The main purpose of this paper is to explore the changes that have occurred in the work of academic researchers. It also adresses particularities and changes affecting the professionalisation processes in the last five years. In the framework of the sociology of professions, it presents the authors’ empirical study which combines analyses of statistical data and own observations of Slovenian researchers and researchers from selected countries. The paper finds that the organisation of researchers’ work and its position as a semi-profession is deteriorating dramatically. Researchers are confronted with the pressures of reduced public funding, higher unemployment, short-term research contracts, unproductive internal and external competitiveness and detachment from teaching processes.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32433757
Monograph “Challenges of citizenship in higher education” addresses a special aspect of human resources development – citizenship. This aspect of manpower development is gaining an increasing importance, particularly in relation to the current changes of understanding of democracy. In the book we first conceptualise, how citizenship is reflecting in particular study fields curricula and in the research. Theory is tested on the basis of programmes at the University of Ljubljana. Further, we study changes of (de)professionalisaiton of academic profession and paradigm of "employability” of higher education. Follows the chapter, that theoretically and empirically explores, what is the impact of higher education on particular dimension of a "good" citizen. The book concludes with an overview of developmental perspectives.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32567901
The article presents reflections on uprising practices and the “uprising culture” which spread across the Slovene territory in late 2012. It focuses on two sets of aspects: the positioning of local manifestations within the global matrix of uprisings, analyzed through actions of solidarity and networking with Turkish activists, mostly students in Ljubljana (the example of activation through the “OccupyGezi – Ljubljana” movement), and essential emphases and missing elements, i.e. centralized core contents of the uprisings, and fringe uprisings, for instance the “Protest out of despair” and solidarity with the Maribor foundry workers. New crystallization points of the uprisings are likely to develop in the field of social and labour rights, which constitute the central “new” battlefield of social inequality, poverty, and survival. “Rise again!” is then the call of the new-age precarious worker, who can lose his job, home, and social security at any time.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32452445
Global migrations are a key feature of modern societies, the changes they cause in postmodern societies are extensive, and they relate to the entire spectrum of social organisation: from the issues of incorporating migrants into their new society, including policies of recognizing multiculturalism and citizen rights, to the challenges of achieving social cohesion in the microcosm of everyday life and preventing the construction of parallel, ghettoised worlds of migrants and the majority population. Contemporary migration trends have led to changes in identity policies and disparate responses including populist ones to the issues of coexistence with foreigners with people of different identities. Ethnic/cultural differences are factors of exclusion, where we focus on the essential question of constructing a different we, of a kind that will include migrants as new members of our society in the we field. Based on empirical data, the paper analyses good neighbour strategies, i.e. social distance in the Slovene and European environments.
COBISS.SI-ID: 12364877
Most cultural-led redevelopment projects in todayʼs global cities are devised with the clear objective of stimulating their economic growth. Redevelopment schemes usually aim to develop consumption services and urban settings to makethe city more attractive for investors. In many cases, redevelopment has led to a diminishment in diversity of local cultural spaces in the inner-city areas. Historically and socially important services and institutions like Tokyoʼs Tsukiji Fish Market tend to be relocated and replaced by less traditional and culturally less attractive spaces. This short-term strategy cannot really succeed in preserving or integrating local cultures, which may in the long run help Tokyo to become distinctively different from other globalcompeting cities and to benefit from these advantages. The article analyses the plans to renovate or redevelop specific local consumption spaces in Tokyo, and explores what mechanisms and strategies are being used by the involved actors to accomplish their goals
COBISS.SI-ID: 31857757