Magyarországi „munkavállaló-barát” (employee friendly) szervezetek – Valóság vagy utópia (avagy mit tanulhatunk tőlük?) = The Hungarian employee friendly organizations: reality or Utopia (or what can we learn from them?)

A szerzők feltáró kutatásukban munkavállaló-barát szervezeti megoldásokat kerestek és vizsgáltak multiparadigmikus (Primecz, 2008) megközelítéssel, kritikai és funkcionalista szemszögből. Munkavállalóbarát szervezeti gyakorlatnak tekintették azokat a szervezeti kultúrában gyökerező szervezeti kereteket és gyakorlatokat, amelyek nagymértékben támogatják a munkavállalókat a munka és magánélet egyensúlyának elérésében és megtartásában (Toarniczky et al., 2011). Eredményeik szerint a munkavállaló-barát gyakorlatokat akkor értékelik legjobban a szervezeti tagok, ha a közvetlen vezető és kollégák jól értik a támogatandó munkavállaló helyzetét és rugalmasan fordítják le a hétköznapokra a HR-rendszereket. Ezzel együtt több feszültség keletkezik a szervezetben a munkavállaló-barát gyakorlatokban, amelyekre figyelni lehetne, anélkül, hogy a kialakított gyakorlatokat felszámolnák. _____ The authors in their research investigated employee friendly practices, which they defined as frameworks and practices rooted in organisational culture that gives maximum support for employees trying to reach and keep balance between work and private life (Toarniczky et al., 2011) through multiparadigm research (Primecz, 2008). They conducted exploratory research (interviews, focus groups, document-analysis, and questionnaire) at ten Hungarian-based organizations, and they investigated employee friendly work practices through functionalist and critical lenses. Their results shows that employee friendly practices work well, when the immediate boss and colleagues understand the need of organization al member, who are supported, and HR procedures are translated flexibly. At the same time tension within the organization al subgroups always present, and this should be handled by the organization without cancelling employee friendly practices.

A case study of a liberal Jewish day school's middle school transition

The Jacobson Sinai Academy is a Liberal Reform Jewish Day School, in North Miami Beach, Florida. When the Academy was started over 18 years ago it was designed as a K–6 school. This was in keeping with the existing model for Reform day schools at the time and met the needs and desires of the early founders. The philosophy of the school addressed meeting the needs of the individual child as well as the fostering of Judaic values and traditions in an academically nurturing and experiential setting. Upon graduation, students moved from the Academy to a variety of public and private options, all of which served the needs of the families at the time. In recent years, due to numerous factors within the community, parents voiced concerns as to where their children would continue their education during the critical middle school years. As a result of these concerns, and through the efforts of a dedicated group of parents and lay leaders, the decision was made to add an upper school component to the existing elementary configuration. This study is a qualitative case study which chronicles the organizational change effort that was undertaken for this purpose to determine facilitating conditions and impediments leading to the change. The analysis serves to inform others wishing to advance such an undertaking. ^ Results of the study indicated that certain conditions are necessary for the successful implementation of any change effort. The culture of the organization must be acknowledged and is a primary factor to be considered when advancing change. Collaboration with those committed to the enterprise must occur, and this in turn can lead to an agreed upon philosophy which expresses the diversity of needs and values of all of those involved. Resistance, while expected from certain individuals within the organization, can be overcome through the efforts of key players who assume leadership positions that are transformational in nature. Additionally, the rationale for middle schools, and the need for this one in particular, are factors which led to the success of this initiative. ^

Utopia, A Must: A Review Essay on Benjamin Kunkel’s Utopia or Bust

Utopia or Bust, more than many foundational alternatives, forcefully though with non-sectarian wisdom, re-implants the notion of utopia to the front-of-the-line of Left theory (whether economic, geographic, political, social, and/or cultural). Kunkel's introductory survey reminds us through Harvey, among others, that “Utopia exists and that other systems, other spaces, are still possible."

Gestão escolar democrática, participação e autonomia: realidade ou utopia?

This paper analyzed the relation between participation and school autonomy, observing Director actions and School Council actions and if school has pedagogic, administrative and financial autonomy. This is a descriptive search, with quantitative approach, realized in 47 state schools in Rio Grande do Norte, and composed by 292 participants, divided in 3 groups (Direction, Coordination and School Council). The instrument to catch data was a questionnaire and the data treatment realized by way descriptive statistic and inferences using X 2 test. The results show that school administration is composed in great part by women with specialization grade. All schools have School Council and Financial Council, but have not Parents and Masters Association and just one of them has Student Guild. The direction choose process is, in 83% of the schools, by elective way. The indicators show that the relation involving family, society and school stays weak, but Directors, Coordinators and School Council members develop their functions with coherence. About autonomy, it is limited and presents correlation with participation, but the educational system stays rigid and centralizer

A organização da educação no território federal do Amapá: do "ideal" ao real, do liberal ao conservador (1943-1958)

The present study on “organization education on Amapá’s Federal Territory (1943-1958)”, looked forward to answering the following questions: Was there an educational policy, in a systemic way, on the former Amapá’s federal territory? On the other hand, what were the main initiatives of the first intervenors for the education dissemination? After facing these questions, we established, as hypothesis, that the developed actions in the education’s scope on that territory back in the 40’s and 50’s were not able to implant an educational project in Amapá, since there was no preoccupation to understanding the sociocultural reality of Amapá’s population. Given this hypothesis, we analyzed the relation between the political practices developed by the first intervenor on the territory and the brazilian political scenario, from the legal-administrative nature of the federal entities and political conjuncture of the “New State” (1937-1945). To achieve that, we sought some similarities between Janary Gentil Nunes’s ways of governing and Getúlio Vargas’s political actions. To make this happen, it was necessary to check official documents out, as well as unofficial ones, especially the old articles published by “Amapá”, the local newspaper, official press tool back then, which disseminated the beliefs and values of the constituted authorities, with the purpose of “strengthen” the “modernization” ideal on the people. Such practice was based on the attempt of breaking off sociocultural economic backwardness of the territory, hiding out the reality of the Amapá’s population, marked by poverty, a high illiteracy rate and the typical tropical diseases from Amazon (Malaria). During the rupture’s process between the old and the modern, the education takes on a major role in the official speech, being used as political advertisement and as essential element to the modernization and to the development of a “new man”: now “civilized”. However, the investigation on the expansion of the elementary education in Amapá, showed us the presence of a significant number of rural schools, in contradiction to the disseminated urban modernization promise around there. In this sense, we can affirm that educational policy on Amapá’s territory failed by reasons of being based on the “transplantation” of the Federal District’s educational project, and it is important to recall that, back then, the brazilian Federal District was Rio de Janeiro. Despite the public agents had established uncountable schools on rural areas, these were not carried out from a more systemic process, this is, considering the reality of the Amazon’s "cabloco". So, we observed the existence of the separation between the modern speech and the maintenance of old oligarchic practices by that time.

La respuesta liberal de Edmund Burke a la crisis de legitimidad política del siglo XVIII

Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the last three hundred years. We could not agree more with this assertion of Jesse Norman. Very few political-statesmen have attainted the enormous repercussion both in politics and in history that Burke had deployed over the last centuries. Nevertheless, Burke remains unfairly unknown for a wider public. And what it is more, the vast majority tend to think of him as a conservative, if not a liberal-conservative. A prior precision has to be made before continuing regarding the term liberal for the sake of accuracy. Burke was a prominent Whig, what in Spanish language we describe as a liberal, in the sense that both Hayek and Milton Friedman uttered, far from the meaning “kidnapped” of the word liberal by the Anglo-Saxon left. The object of this thesis is to investigate the non-solved controversy on Burke`s figure and the liberal answer he provided with to the political crisis of legitimacy of the 18th century. There is an existing shared opinion by the academia that prior to the Reflections on the Revolution of France, his masterpiece, he was an outstanding and prominent Whig. Champion of liberty, justice and good governance, guardian of liberal virtues and the authentic developer of the efficient policy put in place by the Marquis of Rockingham in order to curb the corruption and influence emanating from the court of George the Third and his double cabinet.

Post-liberal Regionalism in South America: The Case of UNASUR

This paper examines the formal features, the political rationale, distinctiveness, potential, and difficulties of post-liberal regionalism, with a particular focus on the case of UNASUR. Through this organization, traditional unionism and aspirations of Latin American regional integration are redefined in a South American geographic and ideational framework. Through this strategy South America became a political and economic construct in order to respond to globalization challenges and to achieve its members’ goals in development, regional autonomy (particularly in regards to the US), international influence and at the same time domestic governance of the involved countries. Nevertheless, the limits of this project’s future are being defined by nationalism, traditional visions of sovereignty and by a regional construction that involve significant institutional limitations, which are product of its intergovernmental logic, internal asymmetries and ambivalent Brazilian leadership

What are the Consequences of Consociationalism for Sexual Minorities? : An Analysis of Liberal and Corporate Consociationalism and Sexual Minorities in Northern Ireland and Lebanon'

Date of Acceptance: 07/10/2015

What are the Consequences of Consociationalism for Sexual Minorities? : An Analysis of Liberal and Corporate Consociationalism and Sexual Minorities in Northern Ireland and Lebanon'

Date of Acceptance: 07/10/2015

(Re)constructing Utopia : Remembering and Forgetting in Palestinian and Israeli Art

Peer reviewed

Liberal bias and the five-factor model.

Duarte et al. draw attention to the "embedding of liberal values and methods" in social psychological research. They note how these biases are often invisible to the researchers themselves. The authors themselves fall prey to these "invisible biases" by utilizing the five-factor model of personality and the trait of openness to experience as one possible explanation for the under-representation of political conservatives in social psychology. I show that the manner in which the trait of openness to experience is conceptualized and measured is a particularly blatant example of the very liberal bias the authors decry.