better understanding of the individual experiences of social mobility. We identify some of the main barriers linked to business sector employment of the Roma youth. By utilising the Bourdesian theoretical lens, we focus on the importance of cultural habitus and its misrecognition in professional settings. The paper analyses successful capital mobilizations of those striving towards/ experiencing social mobility, while discussing experiences of failures too. These findings are unique in their nature as they pinpoint individual mobility strategies, the role of different forms of capitals in strive for jobs and later in early professional career.

In this paper we aim to discuss attitudes towards immigrants in a European context and analyse drivers of anti-immigrant attitudes such as the feeling of control, basic human values, political orientation and preferences related to right-wing populism. Based on data from the European Social Survey, we first describe how attitudes of people in Europe changed throughout a period of almost two decades (between 2002 and 2018). We will show that although attitudes are influenced by a number of demographic and subjective features of individuals, on the macro-level they seem to be surprisingly stable, yet hide significant cross-country differences. Then, we zoom in to the three most significant elements influencing attitudes towards immigrants: the feeling of control, basic human values, and political orientation. Applying a multi-level model we test the validity of three theories about factors informing attitudes towards immigrants—competition theory, locus of control, and the role of basic human values—and include time (pre- and post-2015 refugee-crisis periods) into the analysis. In the discussion we link ESS data to recent research on populism in Europe that categorizes populist parties across the continent, and establish that the degree to which anti-migrant feelings are linked to support for political populism varies significantly across European countries. We show that right-wing populist parties gather and feed that part of the population which is very negative towards migrants and migration in general, and this process is also driven by the significance awarded the value of security vis-à-vis humanitarianism.

We dedicated this thematic issue of Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics (EEJSP) entitled 'Central European Societies on the Map of Europe' to the studying of social phenomena of the region based on data from the European Social Survey (ESS). The collection brings together papers that analyse the state of societies in Central and East Europe in a comparative and/or longitudinal perspective. The ESS provides an excellent source for analysing the changes in our societies both across time and location and analyse a variety of social phenomena on supra-national, national and subnational levels.

Our paper examines the validity of the rotating questionnaire block about perceptions about and attitudes towards democracy included in the sixth round of the European Social Survey (ESS). The preliminary assumptions that inspired our analysis were that respondents' understanding of the questions formulated in such an internationally comparative survey may be challenged due to diverging theoretical constructions and narratives that feed historically developed notions of 'democracy.' Moreover, even within the same country people with a different socioeconomic, ethnic, and educational background may have different perceptions about the same questionnaire 'items.' We applied a multi-method approach to analyze the above metho-dological puzzle: a complex statistical analysis of the Hungarian ESS data served to help examine the consistency of answers to individual items and the entirety of the questionnaire block, while supplementary focus group research helped us apprehend the variety of interpretations of and perceptions about the individual items, as well as problems with understanding various terms included in the questions that assessed attitudes towards democracy. Our findings support the initial hypothesis: respondents had obvious difficulties understanding some of the items designed to assess attitudes towards democracy, while many others had differing interpretations. We conclude that even though the ESS is one of the most refined, well-prepared and validated comparative surveys in Europe, the related data cannot be analyzed without careful consideration of what the individual questions might mean in different contexts.

This article is dedicated to Julia Szalai who researches the underlying reasons, consequences and mechanisms of the social exclusion of the Roma in Central and East European societies. Her work and her writings serve as a compass for those who examine problems of social exclusion, including the authors of this article. The present paper discusses position of the Roma on the Hungarian job-market, focusing on highly-qualified young Roma within the context of the business sphere. Our knowledge is informed by the first results of an initiative which creates bridges between disadvantaged social groups and the business sector through pro-active measures. The initiative mobilizes multinational companies, business trainers, NGOs promoting social inclusion, and academics. Both the initiative and our study intend to pursue a subtle understanding of the tangible and hidden obstacles that highly educated young Roma encounter when seeking employment, and of the dilemmas that multinational companies face in relating to these prospective employees.

This special issue of Intersections. EEJSP is dedicated to some of the central concerns of contemporary sociology: recognition, rights, and redistribution. These are three interrelated and often contrasted subjects that have occupied a special place in the works of Júlia Szalai, one of Hungary's leading sociologists. Szalai, besides being an early pioneer of sociological research in her own country, is also well known outside Hungary for her international and comparative investigations of inequality and poverty, her research on ethnic minorities, and especially the Roma, as well as her work on the welfare state. Her research has involved close co-operation with colleagues from all over Europe from Scotland to Sweden, from Slovakia to Romania and Serbia. This is why, besides a special issue being dedicated to her in Socio.hu: Social Science Review in Hungarian, a 'twin-issue' of Intersections. EEJSP is also being published to allow her friends and colleagues from around Europe to celebrate Júlia Szalai on her birthday. Intersections. EEJSP and Socio.hu are both on-line social science journals based within the Hungarian Academy of Sciences where Szalai started her research career in the 1970s, and where she has served as Professor Emerita in recent years while also teaching and undertaking research at the Central European University. These two journal special issues thus also symbolize the gratitude of the Center for Social Sciences, and within this, the Institute for Sociology, to Szalai for the teaching and inspiration her colleagues and friends have received from her for nearly half a century.