Open Journal for Sociological Studies

1-12

Authors: Maria Vergeti & Charitomeni Giοuroglοu

The financial crisis and the subsequent social change in Greece had a direct impact on the institution of education. This paper presents the effects of austerity on school operation and the measures Greek schools take to overcome problems caused by education cutbacks. The study took place in schools of Eastern Macedonia-Thrace, a region in northern Greece that has been severely hit by the financial crisis. The population of the research was teachers of primary and secondary education and the sample came from 119 schools. 752 teachers answered to a closed questionnaire with some open items stating their views on school operation in times of austerity and mentioning the strategies that schools develop in order to cope with recession. The main finding suggests that school operation and the quality of education in Greece have deteriorated since 2009. However, the study reveals that schools have developed social support systems and new skills to respond to the crisis.

23-36

Authors: Dragan Kostovski

Europe’s history is like a manuscript of divisions between East and West: a boundary that stretches more than a thousand years. This history is full with more or less unsuccessful examples of attempts where this boundary was to be thrown away or at least minimized to certain degree. But, the actual failure in these attempts doesn’t mean that the impact left behind, moreover the religious impact in current social context is to be considered as rather irrelevant.

37-42

Authors: Christiana Constantopoulou

Theatricalization is an important aspect of social life in general, of political life in particular. Aspects of the political scene and action are given in mass and new media discourse as well as in mass cultural productions (as “narratives” of the contemporary reality). Given that people understand reality first of all on the symbolic level, the analysis of these narratives is an ideal approach of the meaning given to politics and communication nowadays: images of the economic crisis, of the migrants and/or refugees, of identities (given by media discourse or by mass cultural productions), constitute a basic imprint of the expressions of the current “social myths”. We emphasize on the concept of theatricalization as a constitutive social (and political) symbolism and on the importance of theatricalization in the contemporary communication. Because diverse narratives symbolize our reality, we focus on particular contemporary social myths; myths may be not real but they influence reality because they symbolize it (they explain it, they justify it and eventually they could make it change). In this sense, we consider this thematic volume as quite revealing for the contemporary communicational trends and for the contemporary (globalized) society.

51-64

Authors: Maarit Jaakkola

This article examines the discourses in the coverage of cultural journalism and its alleged crisis. The economical, technological, cultural and social transformations of the 21st-century media landscape have been translated into a crisis narrative that is sustained even by the practitioners themselves. The journalistic coverage concerning cultural journalism in general-interest news outlets in the period 2010–2017 includes a variety of representations of the crisis in culture and cultural journalism in the Nordic countries. By analysing the crisis in journalistic approaches as an operative concept for debating the topic in the public sphere, the study traces the functions of the crisis discourse. In this study, they are considered by applying the Aristotelian concept of thaumaston, which reflects both the inevitability of a catastrophe and the opportunity to create a reaction. The crisis narrative thus could be productive by increasing the accountability and openness in journalism while staging a drama that promotes a pessimistic representation of the topic.

73-82

Authors: Christine Wagner

This article concerns images that portray a social reality in relation to the ability that humans have to create narratives that are a configuration of the collective consciousness. According to arguments developed in the literature and broadcasted by the media, citizens’ actions guard both the public space and the configuration of culture. The images associated with relevant issues determine the public’s responses and give more power to public opinion. However, the results of innovation depend on the political will at any given time. According to Jürgen Habermas, the rationality of the discourse of decision makers guides the collective conscience through their communicative actions. In this sense, the message and its ideology can effect changes by capitalizing on belief in the narratives. Therefore, the main goal is to understand social reality in relation to the influence of visual narratives.

1-14

Authors: Carlos Rodríguez Garcés & Johana Muñoz Soto

The article analyzes the school performance of Chilean secondary school students in the areas of Language, Mathematics and ICT using the database of the SIMCE 2013 Survey. It also measures the contribution of technologies to the level of school performance, analyzing their impact, compared to other components of the student's socio-family profile. For this purpose, descriptive-correlational and Logistic Regression analyzes are performed. It is found that levels of school achievement are poor and are deeply segmented according to the student’s family income level. Although components of technological profile have an impact in this respect, the economic and cultural attributes are the structuring components of performance.

27-36

Authors: Boris Manov & Valentina Milenkova

The present article aims to analyze some aspects of Ph.D. training as a specific basis for intellectual establishment and research support focusing on the following issues: What are the characteristics of Ph.D. students’ integration to research activities? How young people evaluate various research processes? What is the department support as an institutional unit to doctoral students? What is the role of the family in the carrying out of Ph.D. process? The analysis focuses on the support that students from the Faculty of Philosophy, South-West University (SWU) receive for their research activity from their families and the institution they graduate. The paper is based on results obtained through quantitative as well as qualitative methods in the course of research projects carried out in 2013, 2015, and 2017 at SWU. The main methods of obtaining information are focus groups and survey conducted with graduate students in the Faculty of Philosophy, SWU. The basic conclusion of the study is that Ph.D. student’s research activity is a prerequisite for their future professional identity. The establishment of research skills is directly related to the support that doctoral students receive from the department, by the assistance of their supervisor and other professors who encourage creative activity, applying individual approach and seek active communication based on person-centered pedagogy. Meanwhile, the psychological support of the family is a no less important part of the received support, stimulating the construction of individuality in the process of socialization of young researchers.