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In this paper we analyze culture as integral aspect of everyday life and the ways culture is actualized through cultural participation. The research presented in this paper is part of the Center for Designing the Everyday project, which aims to explore the current state and possibilities for establishing a new model of participatory governance in culture based on the model of participatory democracy. In this research, designed and conducted to assess the state of cultural participation at two intervals over a two-year period, the aim was to determine whether there are differences in the types of participation and motivations for participation in cultural events and activities before and after initiatives aimed at reinforcing the model of participatory governance. The paper draws on three conceptual turns, namely postmodern, cultural, and participatory, to examine the repositioning of cultural participation in everyday life. Two surveys were undertaken in 2018 and 2020 in Zagreb, targeting an intentional sample of visitors to cultural institutions and associations operating in the field of visual arts. Given the specific timeframe, the results are interpreted in the context of the pandemic. Results imply strengthening of cultural participation connected to cultural consumption, while participation connected to cultural production is decaling. Furthermore, interactive cultural participation in digital and virtual environment indicates inequalities among different social groups especially when it comes to elderly population that has proven to be vulnerable in terms of frequency and availability of interactive cultural participation.

By relying on Michel Foucault’s theory of social discourse and power/ knowledge where culture, customs and other elements of society are seen as the source of shared knowledge imposed on the individuals, this paper explores the theme of violence in William Faulkner’s novel Light in August (1932) to prove Joe Christmas’ violence as the result of his exposure to the social discourse of the time he lives in, namely the South during the Jim Crow era. The paper proves violence in the novel as mostly connected to the character of Joe Christmas and explores why Joe Christmas, even though the main enactor of violence, is not regarded as a villain but as an anti-hero. The period in which Christmas lives is the Jim Crow South where blackness was regarded as inferior, negative and evil which affects Joe’s self-perception and his actions. Joe, the captive of society, exhibits violence because the only thing he has been thought is to respond with violence. The paper will analyze several parts of the novel connected to Joe Christmas and violence to prove how violence in Faulkner’s novel does not exist per se but serves to prove how damaging the effect of society and social discourse can be.

The traditional school system has not met the needs of students for many years. Parents, in order to allow their children to move away from the rigid class-subject-hour system, established schools. The founders of alternative schools can be citizens, parents and teachers, religious communities as well as other legal entities. These are the so-called free schools, civic educational initiatives, reform pedagogical attempts, educational boarding schools, etc. The aim of this paper is to present the pedagogical concepts and ideas of schools in the Republic of Croatia whose founders are parents. The paper presents the basic pedagogical principles and aspects of teaching Waldorf and Montessori pedagogy based on educational pluralism, a brief overview of partnership between parents and schools in Croatia and the educational model of primary Catholic schools “Ružičnjak” and “Lotrščak”. The observed schools are located in Zagreb and have only one goal - to adapt the school to the child. An effort is made to provide each student with an individual approach. The starting points are the child’s needs and interests. These are the schools where students have freedom of choice. The goal of upbringing and education is the holistic development of the child. The emphasis is on active learning methods and abandoning didactic scenarios in which the child is only a passive observer.

The COVID-19 crisis had a huge impact on education and became the subject of many scientific studies. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the opinions of professors and students on the quality of teaching and satisfaction with e-learning during the COVID-19 crisis. The aim of the research is to answer the question to what extent professors and students are satisfied with the quality of e-learning in higher education institutions, as well as their expectations in the future. The research was created on the research platform 1KA and conducted in the period from November 12, 2021 to February 12, 2022 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A survey questionnaire was used as a research instrument, which was sent to 192 addresses, 101 publics and 91 private faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and included 132 professors and 202 students. The results of the research showed that the quality of teaching is positively influenced by the satisfaction and level of usefulness of the tools used among professors, but also among students. The results also confirmed that more work experience leads to lower e-learning expectations in the future. The paper presents empirical research that was conducted on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina about the impact of COVID-19 on the quality of e-learning. The scientific contribution of the paper is reflected in the fact that it can be used in research related to the impact of crises on teaching in higher education institutions, as well as potential future emergency situations of crisis and uncertainty that result in new models of teaching that combine classroom and e-teaching.

Although teacher competencies are acquired during initial training in faculties of education, among which methodological competencies have a special place, many teachers are not trained to work with students with specific learning difficulties and do not know how to deal with them in the classroom. Research on specific learning difficulties has begun recently as the symptoms of such students have been gradually explored and efforts have been made to adapt teaching methods to each student. The purpose of this paper is to explain the specific learning difficulties - dyslexia and dysgraphia - and to describe the ways in which teachers can work with students who suffer from these difficulties. A survey was conducted to investigate how Croatian language teachers adapt their work to students with reading and writing difficulties. The teachers’ awareness of the students’ difficulties, the way they prepare teaching materials, the use of teaching methods when working with these students, the way they give work instructions, the way they check their knowledge, and effective examples of teaching students with specific reading and writ- ing difficulties were investigated. The sample included 40 Croatian language teachers at primary and secondary level of education. The results are generally satisfactory, and it can be said that teachers’ handling of students with these difficulties in teaching language expression is good, although additional training could improve the quality.