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Copyright of International Journal of Social Sciences (IJSS) / Uluslararasi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of International Journal of Social Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article looks into issues related to the maturity exam in English on the basis of a survey conducted with Bulgarian students who intended to sit the exam. The scope of investigation includes students’ reasons for choosing the exam, their preparation, and the difficulties they experience in the language areas and skills it covers. The results helped to identify aspects of the exam, which make it students’ preferred choice for a second obligatory school-leaving test. Respondents’ self-evaluation in the skill and knowledge areas resulted in a comprehensive picture of test-takers’ strengths and difficulties, and identified issues, which have to be taken into consideration by teachers and officials responsible for preparing the exam and evaluating its quality.

Loneliness is one of the fundamental problems of modern people. However, loneliness is traditionally associated with negative expressions and characteristics, at the same time it may also have a resource function. The relevance of the study is associated with its focus on the multifaceted understanding of loneliness and identification of its resource mechanisms. The purpose of the study presented in the article is to compare the idea of loneliness among Russian and Bulgarian students. An assumption was made: firstly, there is much in common between two countries, which makes it possible to expect a common value-semantic field, and secondly, despite the semantic similarity of ideas about loneliness, expressiveness of its individual parameters will vary. The study was carried out on a sample (N = 442) of Russian (n = 229) and Bulgarian (n = 213) students aged 17 to 27 years old (M = 20.8 years, SD = 1.64; 359 women and 83 men), living in St. Petersburg (the Russian Federation), Sofia and Plovdiv (Bulgaria). All respondents were asked the question: “What does loneliness mean to you?”. The written answers were analyzed using the method of content analysis, followed by calculating the frequency of occurrence of the semantic group and subgroups, and performing a comparative analysis (Fisher angular transformation). It was noted that the an-swers of both Bulgarian and Russian students lie in approximately the same semantic field. It was demonstrated that in both groups both positive and negative characteristics of loneliness were present. We established that Russian students more often mention the positive properties of loneliness. They interpret loneliness more often through the opportunities that it gives them. Bulgarian students often mention negative aspects; they express more fear related to loneliness. Similar results confirm our hypothesis about the general semantic field, and, at the same time, demonstrate particular nature of ideas about loneliness in these two groups. The results can be used to develop programs aimed both at reducing negative impact of loneliness, and on development of its resource functions.

The study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic related economic crisis on Bulgarian enterprises by firm size across sectors and regions in 2020, using data from the National statistical institute. The analysis shows that micro and large enterprises performed better during the crisis, whereas enterprises of medium size were less successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of the Viena Pedagogium was in response to the need of more accessible and better education. With its structure, education plans and focus on practice, the Academy became one of the leading educational institutions not only for Austria but for the whole of Europe. A large part of its success was due to its first principal, the great educator Friedrich Dittes famous for his reforms in the field of education. The influence of the Vienna Pedagogium is very significant for Bulgaria due to the fact that ten Bulgarian students successfully graduated from it and used their newly gained knowledge to help build up modern Bulgarian education system after the Liberation of Bulgaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks into issues related to the maturity exam in English on the basis of a survey conducted with Bulgarian students who intended to sit the exam. The scope of investigation includes students' reasons for choosing the exam, their preparation, and the difficulties they experience in the language areas and skills it covers. The results helped to identify aspects of the exam, which make it students' preferred choice for a second obligatory school-leaving test. Respondents' selfevaluation in the skill and knowledge areas resulted in a comprehensive picture of test-takers' strengths and difficulties, and identified issues, which have to be taken into consideration by teachers and officials responsible for preparing the exam and evaluating its quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the Bulgarian youth in the last two decades detect disturbing trends of sharp decline in the trust towards different public institutions, preferences towards living in the closer family and friends’ environment, prevailing consumer attitudes. There is a necessity for injecting new energy and positive life attitude which is taken account of in the national youth policies but fails to become reality. Data from the annual government reports doesn’t show significant changes in the attitudes and ways of life of the Bulgarian young people regarding the use of their free time in a positive way like acquiring new knowledge and skills, or widening their net of social contacts. Researches show very small percentage of young people who are volunteers, low levels of membership in nongovernmental, activist or even political organizations, disinterest in civic activities. These disturbing results can be discussed in the light of the social capital theories that outline volunteering and civic activism as crucial methods in building bridging and linking social capital. The latter can help young people in their professional and personal fulfillment and in bettering the quality of their lives. The article studies the results of a research done in the first half of the year 2019 among 240 young people (mostly students). The data is gathered through a structured online questionnaire. It studies the motivation of those young people to take part in voluntary activities; as well as the attitudes of youngsters who have never participated in a voluntary activity. Other researchers in Bulgaria have found that the students are the most active volunteers in the country. The current research verifies that statement. It delves deeper in the reasons why a person would / wouldn’t take part in a voluntary activity, what are the preferred causes, what are the best information channels for attracting young volunteers, what are their expectations. So far governmental policies have failed to produce significant positive changes in the behavior of the young people in Bulgaria. But there is a large number of youth organizations, nonprofit organizations committed to promoting volunteering and international organizations and programmes that slowly are shifting the trends. To add to the portfolio of volunteering forms, an international project started in 2018 is trying to popularize the pro bono programmes and to make them a part of the typical life cycle of the students in Bulgaria and other EU countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatic competence is an important measure of the effectiveness of Chinese teaching and is also a decisive factor in the strength of intercultural communication. From different aspects which are culturists of pragmatic competence, pragmatic teaching contents, Chinese context construction and evaluation system , the paper proposes four cultivating methods about Chinese pragmatic competence to Bulgarian college students, which are improving the intercultural pragmatic competence of teachers, choosing appropriate textbooks and adding pragmatic contents, Strengthening the construction of contexts in and out of class, integrating pragmatic competence assessment into the evaluation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an international project “Joy to Learn” with participants from Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, Spain, Poland, Romania and USA. The research focuses on joyful and happy situations for students connected to learning in school. It is important to obtain information on the thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, and the fears of the children. This would enable to promote the improvement of the learning process in terms of the student. The survey covered 300 students (from 1st to 8th grade) from Bulgaria. The results show that most of the students prefer to be active in the process of learning, however a presence of negative attitude towards learning in general was found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulgarian migrants and university students in particular have recently fallen into the spotlight of British media, firmly positioned within fervent immigration debates. Drawing on Brewer’s concept of nested identities, this paper explores how Bulgarian university students in the UK manage four different identifications: national, European, migrant and student. Thus, the process of establishing nested identities is investigated on three different contextual levels: the transnational, regional and the everyday (at university and at the workplace). Paying particular attention to the factors that influence the process, this article also scrutinises its implications for Bulgarian students’ values and perceptions. Utilising semi-structured interviews and participant observation with Bulgarian students, this paper will argue that the four identifications emerge as highly dynamic, context-specific and constantly negotiated relationships. Retrospectively, this article aims to contribute not only to current literature on Bulgarian migration but also to wider debates on transnational youth identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A comparison of data from three empirical surveys, carried out in 1995, 2005 and 2015 with SVS (Schwartz Value Survey; Schwartz, 1992) among 18-29 year-old students, is presented in the article. The aim of the study is to trace out the dynamics of the significance and hierarchy of basic individual values among emerging adults, which is insufficiently analyzed problem in the psychological literature. The results reveal that in the studied 20-year period, individual and collective values both increase their significance. The priorities of the values remain stable in time, but they become more ambivalent - security and conformity joined self-direction at the categories of values and conservatism joined openness to change and self-transcendence at the poles of the dimensions of values. The collective interests prevail over individual ones, as a result of the intensive growth of some collective values such as conformity and conservatism in 2015. This study raises some questions related to the specificity of value models in this age group and their change in post-totalitarian context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the Bulgarian students from the international evaluation survey PISA and the opportunities to build core competencies and develop scientific literacy depend largely on legal documentation that determines the educational content and the technology of conducting the learning process. In this respect, the most important are the State Educational Requirements for Educational Content. Therefore, the present study analyses not only the PISA results, but also the correlation between the requirements of PISA and the requirements of the normative documents related to science education in Bulgarian schools. This will contribute to improving the quality of education in science, synchronizing it with the modern requirements and providing opportunities for realization of Bulgarian students on the international labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of the Bulgarian students from the international evaluation survey PISA and the opportunities to build core competencies and develop scientific literacy depend largely on legal documentation that determines the educational content and the technology of conducting the learning process. In this respect, the most important are the State Educational Requirements for Educational Content. Therefore, the present study analyses not only the PISA results, but also the correlation between the requirements of PISA and the requirements of the normative documents related to science education in Bulgarian schools. This will contribute to improving the quality of education in science, synchronizing it with the modern requirements and providing opportunities for realization of Bulgarian students on the international labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La realidad multicultural de la actual sociedad española nos plantea muchos interrogantes relacionados con la integración social de los inmigrantes, con su adaptación lingüística y cultural. Para este estudio hemos restringido la variedad de inmigrantes, centrándonos en los inmigrantes de origen búlgaro que viven en España y en Andalucía, concretamente. Presentamos algunos datos estadísticos y medidas de intervención pedagógica en esta línea: mediación intercultural y Aulas Temporales de Adaptación Lingüística.

On the basis of archival and other sources which have not been used sofar the author examines the problem of the Bulgarians who attended Greek institutions of higher education in the period 1878-1912. He specifies that the total number of the Bulgarians who studied at University of Athens and in other institutions for professional education was about 107. Definitely, the majority of them preferred university studies (82%). The division of subjects included: medicine (55%), law (13%), obstetrics (10%), philology (4%), as well as pharmacy, theology, fine arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a new method of examining the cognitive unconscious and ways of overcoming internal contradiction at conscious and unconscious levels of the human mind. Respondents to this survey were 210 Bulgarian students who evaluated seventeen items with reference to their professional inclinations. They also made direct and indirect assessment of pairs of items whether they were contrary or similar. It was assumed that the direct assessment was done on a conscious level, and the indirect-on an unconscious level. Factor analysis of three variables-thesis, antithesis, and synthesis- was conducted, which revealed nonconcurrence of the direct and indirect assessment, which suggests the nonconcurrence of conscious and unconscious content. In some cases, the contradiction is resolved on conscious and unconscious levels, which suggests concurrence, but in others it occurs only on the conscious or only on the unconscious level, which indicates nonconcurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is written on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Aristotel Gavrilov and it is dedicated to his relational concept on mind. The author outlines the historical influence of this concept on Bulgarian students in phyloisophy. Several critical objections to Aristotle Gavrilov's concept are added and his thesis has been put in a wider European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the development and cross-national utility of a Likert type scale measuring attitudes toward unauthorized migration into a foreign country in two samples from “migrant-sending” nations. In the first phase a pool of 86 attitude statements were administered to a sample of 505 undergraduate students in Bulgaria (22.5% male; M age = 23, SD = 4.8). Exploratory factor analysis resulted in six factors, and a reduction to 34 items. The results yielded an overall alpha of (0.92) and alpha for subscales ranging from 0.70 to 0.89. In the second phase the 34-item scale was administered in a survey of 180 undergraduates from Sofia University in Bulgaria (16.7% male, M age = 23, SD = 4.8), plus 150 undergraduates from Hanoi State University in Vietnam (14.7% male, M age = 19, SD = 1.8). Results yielded a 19-item scale with no gender differences, and satisfactory alpha coefficients for a Vietnamese and Bulgarian sample of 0.87 and 0.89 respectively. This scale, equally applicable in both samples, includes items that reflect salient topics of concept of attitudes towards unauthorized migration. An exploratory principal component analysis of the Bulgarian and Vietnamese version of the 19-item scale yielded three factors accounting for 54% and 47% of the variance respectively. A procrustes analysis indicates high conceptual equivalence in the two samples for factor 1 and 2, and moderate for factor 3. This study lends support to the idea that despite different cultural meanings there is a common meaning space in culturally diverse societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulgarian students who first learned to write in the Cyrillic alphabet prefer own name letters in the Cyrillic hut also in the Roman alphabet. with which they became acquainted only many years later. These findings which are intra-individually correlated, support Nuttin's interpretation of the Name Letter Effect in terms of attachment to self and contradict a primacy of own name writing' explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces awards given to Bulgarian students and scientists for their contributions to the development of information society, science and technology. Preslav Ivanov Nakov has been awarded as the first winner of John Atanassov award for the year 2003. Svetlin Nakov has been awarded as the second winner of John Atanassov award for contribution to the development of information society. Businessman Valentin Nikolaev Pavlov received a John Atanassov award for the year 2005.

The article focuses on the project at the Vasil Levski Shkolo, a Bulgarian complementary school in Barking aimed to gather stories on the experience of Bulgarian migrants in London, England.

This article presents the key results of the participation of Bulgaria in the EUROSTUDENT Ill (2005-2008 a.) international project. The main purpose of this study is to deliver comparative data about social dimension of higher education in Europe with a view of improving the living and studying conditions of the student life. The national survey among Bulgarian students is conducted by the Center for Control and Assessment of Quality in Education in 2007 and the data received are interpreted within the international context of the study. Current publication is focused on 16 socio-economical indicators about student life, structured in three main topics: access to higher education, labour market experience and international mobility. The comparative outlook of this European initiative enables making of a more precise analysis of students' support measures taken on national level, as well as to identify the obstacles before a better representation of different social groups in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]