Institutional Identity and Anticipatory Socialization: a Qualitative Analysis of Multi-Campus University Websites

A document analysis of institutional websites was conducted to infer the extent to which affiliated campuses are integrated with one another within multi-campus university systems. The factors that contribute to either a common or differentiated sense of institutional identity, as expressed in the campuses’ individual web presences, were a primary focus of the investigation. This study then sought to determine the effect that institutional identity has on the anticipatory socialization of students who relocate from branch campuses to their parent institutions. Once an analysis of the findings had been conducted, recommendations for further research in this area were made.

The Complexity of Quest in Emerging Adults' Religiosity, Well-Being, and Identity

A growing body of literature indicates a modestly positive association between religiosity and spirituality as predictors of psychological health (anxiety and depression), suggesting they serve as personal resiliency factors. The purpose of this study was to expand our understanding of the relationships among these constructs. Using Lazarus's Transactional Model of Stress as a theoretical framework, we examined: (a) the extent to which spirituality and religiosity mediated and/or moderated the association between perceived stress and psychological health and (b) whether there was a moderated (religiosity) mediation (spirituality) between stress and health. The Perceived Stress Scale, Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Religious Commitment Inventory, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were administered to measure the following constructs: stress, spirituality, religiosity, and psychological health. This study utilized a nonexperimental, quantitative, correlational, cross-sectional, moderated-mediation design, and included a convenience sample of 331 research participants. Both spirituality and religiosity moderated stress and health. However, only spirituality partially mediated the relationship. In addition, religiosity did not moderate the mediating effects of spirituality. Overall, this study confirmed the role of both religiosity and spirituality as effective resiliency resources.

Public Drinking in the Early Modern World: Voices from the Tavern, 1500-1800

Until recently the role of the public drinking house has been approached from elitist, folkloric and anecdotal perspectives. The work of a new generation of social historians, however, has raised the tavern’s profile in the academic consciousness and confirmed its position within the mainstream of social and cultural history. It is now recognized that an understanding of the centrality of public drinking to the development of both elite and popular culture is vital to studies of social behaviour. The study of taverns has also been at the forefront of emerging interest in the history of consumption and material culture, and has contributed to a richer understanding of economic history. Constructions of gender and identity are also visible through research into the patterns of behaviour and discourse in and around the public house. This four-volume reset edition presents a wide-ranging collection of primary sources which uncover the language and behaviour of local and state authorities, of peasants and town-dwellers, and of drinking companions and irate wives. The documents are translated and set in their social and historical context, providing a multidisciplinary collection that will be of great importance to scholars of all areas of social and cultural history of the early modern period. The vast majority of this material is published here for the first time, ensuring that the collection will open up new avenues of research. Volume 1 draws heavily from the Parisian police archives and includes inspectors’ reports, complaints by the general public and details of court cases to build a picture of drinking in early modern France. Volumes 2 and 3 address public drinking in the Holy Roman Empire through a variety of chronicles, civic ordinances, court records, travel reports and surveys of public houses. Volume 4 locates taverns within a broader analysis of America’s public houses, drawing on visual material as well as journal entries, business reports and newspaper articles. Each volume is accompanied by editorial introductions and is annotated to provide readers with a high-quality resource of scholarly material.

A Comparative Study of Central and Eastern European Social Policy Concernig Mental Disability

The main goal of this project was to identity whether an imported system of social policy can be suitable for a host country, and if not why not. Romanian social policy concerning the mentally disabled represents a paradoxical situation in that while social policy is designed to ensure both an institutional structure and a juridical environment, in practice it is far from successful. The central question which Ms. Ciumageanu asked therefore was whether this failure was due to systemic factors, or whether the problem lay in reworking an imported social policy system to meet local needs. She took a comparative approach, also considering both the Scandinavian model of social policy, particularly the Danish model which has been adopted in Romania, and the Hungarian system, which has inherited a similar universal welfare system and perpetuated it to some extent. In order to verify her hypothesis, she also studied the transformation of the welfare system in Great Britain, which meant a shift from state responsibility towards community care. In all these she concentrated on two major aspects: the structural design within the different countries and, at a micro level, the societal response. Following her analyses of the various in the other countries concerned, Ms. Ciumageanu concluded that the major differences lie first in the difference between the stages of policy design. Here Denmark is the most advanced and Romania the most backwards. Denmark has a fairly elaborate infrastructure, Britain a system with may gaps to bridge, and Hungary and Romania are struggling with severe difficulties owing both to the inherited structure and the limits imposed by an inadequate GDP. While in Denmark and Britain, mental patients are integrated into an elaborate system of care, designed and administered by the state (in Denmark) or communities (in Britain), in Hungary and Romania, the state designs and fails to implement the policy and community support is minimal, partly due to the lack of a fully developed civil society. At the micro level the differences are similar. While in Denmark and Britain there is a consensus about the roles of the state and of civil societies (although at different levels in the two countries, with the state being more supportive in Denmark), in Romania and to a considerable extent in Hungary, civil society tends to expect too much from the state, which in its turn is withdrawing faster from its social roles than from its economic ones, generating a gap between the welfare state and the market economy and disadvantaging the expected transition from a welfare state to a welfare society and, implicitly, the societal response towards those mentally disabled persons in it. On an intermediate level, the factors influencing social policy as a whole were much the same for Hungary and Romania. Economic factors include the accumulated economic resources of both state and citizens, and the inherited pattern of redistribution, as well as the infrastructure; institutional resources include the role of the state and the efficiency of the state bureaucracy, the strength and efficiency of the state apparatus, political stability and the complexity of political democratisation, the introduction of market institutions, the strength of civil society and civic sector institutions. From the standpoint of the societal response, some factors were common to all countries, particularly the historical context, the collective and institutional memories and established patterns of behaviour. In the specific case of Romania, general structural and environmental factors - industrialisation and forced urbanisation - have had a definite influence on family structure, values and behavioural patterns. The analysis of Romanian social policy revealed several causes for failure to date. The first was the instability of the policy and the failure to consider the structural network involved in developing it, rather than just the results obtained. The second was the failure to take into account the relationship between the individual and the group in all its aspects, followed by the lack of active assistance for prevention, re-socialisation or professional integration of persons with mental disabilities. Finally, the state fails to recognise its inability to support an expensive psychiatric enterprise and does not provide any incentive to the private sector. This creates tremendous social costs for both the state and the individual. NGOs working in the field in Romania have been somewhat more successful but are still limited by their lack of funding and personnel and the idea of a combined system is as yet utopian in the circumstances in the country.

Cultural and Educational Society of Muslims "Narodna Uzdanica" /"National Hope"/ 1923-1941

Ibrahim Kemura. The Muslim Cultural-Educational Society Narodna uzdanica from 1923/4 to 1941 One of the features of the cultural history of the Bosniacs between the two world wars (1918-1941) was a cultural and educational society named Narodna uzdanica, which was a significant institutional and cultural-intellectual centre of the Bosniac people in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Narodna uzdanica expressed the aspirations and needs of the Bosniac citizens who were its main support and axis and was aimed at fulfilling their interests. This was reflected in an ideological-cultural orientation towards the West and the adoption of positive western achievements while at the same time stressing its Slavic origins and individuality, the education of young people and the formation of a European-type civic intelligentsia, adaptation to life in capitalist society, the development of modern trade and crafts, the emancipation of women, and cultural education based on European values. Thus conceived, the programme enjoyed the support of a wider circle of members, the reading public and the cultural consumers of those particular elements such as education and economic prosperity which it sought to achieve. The political involvement of Narodna uzdanica and its use as a platform for the leading Bosniac political party Jugoslovenska muslimanska organizacija (JMO - Yugoslav Muslim Organisation) which had founded the society, played a significant role in the socio-political life and development of Bosniacs. The opposition to the ruling regime, often expressed through close cooperation with similar Croat organisations and through the pro-Croat attitude of some of the society's leading figures, offered both the regime and Narodna uzdanica's political adversaries grounds for describing it as separatist and Croat and served as a pretext for repressive measures to hinder its normal operations. This research proved these accusations to be groundless, showing that the pro-Croat orientation was primarily political and cultural and that throughout its existence Narodna uzdanica was active in the cultural and educational renaissance of Bosniacs, helping to strengthen their national identity.

National Identity in Lithuania: Processes During the Period of Changes

Under the conditions of rapid and total change in the social, political, economic and legal environment in Lithuania, a re-orientation process is going on in all groups of society. In this process, not only younger but also middle-aged and old people become adherents to what Ms. Liubiniene calls the new, "post-materialist" values, strongly reinforced by powerful agents of socialisation originating in the West, like the media, advertising agencies and lifestyle-consumption models. As a result, the national identity of Lithuania and its inhabitants is being reconstructed. Ms. Liubiniene set out to examine the details of this evolving identity by conducting a survey of 1218 university staff and students. Her conclusions are set out in a 74 page manuscript, written in Lithuanian and available on disc. Change is most noticeable among the young. Indeed, time and time again, Ms. Liubiniene was to find that the age of 36 marks a natural watershed, with, for instance, the younger group valuing individualism highly and the older, collectivism. Ms. Liubiniene ventures to suggest that traditional values are deeply rooted amongst elderly people, women and people with an education in the humanities. Young people on the other hand, and especially those with a professional orientation towards business are more open to change and ready to adapt to new values. Turning to the evaluation of national symbols, Ms. Liubinie finds that those with an education in the humanities might be considered to be the most traditional, placing greater value on the symbols of nature, ethnic culture and religion. Folk songs and the crucifix are also in their top ten. Respondents with a technical education favour symbols of statehood and nature, and respondents with a business orientation assign greater value to the symbols of nature, history, sports and statehood. Ms. Liubinie concludes that the group of respondents most active and ready to adapt to new things is composed of young males of a business orientation. Generally the national identity of the young is weaker compared to that of the old. In the future, the combination of the evolution of values and the process of inter-generational replacement allows us to predict a weakening of the sense of national identity, or at least its transformation into something radically different to what it is today.