Browse Our Social Sciences Journals
In the broadest sense, social sciences encompass society, human behavior, and its influence on the world. Social sciences help understand how society works, ranging from the causes of unemployment, economic growth, what makes people happy, and so on. The information it provides is vital for governments and policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and local authorities.
Social Sciences and Law
A tudományos karrier rögös útja
The Bumpy Road to a Career in Science
Túl tényeken és igazságokon?
A „post-truth” jelenség okai és következményei
The Causes and Consequences of Post-truth
Abstract
The language features of the second language (L2) English academic texts written by Indonesian graduate students enrolled in Hungarian higher education are employed in the present study. The study focuses on the level of abstraction and informational density in student assignments in particular. Seven high-stakes essays were collected from seven Indonesian graduate students registered in the faculty of Social Sciences at three different Hungarian universities. Coh-Metrix, a corpus-based computational tool, was used in this study to examine indices of content words and abstraction. As for the comparison between higher and lower proficiency level students, parametric statistics were used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the selected linguistic features, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and concreteness and abstraction. The results show that C1 English proficiency level students outnumber B2 students in terms of informational density. Their texts are more abstract than those of B2 students.
Abstract
This case study compared preservice primary school teachers' and primary school teachers' experiences with multi-grade teaching in the 2018–2019 academic year. The sample consisted of 17 fourth-year students in the department of primary school teaching education of a public university and 14 multi-grade teachers from 12 schools in Turkey. The preservice teachers and multi-grade primary school teachers developed similar lesson plans and executed similar learning processes. Although the multi-grade teachers claimed that they used different methods (brainstorming, drama, observation, etc.), the preservice teachers observed them mostly use Q&A and direct instruction techniques. The preservice teachers did not use multidisciplinary teaching activities but instead showed students videos and slides and designed textbook-based activities. They did not use different methods to plan a multi-grade lecture. Multi-grade teaching training offered by the faculties of education should be interdisciplinary and encourage collaboration among teachers from other branches (e.g., teacher agency).
The self-willed child - Basic needs and education in post-mythic times •
Outlines of a responsive pedagogy
Abstract
From the beginning of its existence, the child is articulating an unconditional claim to life. Even in the post-mythic era, or rather in the myth-critical world of the modern age, education is confronted with the difficult task of responding to this claim - but now without the possibility of being able to legitimise its interventions and actions by appealing to an unquestionably absolute authority. First of all, this means questioning the coercion that is primordially inscribed in education.
May parents, may teachers, may educators force the compliance of the self-willed child? All guardians of a supposedly true and unconditional social order will answer the question with “yes”. For even since antiquity, human beings have been granted free will, but this - according to the great Church teacher Augustine in the 5th century - is “not always good”. For this reason, education was, and to some extent still is, a project to replace the “bad” self-will with a will that was as fully “good” as possible, or an attempt to at least neutralise or tame the bad parts of the will. In the case of success, so the anxious hope of education, the child can protect itself as well as the community into which it is born from “evil” and from sinful misfortune.
Since the rebellious discourse of the dignity of man, one cannot avoid including the child, even the wayward one, in the circle of dignity. As in politics, so also in education, dealing with resistance and “deviants” shows the real meaning of values such as freedom, justice, codecision, public spirit and the protection of life. The question is how the values are anthropologically justified, normatively interpreted and practically concretised. In more recent times, i.e. in the modern age that is far removed from God and critical of myths, this poses a particular challenge. Now, the legitimisation of education in general, as well as its moments of coercion in particular, can no longer be justified with a “Higher Will” as it was centuries ago. Coercion inevitably emanates from the authoritative counterpart of the child, from the holder of the “educational power” - as a spontaneous action of responsible adults as well as in the form of a longer-term and planned effort on the part of socially legitimised authorities.
This study attempts to provide food for thought from historical, conceptual-systematic, various theoretical and practical perspectives regarding the “eternal” question of the inherently contradictory relationship between child and educator or between individual and community/society. In the post-mythic era, according to the thesis, there is a need for a constant dialogue effort based on agreement in the sense of an authentic culture of responsive communication. According to its intention, it establishes a creative space of claim and response in which every human being has a right to a voice and a hearing. In this endeavour, the child to be educated must be included as a relevant co-creator of his or her educational process, if he or she is not to be made a mere object of foreign ambitions and demands. For the possibility of an education that respects human dignity and is resolutely oriented towards universal values is ultimately dependent on the free consent of the child and the later adult.
Abstract
The leveraging of market power by digital ecosystems and self-preferencing have become fashionable topics nowadays at national, European, and international levels. However, they are not novel issues. This paper argues that we can find the underlying concepts in a number of practices previously identified as abusive, such as tying and bundling, margin squeeze, and refusal to deal. This paper points out that these abuses have certain similarities with self-preferencing. This supports the claim that self-preferencing is likely to be conceivable under EU competition law as a new abuse. The investigations launched by the Commission after the adoption of the Google Shopping decision – such as against Amazon and Apple, the Amazon case of the Italian Competition Authority, as well as the various expert reports, and the legislative proposals that have been put forward in this regard also point in this direction. However, many questions remain when it comes to the legal standards that are applicable to the assessment of whether self-preferencing is abusive in a given situation.
Abstract
The task of higher education is twofold: (1) to prepare students to meet the expectations of the labor market and (2) to create a learning environment and conditions so that as many students can meet the subject requirements as possible, the dropout rate should be the lowest possible. Input and continuous monitoring of students' transversal competencies can be a suitable method to meet this dual requirement. The range of these competencies is very diverse. In our present study, we focused on inductive thinking, which plays an important role in problem-solving. The research involved 212 first-grade BSc technical students. Our measurement tool is widely used in the selection of the workforce, which the students had to fill in online. The gained results were evaluated using IBM SPSS Statistics. The analysis included a comparison of inductive thinking and its two subcomponents, abstract reasoning, and diagrammatic cognition, in terms of background variables, as well as time consumption, and the definition of specific performance. We found a functional relationship between time consumption and the performance achieved in the test. Students have advanced analogical cognition in terms of abstract thinking; however, their diagrammatic thinking shows very different levels of development, which can cause difficulties in solving technical problems.
Abstract
Adults learn when they actively engage in meaningful activities. Meaningfulness is an extremely subjective factor, which depends on experiences, values, attitudes and much more. “The ways in which adults learn in and through the workplace are rooted in educational trajectories and their complex intertwining with social institutions (of labour market, workplace, community) and social roles (of employee, citizen, family member) at different stages of the life-course” (Kersh et al., 2011, 355). The interplay between work, studies and lifeworld is the focus of this study, conducted at the University College Copenhagen in 2020–2021. At the College, and in teacher training in particular, we are asking two important questions these days: How can we establish an engaging learning culture in our educational program? How can we create space for all students to find the relevant content to engage with? How can this be done when our students are so diverse according to age, life and work experiences, life situation and life interests? In this article, I analyse my own workplace learning and professional development during my first 2 years at University College, where I have been working on transforming my experience from the university to a new context – a professional teacher education program at University College.
Abstract
The significance of equipping higher education graduates with both practical skills and theoretical knowledge relevant to their future workplace has been identified as one of the priorities in the higher education sector. Specifically, the issues, such as the preparation of young people for the world of work, facilitating the links between academic studies and practical experiences, and situating practice-based education have become central to the higher education landscape. This article discusses the extent to which practically-based higher education learning spaces can be constructed and co-constructed, involving the cooperation and collaboration of different stakeholders: employers, university lecturers and students. The article will particularly draw on the perspectives from a case study of practically-based higher education in the hospitality sector in England. Drawing on this case study the article will address the following research questions: (1) How can practically-based learning spaces be constructed and co-constructed within the context of higher education? and (2) What is the role of different stakeholders in this process? The article argues that the development of a practically-based higher education learning space is much more complex than simply bringing together academic and practical learning, and involves both institutional affordances, industry engagement and collaboration of key stakeholders.
