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SOCIOLÓGIA
SLOVAK SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW



OBSAH 4/2003, s. 283-382
CONTENTS 4/2003, p. 283-382

Štúdie
Studies

 

Profily a interpretácie
Profiles and Interpretations

 

Informácie
Information

 

Recenzie
Reviews


Začlenenie a vylúčenie v období transformácie a integrácie

Monika Čambáliková

Sociologický ústav SAV, Bratislava

Inclusion and Exclusion in the Period of Transformation and Integration. The article focuses at the analysis of transformation and integration processes of Slovakia done through the optics of inclusion. Inclusion is investigated (in accordance with the inspiration by the concept elaborated by R. Goodin) particularly in relation with the concepts of citizenship and participation. The author analyses "liberal" and "social" vision of citizenship as a theoretical-ideological base of two mutually competing models of Europe and European states. She compares the development, opportunities and limits of social citizenship implementation during the "golden age of social democracy” and in the current period of globalisation. She highlights how the issue of inclusion and exclusion is reflected in the EU documents and programs, and how this issue is being modified.

In conclusion, she establishes that there is no coherent concept of “European citizenship” existing at the moment. The important thing is what vision of citizenship and what vision of (euro)citizenship is adopted by the relevant – national as well as global – agents: what they will include into this vision. The important thing is what institutions and what mechanisms of participation in the implementation of this vision they will establish: whom and how they will include in it. The important thing is whether all citizens and (euro)citizens will be included as “relevant agents”.

To contemplate the substantial issue: who and how should be included in the period of European integration – assumes to contemplate not only the criteria for including or condemning, but particularly to contemplate about the sense of European homogenity and identity. And by analogy: contemplating this issue in the context of European national states encourages the discussion about the sense of their current transformation.

Sociológia 2003 Vol. 35 (No. 4: 285-306)


Makrospoločenské faktory súčasného vývoja pôrodnosti na Slovensku

Jozef Matulník – Alojz Ritomský – Karol Pastor

Fakulta humanistiky, Katedra sociológie, Trnavská univerzita, Trnava

Macrosocial Factors of Contemporary Fertility Developments in Slovakia. A sharp decline in fertility which has taken place in Slovakia since the early 1990s is the topic of discussion of sociologists, demographers, economists and other experts for a longer time and it also attracts interest of the wider public. The very last development supports importance of this issue. In 2001 the natural increase rate was minus 844 persons. It should be observed that during the twentieth century the population of Slovakia only experienced decline during the period 1916-1918, and this was because of the particular effects of the Great War.

A team of researchers examined the reasons behind these recent developments. Partial results of this investigation into the determinants of fertility developments in Slovakia are presented in this study. The study attempts to obtain answers to two main research questions: a) to what extent are contemporary fertility developments in Slovakia influenced by cultural factors? b) To what extent are they influenced by socioeconomic factors? The first question concerns the influence of the second demographic transition. The second question deals with housing shortage, low living standards etc. The study is divided into seven parts. In the first, authors discuss the approach and methodology used in their analysis. The second part contains a description of the situation of expected fertility in Slovakia in relation to geographical regions, age groups, men and women, religiosity, and ethnic groups. The third part examines the relationship between expected fertility and attitudes towards life-long marriage. The relationship between expected fertility and attitudes towards cohabitation, sexual contact between teenagers, and extra-marital sexual relations between married people is discussed in part four. Attitudes to different means of fertility control are analyzed in part five. The sixth part is devoted to socioeconomic factors: cluster analyses were computed and different categories of people influenced by different socioeconomic factors were identified. Some conclusions regarding prognosis of the future fertility development is outlined in the last part of the study.

Sociológia 2003 Vol. 35 (No. 4: 307-332)


K otázkam komplementarity kvalitatívneho a kvantitatívneho výskumu (V sociológii výchovy a mládeže)

Peter Ondrejkovič

Katedra sociálnej práce a sociálnych vied Fakulty sociálnych vied UKF Nitra

 

Chápanie poznania ako”problému” a ako
čohosi, čo si vyžaduje “teóriu”, je výsledkom
chápania poznania ako súboru reprezentácií reality.

R. Rorty

 

To the Issues of Complementarity of Qualitative and Quantitative Research. (In the Sociology of Education and Youth). One of the central methodological issues in social sciences, particularly in those dealing with education, is the comprehension of the world, including comprehension of ourselves, and of our knowledge, as a part of the world. Positivism as well as empirism in social sciences emphasise particularly the quantitative research. Development in the area of methodology of sciences in the field of social and human sciences has reached, however, a conclusion that maintains that the pure quantitative thinking became unsupportable. The qualities of individual social phenomena, processes, relationships, forms, etc. cannot be reduced to only one of their dimensions – measurability. The basis facilitating a solution to such problems is orientation of social science research activities towards those methods that have their origin in the symbolic interactionalism as an interpretative paradigm, as well as in phenomenology and particularly in hermeneutics. Of course, a procedure of this kind is not easy, but it can provide a space for complementary utilization of quantitative as well as quantitative analyses that will not be running parallelly, but the former as well as the latter will provide suitable starting points (e.g. stage-based), especially for team work. We consider it inevitable to cope with contradictions of both paradigms (of qualitative and quantitative research) and to try ensuring that they complement each other in those points that were designed as their deficiencies in our essay. Complementarity and a gradual integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods is indeed a complex and seemingly mutually excluding process; but as long social and human sciences are concerned, it is perhaps the only possibility adequate to human thinking and cognition. In this sense we can speak of methodological realism.

Sociológia 2003 Vol. 35 (No. 4: 333-350)


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