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Centrality measures are widely utilized in complex networks to assess the importance of nodes. The choice of measure depends on the network type, leading to diverse node rankings. This paper aims to compare various centrality measures by examining their correlations. We specifically focus on the Pearson correlation coefficient and Spearman correlation. Pearson correlation considers node centrality values, while Spearman correlation is based on node ranks. Our study encompasses different network topologies, including random, scale-free, and small-world networks. We investigate how these network structures influence correlation values. The main part of the paper describes the relationship between correlations and network model parameters. Additionally, we explore the impact of global network characteristics on correlations, as well as their direct connection to network parameters. Through a systematic review of literature-based centrality measures, we have identified and selected the most commonly employed ones to investigate their correlation including degree centrality, betweenness centrality, eigenvector centrality, and closeness centrality. Our findings reveal that correlations in random networks are minimally affected by network structure, whereas restructuring significantly impacts correlations in other networks. In particular, we show a notable impact of structural parameter variations on correlations within small-world networks. Furthermore, we demonstrate the substantial influence of fundamental network characteristics such as spectral gap, global efficiency, and majorization gap on correlations. We show that amongst the various properties, the spectral gap stands out as the most valuable indicator for estimating correlations.

This paper starts from the premise that social space, the state space, is a socially productive territory characterized, among other things, by hierarchical social, economic and political relations. This hierarchical dimension of space comes to the fore when researching the urban marginalization of Roma people in Romania. The mechanisms of exclusion employed by the state against Roma groups are situated in a wide range of other policies, among which uneven territorial development ranks chief. As such, this paper seeks to analyse the junction between these processes. It asks the question: how did the process of urban planning reinforce the urban marginalization of Roma people during socialism in Baia Mare? In order to address this question, I mobilize the results of two years of archival research in the city of Baia Mare, coupled with the discursive analysis of this archival material. I perform a diachronic analysis of how Roma people were targeted by state practices of urban marginalization, such as stigmatization, criminalization and repression. I show how the policies of systematisation of Baia Mare shaped the territory of a particular neighbourhood – Hatvan, attempting to manage and control the Roma population there. Throughout the 1960s, Hatvan was considered a focal point for crime. This led to a large-scale plan to completely transform the area through evictions, demolitions and the displacement of Roma people. The result was a place that was seen as clean, ordered and lawful social space, which became what is currently known as the Vasile Alecsandri neighbourhood. However, this space continues to this day to be one of social marginalisation, economic deprivation and institutionalised racism.

The Baia Mare region was once one of Romania's main mining centres, with a significant proportion of the local population engaged in industry jobs. However, the extensive economic restructuring that followed the collapse of the old communist regime and the emergence of capitalist development was characterized by brutal privatization measures and great economic instability. While the transition years brought new opportunities for some, for most they meant unstable housing and employment, debt, and a declining social status. Thus, many workers quickly became ‘surplus populations’ (Li 2017) and were forced into patterns of circular migration abroad. Employing a qualitative research methodology, analysing both interviews and secondary data, this paper will focus on the adaptive responses of workers from Baia Mare to the changes in the socio-economic landscape after the collapse of the communist regime and the advance of neoliberal policies in Romania. In particular, the paper looks at Roma and non-Roma migrants from Baia Mare, attempting to compare their strategies and work histories in the context of migration, to see the extent to which class and race differences play a role in creating specific migration patterns in the post-socialist context. The comparison between racialized people living in improvised shelters on the periphery of Baia Mare and those who are working class but not living in a situation of destitution will show us the role that dispossession plays in creating certain conditions that lead to debt dependency and specific migration patterns.

Evolving technology and human-machine interaction are two major stances that question human centricity as a core dimension for the future placement of human variables and social perspectives inside intelligent systems. The present paper explores present challenges and an up to date research synthesis concerning social sciences dimensions, theories, concepts and implementation with regard to the study of human centred artificial intelligence. The main scope consists of drawing several red lines for future research and theoretical social insights on artificial intelligence at work. Following a scholarly literature insight and several reference works, the study explores major topics of interest analysed so far and proposes new directions for the evaluation of human variables and machine learning at work in an organizational setting. Results showed there is a vital need for expanding research from human centricity point of view on the present matter, where studies are still scarce and heterogenous. Moreover, concept clarification and theoretical explanations are yet to be sufficient in explaining people interactions and management of artificial intelligence at the workplace. In conclusion human empowerment at work through ethical and person oriented intelligent systems in a given organizational context can ensure a fair and efficient development of people’s skills, professional objectives or level of performance while promoting human values, ethical principles and preserving the well-being. The paper presents also several practical implications of social sciences domain on artificial intelligence exploration and a few future directions for research.

Understanding disability as a social phenomenon opened up the way for disability studies and social justice theories to mutually benefit from each other. One of the most significant recent advancements in the field of social justice has been the capability approach (CA) of Amartya Sen. The present paper builds on the CA to analyse disability form a social justice perspective. We argue that the CA provides several advantages when conceptualizing disability and furthering justice for disabled people. The objective of the paper is to develop a framework for analysis on the basis of the CA and to apply it through the case of D/deaf and hardof- hearing children and their carers in Szeged, Hungary. We demonstrate that the advancement of justice occurs through the scrutiny and comparison of feasible alternatives instead of arguing for principles or institutional guarantees of perfectly just societies.

The purpose of this article is to examine the role of Confucius Institute in Shaping China’s National Image in Botswana in the case of CI Students. The Confucius Institute at the University of Botswana (CIUB) is employed as a case study which is identified as the most active Chinese soft power instrument in Botswana. The paper uses a qualitative research method to help better understand the benefits and limitations of CIUB in creating China’s positive image in Botswana. Primary data is obtained from questionnaires whilst secondary data is derived from journal papers, thesis, and books. The study is framed by soft power theory to assist in learning how China utilises its soft power to improve its image in Botswana. The analysis revealed that CIUB has been fruitful in promoting Chinese language and culture in Botswana impacting positively on China’s national image. The findings of the study show that CIUB has the potential to clear some negative perceptions about China in Botswana. However, the limitation as indicated by the study is that CIUB does not have wide coverage of the population of Botswana as it targets mostly students. It is suggested that CIUB as a single tool cannot fully address all the concerns affecting China’s image.

As toponymic means of inscribing urban space, street names have been addressed mainly by human geographers, who have articulated the field of critical place-name studies. In this paper, I continue the endeavor started in the previous issue published in Social Change Review of reading street names through sociological lenses. Whereas in the first part of this two-part contribution the analysis was made from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, this second and final part employs social constructionism and the utilitarian theoretical tradition in making sociological sense of street nomenclatures. First, conceiving of street names as forming discursively constructed linguistic landscapes, the paper shows how urban namescapes – the “city-text” – are written, erased, and rewritten to reflect the shifting political powers. Second, the paper examines the neoliberal processes of place branding and toponymic commodification by which street names are turned into sought-after urban commodities with transactional value on the real estate market. The paper concludes by inviting sociologists to join the conversation on street names, which should become an important topic of sociological reflection.

The crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic implied specific intervention measures in all areas worldwide. Social workers from the social care system and health services, along with other specialists, have played an extremely important role in providing support to vulnerable groups, in order to manage social and psychological issues that have emerged in this period. This paper presents the results of a study involving 94 social workers from Romania. The aim of the research was to identify the main changes in the activity of social workers from public and private social services during pandemic, a period characterized by restrictive measures in order to limit the transmission of the virus. The paper focuses on vulnerabilities and challenges imposed by these changes in order to continue to provide social services for those in need. Recommendations on social policies are outlined based on the lessons learned in this period. The results show that communication and the maintenance of the relationship with beneficiaries are the parts where most changes occurred. The limitation of direct contacts has led to a decrease in field activity, online work, increased workload, or changes in working schedule, and also sometimes (mainly in public institutions) increased bureaucracy. Based on the results of the study, some recommendations for policy makers are identified, taking advantage of the lessons from this period of crisis: the need for the authorities to prioritize the allocated resources and to impose stricter rules to follow, provide funding for specific resources, intensifying the collaboration between all social actors involved, developing and implementing unitary intervention models, greater interest and understanding from authorities and responsiveness to new intervention methods, maintaining the online activity where the situation allows it in order to reduce bureaucracy in public institutions.

The aim of the paper is to open the issue of multiple shrinkage trajectories in a context of extended urbanisation (Keil 2018) by delineating the different trajectories of Romanian cities. We employed principal component analysis to allow for a multi-criterial classification of Romanian cities based on k-means cluster analysis. Beyond the dominant representation of shrinkage as a process that is mainly correlated with population loss and economic decline, this paper calls for bridging together distinct dimensions which have been either under-studied, such as the aspect of human development, or studied separately across the existing literature, such as governance of shrinkage and economic growth. Therefore, the typology developed here accounts for understanding the process of shrinkage as a complex process, having multiple causes, which determine peculiar trajectories. The outcome confirms the existence of distinct and highly localised shrinkage identities (Martinez-Fernandez, Audirac, et al. 2012). We show that regrowth is not strictly related to the urban core, but it has more to do with a process of complexification of the landscape and social relations existing at the periphery of the city. Shrinking core cities coexists with growing peri-urban areas.

One of the most outstanding intellectual achievements in the history of classical thought in social sciences which have remained influential up until today are undoubtedly associated with the name of Max Weber. Through a detailed text analysis and a conceptual mapping of the logic of the argumentation, this paper sets out to offer a profound insight into the classical German sociologist’s approach to science, both “early” (about 1903/4) and “late” (post-1913), in terms of some fundamental matters of epistemology and methodology. The first part of this paper investigates social economics in terms of its theoretical and methodological foundations and applicability, while the second part looks at interpretive sociology from the same perspectives, with an emphasis on the differences between the two approaches. We argue that Weber’s dualist methodological attitude became explicit and dominant in his later writings. In addition, as he brought in focus the theory of social action, he not only became an explicit proponent of methodological individualism, but he also revisited and specified the logic and role of “causal explanation” and “interpretation”. Interpretive sociology no longer seeks a causal explanation for individual historical events by applying nomological knowledge, but instead commits itself to finding “causally adequate” explanation for the course and consequences of different types of social actions. Interpretation, in turn, no longer means an analysis of effects concerning the cultural significance of individual historical events in a special sense, but an interpretive understanding of various types of social actions, rational or “irrational”, directly or in a motivation-like manner. The paper concludes with a summary designed to highlight key legacies of Weber’s oeuvre that have remained valid and valuable for any analytical and empirical research in sociology.

Street names are mundane spatial markers that besides providing a sense of orientation inscribe onto the landscape the ideological ethos and political symbols of hegemonic discourses. This review article takes stock of the existing scholarship done on the politics of street naming practices in human (political, cultural, and social) geography and rethinks these insights from sociological perspectives. Drawing on Randall Collins’ taxonomy of sociological theory, the paper interprets urban street nomenclatures along functionalist, conflictualist, constructionist, and utilitarian lines. The analysis is delivered in two installments: Part I addresses urban nomenclatures from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, while Part II (published in the next issue of this journal) approaches street names as social constructions and examines their utilitarian value. In doing so, the paper advances the argument that urban namescapes in general and street names in particular should make an important object of sociological reflection and empirical analysis. It is one of the key arguments developed in this paper that toponymy encapsulates broader and intersecting issues of power, memory, identity, language, and space which can be rendered visible through sociological analysis.

The article proposes a theoretical discussion at the crossroads of the return migration scholarship with the entrepreneurship research. Its main goal is to build an analytical framework in which entrepreneurial experiences of international return migrants are conceptualized. The fertile theoretical legacy within the study of entrepreneurship along with an idealized view of the positive effects of migration constitute essential premises for understanding the biased outputs of the empirical studies of entrepreneurship upon return to the origin country. Firstly, the article draws on the main lines of theorising opportunities within the Weberian and Schumpeterian theoretical traditions. Secondly, it points out how contemporary studies of entrepreneurship reinforced this perspective and placed great emphasis on individual agents able to benefit from opportunities within the return context. The final part of the paper illustrates several modalities in which scholars concerned with return migration were affected by the mythical image of the entrepreneur. As a corollary, necessity entrepreneurship is sporadically used in this niche of study and it usually has only a complementary role. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the challenges of transposing entrepreneurship’ theoretical insights into different empirical research designs.

The paper presents a case study of two adult crosscultural kids (ACCK’s) from a family of Saxons that emigrated from Romania during communist period. They had what we call a wandering life before resettling as adults in Romania. The objective of the paper is to present and analyse how the ethnic and cultural selfidentification discourse of the two is constructed and its modulations between a primordial stance and a contextual one.

The paper examines the introduction of civic education in post-communist Romania as an educational means of civilising in a democratic ethos the children of the transition. Particularly close analytical attention is paid to a) the political context that shaped the decision to introduce civic education, b) the radical changes in both content and end purpose of civics brought about by educational policies adopted for accelerating the country’s efforts of integrating into the Euro-Atlantic structures (NATO and the European Union), and c) the actual consequences that these educational policies betting on civics have had on the civic values expressed by Romanian teenagers. The analysis rests on an extensive sample of schoolbooks and curricula of civic education, civic culture, and national history used in primary and secondary education between 1992 (when civics was first introduced) and 2007 (when Romania joined the EU). Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the paper argues that a major discursive shift had taken place between 1999 and 2006, propelled by Romania’s accelerated efforts to join the EU. Set in motion by the new National Curriculum of 1998, the content of civics textbooks went through a dramatic change from a nationalist ethos towards a Europeanist orientation. The paper identifies and explores the consequences of a substantial shift from a heroic paradigm of celebrating the nation’s identity and monumentalised past towards a reflexive post-heroic model of celebrating the country’s European vocation.

The paper examines the link between organizational climate and work engagement among the non-teaching staff of a Nigerian University. Participants consisted of 229 (F=46.7%; Mean age =45.7) non-teaching staff selected using stratified random sampling technique from non-teaching staff of the institution. Participants completed the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and Organizational Climate Measure that were subjected to Pearson Product Moment Correlation and t-test analysis. Results revealed that organizational climate is related to work engagement among registry staff. It also showed that female employees were more engaged with their work than their male counterparts. The paper recommends the design of appropriate strategies and interventions to ensure that employees feel more engaged in their work-roles.

The paper addresses the impact of higher education reforms on academic teaching and the concrete implications of the new academic teaching requirements for the professional practice of professors. It explores how labour market requirements change the university from the point of view of professors and how they deal with these changes. The paper draws on 64 interviews with professors from Germany, which were conducted as part of a qualitative study on the consequences of performance evaluation procedures at German universities.

For the Bulgarian Muslims in Spain wedding videos are a popular device for socializing, overcoming nostalgia and keeping pace with the news and events that take place back home in Bulgaria. The mediatization of the ritual allows an extension of the ritual across time and space. Watching the videos is a re-enactment of the celebration and has become part of the ritual itself. Subsequently, this extension of the ritual through a mediated device has led to its subtle transformations. At the same time, wedding videos and the particular mode of use produce a social effect beyond the structure of the ritual. They contribute to the extending and re-creating of a migrant community that spreads over space transnationally and temporally between the past of home and the present of life in migrancy. Drawing on ethnographic material and using the analytical tools of actor-network theory, the main aim of this paper is to trace the uses and effects of wedding videos for transforming the wedding ritual through postponing and re-enacting it on one hand, and for sustaining the phantasm of an imagined virtual community on the other. The broader problem that this paper seeks to address is the specific role that material devices play for producing social effects for migrant communities.

The research field of this paper is the area of Thrace, a large geopolitical-cultural unit that was divided – due to political reasons – in three subareas distributed among three different countries: Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. A dance event that used to take place before the border demarcation but is still performed in the Greek and Turkish Thrace is that of “K’na”, a wedding dance event danced by the people of both border areas, despite of the changes in their magical-religious beliefs and the changes brought by socio-economic and cultural development. In particular, the aim of this paper is the study of the “construction” of the national identity of inhabitants both of Greek and Turkish Thrace, as this is manifested through the dance practice within the wedding event of “K’na”, through the lens of sociocybernetics. Data was gathered through ethnographic method as this is applied to the study of dance, while its interpretation was based on sociocybernetics according to Burke’s identity control theory. From the data analysis, it is showed that the “K’na” dance in Greek and Turkish Thrace constructs and reconstructs the national identity of the people who use them as a response to the messages they receive via the communication with “the national others”. In conclusion, the “construction” of the identity results from a continuous procedure of self-regulation and self-control through a cybernetic sequence of steps.

During the last decades, the interest in migration policies has increased, both at institutional level and in academia. However, if the scientific understanding of policies associated with migration at destination has tremendously advanced, our knowledge about origin countries interventions in migration stays limited. Our paper addresses one of the largely unexplored topic of this area: if and what kind of policies supporting return/returnees the returnees themselves find appropriate. The analysis is based on 120 interviews with Romanian returnees, aged 18 to 39, coming back after at least 6 months of working or studying abroad in different EU countries. The article reveals that even if the return policies are generally positively evaluated by the Romanian returned migrants, not all of them support the idea of having policies specially designed for attracting migrants back to the origin country. Some of them simply reject the idea and others are sceptical about the state capacity of implementing this type of policies. The paper explores all the main clusters of attitudes towards return migration policies and illustrates each of them with excerpts from in-depth interviews.

The paper analyses the labour force composition of two adjacent counties in north-west Romania: Maramureș and Sălaj. Regionally, employers stress the lack of available labour force and resort to commuter networks from nearby rural areas and immigrant labour. Why labour shortage? It is argued that Romania’s FDI-reliant export-led growth model factors in. Namely, the growth model’s reliance on low-cost labour that reduces employment incentives to a minimum (often minimum wage) and employment in repetitive labour-intensive activities make the prospect less attractive. If technological upgrading – requiring skilled employees – is absent, regional labour availability tends to be an issue. Alternative subsistence methods are favoured: seasonal transnational migration, household agricultural subsistence and remittances from relatives. Tying livelihood to families and households, these methods pool resources to replace (even if in part) wage labour under global market-dependency conditions.

The paper examines Maramureș County’s labour regime and describes its transformation from a heavily unionized formation under socialism to today’s deregulated, transnational condition. The region’s former mining cluster and current furniture production hub are posited as sectoral focal points. Union militantism prevented the mining sector’s accelerated decline in the 1990s, but liberalisation and conformity with the European Union’s regulatory frameworks gradually eroded labour rights and shifted the region’s economic profile to export-oriented sectors. Among these, domestic and foreign furniture manufacturers emerged as dominant economic actors in the early 2000s. While the county is well-known for its wood processing, the companies in question tap into IKEA’s global production network and employ low-cost, flexible labour in just-in-time supply schedules. Recent developments include the use of immigrant agency workers as a solution to the county’s skilled and unskilled labour shortage.

Tens of thousands of labourers work in the factories in and around Baia Mare, a city that is being reindustrialized after an initial industrialization under state socialism. In 2021, most workers were being paid about 280 euro a month, as companies were aiming to achieve the lowest possible production costs while remaining within the European Union. Workers and their families, unable to make do on their low wages alone, constantly scramble for means to supplement their income. Many work overtime systematically; some choose to migrate for work abroad for a few months every year; yet others quit their factory jobs for more lucrative opportunities during the summers, only to return to the factories in the autumn. In this paper, I look at the industrial history of Baia Mare and the work lives of labourers to understand how the workers in the region were impacted by the politics of dispossession. I use two complementary lenses: on the one hand, I understand their position at the junction of global, national, and local forces; on the other hand, I underline the ways in which this specific case speaks to the workings of global capital, not as an exception, but as one of many interconnected stories of human experience.

This paper links the concept of social trust and that of migration by exploring the interactions and dependencies between Romanian emigrants and returnees and various institutional and social actors. Consequently, the underlying question of the research is: ‘What are the ways in which migration experience is associated with social trust?’. This research discusses how experiences with public agencies in Romania or in the host country determine trust or conversely, induce the feeling of distrust. Common specific elements were taken into account, such as determinants and effects of trust, life experience as immigrants, level of integration, and level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with public entities, which linked empirically the two concepts. Drawing on a set of interviews with Romanian emigrants and Romanian returnees1, this research tackles the peculiarities of emigrants’ and returnees’ experiences as key factors in identifying the levels of social trust.

Throughout this research we reflect on how the convergence of technology and migration is changing highly skilled labour mobility and the relationship between place and value production. We reflect on the impact of these transformations on the tech sector and IT labour market in Cluj-Napoca. We aim to understand how the pandemic coupled with the current trends in labour mobility and value production have affected labour markets and highly skilled labour migration. The paper stems as reflection from a fieldwork which are currently conducting in Romania with a focus on transnational entrepreneurship, social networks of innovation and labour migration in the tech industry. The article brings forward findings from the field, drawing on the developments that accelerated and changed the way we work in the post-pandemic period and analysing what implications these trends could have on the nature of migration and the connection between value production and place.

This paper analyzes Romania’s dynamic migratory process with a focus on the return migration from Norway and the sociocultural changes that it might involve for Romanian migrants and their home societies. The focus on Norway as a case study can bring a valuable, accurate, and deep understanding of Romanian immigration. These indicate that Romanians faced many challenges in their migratory journey in Norway, but that for a source country like Romania, return migration could, in the long term, contribute to its social and cultural changes. This research resulted in three key findings. Firstly, through their migratory experience from Norway, Romanian returnees internalized social remittances, and changed their attitudes, behavior, values, and expectations before disseminating their knowledge in their family -and social environment. Secondly, the prevalence of social remittances might be dependent on the motivation of returnees to transfer their knowledge, ideas, and practices in the scope of contributing to social change. The prevalence of social remittances might also be dependent on the way the societies of origin receive the resources that returnees attempt to transmit and culturally diffuse. Thirdly, Romania, as an emigration society, has had a relaxed attitude towards change. However, repatriated Romanians maintain a confident outlook on the potential of their skills and know-how conferring them influence over certain cultural aspects in the spheres of work and social relationships.

This systematic review examines the media framing of human rights violations, in the backdrop of radical nationalist movements in India. The study focuses on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) governance and its association with a radical nationalist (Hindutva) ideology. The study aims to shed light on the International Media’s criticism of the party’s role in perpetuating anti-minority sentiments and provoking violence against them. Using an integrative review approach, this paper meticulously analyzed 34 selected articles, from research journals and newspapers, published between 2010 and 2022. Thematic analysis was used to identify recurring patterns and key themes related to the BJP’s radical nationalist approach and its impact on minorities. Findings from the existing literature and international media’s reporting reveal the BJP’s transformation from a political organization to a stubborn force, promoting radical nationalist principles to consolidate its power base. Furthermore, analysis shows that the enactment of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) triggered widespread protests whereas amending Articles 370 and 35A stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy, which resulted in human rights violations. In conclusion, the media content analysis highlights the human rights concerns due to the BJP’s radical nationalist approach and underscores an urgent need to make such policies that promote co-existence, inclusivity, and social cohesion to foster a pluralistic society.

The present paper presents the experience and situation of third country nationals living in Timisoara, Romania. Their experience is relevant to the region of Banat, in the West of the country, but broadly speaking, also mirrors the situation of various types of migrants who come to Romania. Through both individual interviews and focus groups, we obtained information concerning 4 main topics that are relevant to integration: education, health, housing, and employment. The respondents were adults who came from a background that is diversified professionally, culturally, and geographically. Thus, the sample, consisting of a total of over 50 persons, is relevant to our purpose: finding out what the needs of the third country nationals are and how can both state institutions and civil society organizations better meet those needs. After having studied material stemming from previous research and after having analysed the discourse of those whom we have encountered, we conclude that, though the Romanian state has the legal basis and premises to ensure the successful integration of TCNs in Romania, there is still work to be done in the field of putting the theoretical framework into common practice on the ground, thus ensuring the fair access of the TCNs to the tools and support they need to successfully integrate in the Romanian society.

This paper examines the ethnicity as an issue prevailing upon the Kenyan society and its implication on the social, economic and political dimensions in Kenya. Devolved ethnicity has been seen to be on the arise since the county’s independence (1963) to date and therefore the distrust among communities is seen as an impediment to the socio-economic and political developments in Kenya. Moreover, the issues that arise include marginalization of minority ethnic communities towards accessing resources. Uneven distribution of national resources has led to underdevelopment of regions in Kenya thereby bring about regional imbalance in terms of distribution of national resources, which has negatively affected socio-economic development of the country. Negative ethnicity brings about marginalization, distrust and heightens ethnic tensions and this eventually leads to conflict, for example, the 1992, 1997 and the 2007/2008 post-election violence over the sharing and allocation of power and national resources. This paper examines ways in which ethnic problems in Kenya have been attributed to the social, economic and political perspectives and therefore provides the solution/medicine towards negative ethnicity.

The drive behind this paper is to explore the quality of the partnership working between the Youth Justice Service and the Multi – Agency Safeguarding Hub & First Response Team in one of the London Boroughs on the basis of 6 selected cases which were known to both services. The study begins with an explanation of the rationale for the research and an introduction to both services and their roles. Subsequently, I review the literature, publications and relevant government policies linked to this topic. Successively, I concentrate on methodology employed in the study and any ethical issues arising as well as the theory underpinning the research. Next part presents the findings and offers an analysis. Finally, the paper outlines the conclusions of this piece of work with a brief summary of recommendations for both services in order to enhance the understanding of their roles as well as how to work better together in order to achieve improved outcomes for young people.

This paper contributes to the sociological understanding of social class inequalities in childhood similarities test scores. We undertake a comparative analysis of two cohorts of British children born 30 years apart. There is a similar negative relationship in both cohorts. Children born in families in the less advantaged social classes have lower childhood similarities test scores. This is consequential because these children enter secondary school with restricted capabilities in logical thinking, concept formation and abstract reasoning.

Educational aspirations play an important role in shaping students’ educational trajectories and destinations. Drawing on longitudinal data from the TREE2 study, this paper investigates the effect of tracking on the formation and adjustment of the educational aspirations of Swiss students upon leaving compulsory school. We show that educational aspirations are highly responsive to the educational track attended in upper secondary education. While students in general education tend to stick to their aspirations, their counterparts in vocational programmes exhibit less stable aspirations.

Suppressed on ideological grounds, banned as academic discipline, and dismantled as scientific infrastructure in the first postwar years, sociology was re-institutionalized in communist Romania during the 1960s, largely on political grounds. Subsequently, the discipline developed and augmented within an impressive scientific infrastructure - several university departments were established, research centres and facilities initiated, and specialized periodicals issued. Still, the prosperous period of Romanian sociology concluded after just one decade, through another political decision, which confined the study of sociology to post-graduate specialization and restricted research. My paper explores sociology’s institutional infrastructure, as it was established after the discipline’s renewal, focusing on the institutions created, but also on the biographical analysis of those involved within these processes. My paper will address the matter from a historical perspective, discussing the developments and the evolutions in the field by circumscribing to the political, cultural, and socio-economic contexts.

This paper will help foster a more favourable attitude to professional involvement in social design projects and highlight new areas of professional opportunity for sociologists. To overcome the psychological barriers to design engagement and to foster motivation for social design, the authors discuss a case of social design decision making by non-sociologists. The methodology is informed by Activity Theory and Design Theory, and the approach adopted is based on analyzing current best practices, departing from conventional and customary practices. The authors discuss the Fun Palace, which was an innovative architectural project in the 1960s Great Britain, conceived with a fundamental social aim of providing life-long education and professional retooling to working class people in a relaxed and entertaining environment. The paper highlights the sociological nature of decision making in the planning phase of the project as well as the need for sociological knowledge and skills. The explication of the social design activities in the Fun Palace project can inspire sociological practitioners with ideas about entering into various industries and, in particular, in the design of social organizations and buildings.

Through the perspective of world-ecology, one of the most recent approaches in international relations, we aim to analyse global capitalism as an ecological project based on the appropriation of human and extra-human nature oriented to support capital accumulation process. Agriculture and its labour force occupy a central role in maintaining the world-system in which global chains, international migrations and centre-periphery relationships interact. This paper shows how global processes occur at this intersection. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the analysis of the current world-system through this innovative approach, developed mainly by Jason W. Moore, and then show how the world-system’s structure and its crisis have articulated a highlyinternationalized production model whose most significant effect has been the generation of large migrations of cheap labour across the planet. It is also proposed to descend to the local context to highlight examples because the organization of work at this territorial scale is representative of global agricultural production.

The present paper investigates how the Bridge Budapest, a CSR organization founded by leading Hungarian IT startups, attempts to shape the values of Hungarian society towards capitalism in general, and towards entrepreneurship in particular. In my paper I argue that the central aim of the organization is to facilitate Hungary’s catching up with the core capitalist countries through the transformation of the attitudes and the ideologies surrounding capitalism in the Hungarian context, i.e. the local spirit of capitalism. This consists, on the one hand, of restoring the legitimation of some of the core institutions of capitalism, such as the enterprise and the entrepreneur, and of confronting the risk-taking, innovative and ethical figure of the entrepreneur hero with the provincial figure of the ‘postcommunist cheater’. On the other hand, it also consists of propagating a new management of work that aims to produce self-controlling and self-motivating employees. In the narrative of Bridge Budapest IT companies appear as the perfect moral and economic subjects – the bearers of the new spirit of capitalism – that have the expertise to offer solutions to the problems of Hungarian society, and around which the local capitalism should be built.

The article examines how deindustrialization as economic restructuring and housing regime changes evolved interconnectedly in Romania during the Great Transformation from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism. This article also explores how they acted as conditions for the emergence of a real-estate-development-driven housing regime (REDD-HR) alongside other factors. The analysis is from the perspective of the geographical political economy on the variegated pathways of these phenomena across borders and secondary statistical data collected by two research projects conducted in Romania in the past two years. In the Eastern semiperiphery of global capitalism or a country of the Global Easts with a socialist legacy, after 1990, the state restructured the economy by privatizing industry and public housing. During state socialism, the housing regime supported industrialization-based urbanization, whereas deindustrialization-cumprivatization in emerging capitalism facilitated the appearance of real estate development. On the one hand, the article enriches studies on deindustrialization by highlighting the role of housing in the transformation of industrial relations; on the other hand, the paper revisits housing studies by analyzing deindustrialization as a process with an impact on the changing housing regime. Altogether, deindustrialization-cum-privatization and the changing housing sector are analyzed as prerequisites of the REDD-HR.

Work and family are important domains of life to many individuals with each attracting different roles and expectations. Employees who are able to balance work and family responsibilities have been reported to engage more with their work. However, negative work outcomes may result from conflicts among roles. Therefore, this paper investigated the influence of self-efficacy, gender, job status and length of service on work-life balance among employees in selected manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Participants consisted of 464 (female = 25.9%) employees that were randomly selected from manufacturing companies in Lagos state, Nigeria. Participants completed the Work-Family Balance Questionnaire and Self-Efficacy Scale. Results of the Two-Way ANOVA analyses revealed a between subject significant main effect of job status, [F(2,455) = 14.35, p

The main objective of this paper is to define the main dimensions of gang, its structure, mutual connections and influence on the contemporary society at national and international level. This paper is based on knowledge about the issues of gang and presents the main differences and characteristics of formalized and non-formalized gang and the main identical and different characters. It comes from a study of current knowledge on the issue of gang and discusses its general forms. In this paper, a discussion of existing studies and typologies of these peculiar social groups, including an explanation is provided. The next section will introduce the particular qualities of the crimes committed by (mostly youth) gangs and explain their possible causes. The main findings of the paper is putting relations between formalized and non-formalized gang and their influence on the present and future society in the social, psychological, economic, ethnic and criminal dimension.

This study consists in a quantitative analysis of fashion preferences, examining various factors influencing clothing personalization. The first part of the paper sets out the theoretical framework, discussing the historical relationship between the emergence of modernity and the configuration of fashion industry. The study proceeds with detailing the regional context where the empirical research is grounded, paying particular attention to the development and current status of the region’s clothing industry. After presenting the data and the methodology, the paper discusses the empirical findings followed by their interpretation. Based on the results we argue that the level of education, marital status, shopping frequency, and the importance of clothing quality are the most important predictors in fashioning individuals’ sartorial choices as well as their preference for clothing personalization.

The criminalization of homosexuality in Nigeria has partially been inspired and acclaimed by a number of religious schools of thought, including Christian opinion leaders. Such an influence of religion on politics has been seriously questioned. Using observations and literary sources, this paper underlines the unconstitutionality of Christian antigay proselytism at the political sphere of the Nigerian State, anchoring its claim on the constitutional provision stipulating the secular character of Nigeria. It however interprets such a move (the “influential” Christian anti-gay proselytism) as an inevitable expression of the religious character of Nigeria’s social and cultural spheres. Furthermore, the paper argues that the Nigerian Federation is “fully secular” only on paper and not in practice. Secularity is partially observed at the political sphere of the State. Religion and populism continue to shape major socio-political schemes (as seen in the criminalization of homosexuality in Nigeria). With such a socio-political influence of religion, legislative projects such as the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act and political strategies such as the Nigerian Government’s resistance against western gay-proselytism can only be massively celebrated. In line with this, (Christian) anti-gay proselytism at the Nigeria’s political sphere is logically viewed less as an anathema, and more as socio-political heroism.

This paper focuses on the recent neo-liberal transformation in the Romanian education system and analyzes the genealogy of a new form of academic governance that has been implemented in higher education institutions in the past decade. It examines the role quality indicators and supplementary funding have played in the gradual embedding and naturalization of neo-liberal disciplinary reforms in universities and the specific quality enhancement policies that aimed at increasing the productivity of academic workers by stimulating the competition among them. The main argument of the paper is that in order to understand the extensive academic management based on scientometrics and recurrent evaluation of academics we need to look at the structural mechanisms that have shaped higher education institutions in accordance with market rules and at the generalization of competitiveness throughout the system in the context of budget cuts and decreasing resources allocated to education.

Compared to the European countries, the sociologic research related to religiousness and religious affiliation ranks Romania among the most religious countries, this aspect being proved also by the active positioning of the Church in society, especially in the public space. The verification of the phenomenon may be done also through our research theme, which has a content focused on social work, whose result may be used accordingly. There are publications in the field of social work also containing chapters about the Church as an institution, describing the specific activities with social character (either of philanthropy, or of empirical assistance, or even professionalised social work). Nevertheless, most papers mention the Church only in the description of some historical aspects of social work in Romania. Our topic is new because a research similar to ours has not been conducted in Romania yet, in our opinion, as in all bibliographic sources used in the writing of our paper he have found no research approaching such topics. The entire scientific endeavour starts from the formal systematic and non-systematic collaboration already existing between Churches and DGASPCs, but in order to scientifically validate this hypothesis we chose to conduct also a quantitative analysis of the data collected through a questionnaire with closed questions. The main purpose of our paper is the highlighting of the specificity of the interaction between the Church and the social work practice in Romania, through the existing partnership links between the State and the Church.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the sociological literature on pharmaceuticalisation and see how sociology helps us understand and explain the phenomenon. We then discuss how sociology, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, defines the process of pharmaceuticalisation and how this last is evolving. The paper points out that, while medicalisation remains a key concept for health sociology, it is increasingly being queried and/or extended to allow for a techno-scientific era of biomedicalisation (Clarke et al. 2003) and to acknowledge the importance of the pharmaceutical industry in this process (Williams, Martin and Gabe 2011a, 2011b). Particular attention will be paid to the process of pharmaceuticalisation as brought about not just by doctors and their prescriptions, but by the central role of pharmaceutical promoters and the marketing of drugs.

In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyse how the violence and abuse against elderly migrants in Monterrey, Mexico affects their health. For this research, 257 elderly Mexican migrants were surveyed in the Metropolitan Area of Monterrey during 2012 through 2013. The study found that the majority of elderly people migrate to urban areas in search of a better economic opportunity. Once in the city, they are absorbed into the informal economic sectors. Results indicate that most of these elderly people suffer physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as neglect and financial abuse from their employer, relatives, clients and pedestrians, which has an adverse effect on their health. Elderly migrants reported numerous health problems, where many of them were suffering from different types of injuries, stress and depression, among others. This paper concluded that violence suffered by elderly migrants has a significant impact on their health.

The exclusion from access to basic health services, medical examinations, hospital and pharmaceutical care has affected a large number of Greek citizens during the economic crisis. The first aim of this paper is to focus on the analysis of those new vulnerable groups who face access problems to healthcare services. The second aim of the paper is to examine the new stakeholders and to explore the civil society's emerging initiatives.

This paper looks at how demographic knowledge was articulated in the 1970s in Romania in a context shaped by both a restrictive natalist agenda and the reestablishment of institutional affiliations with western academia. An account is given of the specific institutional affiliations that coordinated and made knowledge transfers possible between French and Romanian agencies. The text then focuses on the specific vocabulary and reasoning mechanisms employed in a series of texts published throughout the 1970s in the sociological journal Viitorul Social, a monthly magazine of socialist doctrine, culture and politics. The aim is to start a discussion about the possibility that the reestablishment of institutional connections with French demographic trends in the early ᾿70s lent Romanian demographers a type of conservative scientific reasoning and vocabulary that was attuned to the natalist politics of the time. In turn, this authorised a highly politicised portrayal of working-class women as culpable for the diminishing birth-rates in Romania. The text ends by suggesting other research paths that might help situate demographic knowledge production and its ties with reproduction politics.

Human history is full of evidence showing a larger number of human and animal populations got affected by infectious diseases, viruses, and bacteria. Like previous life-threatening pandemics, coronavirus appeared to be a deadly virus in 2019 and declared as pandemic in 2020 by WHO. As per Global Reports, senior citizens have been most vulnerable to the corona virus attacks. This paper explores the experiences of family members dealing with elderly at home in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak and how they managed them keeping in view their mindset on disease and socio-cultural constraints. For this purpose, qualitative research methods were adopted. 20 participants were selected for the in-depth interviews through purposive sampling. Following themes generated as a result of the data analysis: stubborn and rigid behavior of elderly, emotionally complex reactions, socio-cultural barriers, and traditional approach to the disease. Findings depicted the most common social cultural barriers in dealing with the difficult nature of elderly people are family ties, religious norms, respect, and empathy towards elderly people. Further, research findings highlighted major sentiments of older adults comprise attachment towards their grandchildren, feeling of insecurity, feeling of getting stigmatized, considering themselves as a virus spreader and feeling of being left out. It was found that older adults felt stigmatized, lonely, left out and considered SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) as imposed remedial steps. Overall, it was found that at older age people express more anxiety and fear towards loneliness. Findings will help in sensitizing policy makers to design awareness sessions, religious and other home-based social activities for elderly people to combat stress related to loneliness in older age.

In this issue, one may find both theoretical and empirical papers, followed by three book reviews. The issue opens with papers in English, which is our target language, followed by papers in Polish. There are papers from authors based in Algeria, India, Iran, UK, USA, Vietnam, Turkey and Poland, who are all social researchers and active observers of social life at different stages of their academic and professional career. We present you with a selection of current social, educational, political and philosophical topics in a socio-historical context: intercultural issues, identity and resistance, social systems, social control and rehabilitation, communication, reflexivity, spirituality and religion, social justice, issues relevant to education and care, politics, language and even poetry. We aim to become an open forum of scientific thought exchange, inviting scholars with a wide range of experience within the rich field of social sciences, embracing subjects that are both central and peripheral to the further development of disciplines such as sociology, comparative pedagogy, social psychology, anthropology, education, social policy, international relations and philosophy. What makes us unique in Central Europe is that we wish to offer avenues to be heard and visible for early career scholars alongside established authorities in these fields of expertise. We would like to be comprehensive internationally and in order to do so we promote comparative studies.