Open Journal for Sociological Studies

47-58

Authors: Anisa Agastra

Conflicts are inseparable part of human society all over the world. Although much contemporary conflicts seem to be about political, ethnic, or religious differences, in fact these conflicts generally have an economic, and a political basis. One of the most important nowadays issue is how people manage conflict situations, driven by interests, seemingly incompatible values and hostilities. Albanian State Police strategies vision is supporting new arrangements and innovation about police communication services. In addition, it appears necessary for police officers to be prepared for effective intervention and conflict resolution. The objective of this research is to examine conflict situations and relationships in police institution. The aim is to find out which appropriate methods of analysis or management strategies are better for solutions between parties of conflicts. The method used for the conduction of this work is a qualitative one, combined with analyses of data of a short survey process. Through the literature research and analyses of the data collected from the survey there are provided ways or manners of dealing and managing conflicts situations between police officers, people and police officers or police officers in front of people who conflict to each other. Analysis of the collected data have revealed in the conclusion that in order to perfectly resolve and manage conflict situations, it’s necessary to primary deeply analyze situations. This works in police officers case, too. As a main conclusion of this paper, each police officer who deals with a conflict situation has to structure their work plan and has to mention the main points like: description of the situation, identification of six phases of a conflict situation, deepening analysis based on the “mapping” method, following police procedures and finding a path for an adequate management and solution. Mapping method is used in terms of in-depth analysis of conflict situations to bring out better understanding of conflicts causes and parties.

71-82

Authors: Panagiotis Giavrimis, Theodoros Eleftherakis & Gerasimos Koustourakis

The purpose of this research was to investigate the phenomenon of shadow education in Greece during the second decade of the 21st century, focusing on the differences between formal and shadow education, the characteristics (of shadow education) and the reasons of its existence. The results showed that the liberalization of education during the recent decades was accurately implemented in the institution of shadow education. Knowledge is becoming a commercialized product and the choice for private education is made through private-financial criteria. Restrictive and maladaptive educational policies and decisions about the educational needs of Greek students exacerbate the purposes of shadow education development.

93-108

Authors: Arpie Balian & Nayiri Shorjian

The research explores the political, economic, social challenges and security priorities in state building in Armenia. It examines the government’s efforts directed towards state-building, depicting the major challenges involved and exploring the framework of reforms that would measurably contribute to state-building. The study uses a qualitative explanatory research design based on content analysis of literature, interviews, a “roadmap” speech by the former president of the republic and the current government strategic plan. The study then focuses on state building primarily focusing on good governance and associated elements of democracy as prerequisites for a high-functioning state. The findings reveal a relationship between the quality of public institutions and state-building attributing the relatively slower democratization and state building progress to institutional deficiencies in governance. We claim that resolving each of the political, economic and social challenges separately would not lead to state-building. It is important to tackle the root causes of these challenges by focusing on increasing the capacity and efficacy of public institutions guided by the pillars of democracy and good governance.

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.