This article sheds light on recent discursive shifts in representations of the “Balkan” in the Slovenian press. I focus on the strategies that the media, and the left-wing press in particular, uses to construct the identities of immigrant workers in Slovenia. I use critical discourse analysis to show how the media has recently attempted to avoid Balkanism and tried to create a more inclusive, democratic rhetoric on these workers and how they become a legitimate “other” in Slovenian society only when constructed as helpless victims. I analyze the role of the victim in the Slovenian imaginary, its disillusioned hero a cogent signifier for collective national identification, and how this figure’s characteristics are transposed to ex-Yugoslav immigrants to Slovenia, placing them within a rhetoric of victimization that is framed within a broader humanitarian discourse in order to interrogate what Maria Todorova has defined as Balkanism. I conclude by exploring victimization as the process of desubjectivation and point out aspects of victimization that reaffirm long-standing power relations between Europe and the Balkans.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33388381
The monograph addressed various angles of the social role and influence of contemporary medicine. It depicts health as a largely social phenomenon and medicine as a social science, overviews the notions and concepts of health and illness, the cultural and ideological meanings of illness, including its use as a metaphor for social deviance, as well as the process of the medicalisation of everyday life. Using empirical evidence, it sets out to explore how deeply conceptions of health and illness are embedded in the social reality. The 'presence' of modern medicine in the day-to-day lives of people seems substantial, particularly in the context of the ageing population where medicine seems to have replaced religion as the primary resource that can 'alleviate' the onset of old age. To providing an empirically informed overview of contemporary theoretical debates for interested scholars and students, another of the book’s contributions is that it brings to wider attention the 30-year-long Slovenian time-series of health indicators. It is quite a rarity to be able to examine subjective health trends in the context of two political systems and observe how this relationship is affected by major episodes of social stress and economic crises.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32797277
The article deals with the comparison of the characteristics, experiences and perceptions of everyday life of gays and lesbians living in rural and urban areas of Slovenia. We focus on the following thematic aspects: (1) coming out; (2) intimate partnerships; (3) the access and the use of gay infrastructure; (4) violence against gays and lesbians. The article also addresses and discusses the urban/rural divide as a Western construct that might not be completely applicable to other social and cultural contexts. Taking Slovenia as an example, this article questions theself-evidence of rural/urban divide as an analytical concept. On the basis of our research we conclude that this concept requires continuous revisions and re-interpretations in a concrete social and cultural context(s). The characteristics of gay and lesbian everyday life either in rural or in urban context in Slovenia lead to the conclusion that even within a specific social and cultural context, the concept of urban/rural divide should be used carefully, taking into account complexities of everyday lives and various factors that influence them.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32494685
Alcohol availability is strongly related to excessive alcohol consumption. This study aims to examine social marketing's response to concerns about retailers' noncompliance with the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) law by proposing and evaluating a social marketing intervention directed at sellers in off-premise stores. The study is based on a non-randomizedquasi-experimental design, focusing on an evaluation of the implementation of the "18 rules!" intervention in four cities in Slovenia. Two waves of underage purchase attempts were conducted pre- and post-intervention in 24 off-premise businesses, following a mystery shopping protocol. The initial rate of retailers' noncompliance with the MLDA law in off-premise establishments was high. After the social marketing intervention, an increase with compliance with the law was observed; the proportion of cashiers selling alcohol to minors after the intervention decreased from 96 to 67 per cent. Qualitative insight suggests an existence of retailers' dilemma in complying with the MLDA. A social marketing approach could contribute to a better understanding of the social working of the MLDA law. A social marketing approach could complement the usual enforcement strategies and contribute to a better understanding of the social working of the MLDA law, and encourage deliberate retailers' compliance with it while developing valuable exchanges among people and stakeholders. The paper conceptualizes retailers' dilemma in complying with the minimal legal drinking age law and offers social marketing response to it. Results of the study show that also solely non-coercive measures have the potential in increasing retailers' compliance with regulations.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34011741
This article explores parental involvement in the educational trajectories of children in Europe. The analysis is embedded in the framework of the three dominant contemporary social processes that have been acknowledged as crucial factors for the educational and life trajectories of young people today, i.e. familialization, institutionalization, and individualization. The article draws on qualitative data gathered during interviews with parents of lower secondary school students in disadvantaged city areas within the research project, GOETE, in eight European countries. The analysis focuses on specific behavioral aspects that were identified as the most relevant in our empirical evidence: parental educational aspirations and future plans for their children, the role of parents in decision- making in educational transitions and trajectories, parental participation in the school, and parental support with schoolwork. The most striking finding is the persistent emphasis on individual responsibility for both students and parents in terms of education. Parents realize that the future of their child not only depends on the work of the teacher but also to a great and growing degree on parents as coeducators. This parental awareness results in a high level of confidence in the power of education, which is met by parental skepticism when they experience a lack of school support and distant parent-teacher relationships and communication.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33184861