The study aimed to determine the relationship between parents’ family aspirations towards their children with disabilities and selected parental psychosocial resources, such as self-image, self-perception, perceived social support, and styles of coping with stress. The instruments included the Parental Aspirations Questionnaire by Kirenko (2012), The Tennessee Self Concept Scale by Fitts (1965), The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire by Norbeck (1984), and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations by Endler and Parker (1999). 361 mothers and fathers bringing up children with physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities participated in the study. The results suggest a positive role of adaptive competences, such as adaptive coping, positive properties of self-image, as well as the negative role of maladaptive competencies such as self-criticism in mothers and fathers. Neither the positive contribution of social support nor the negative role of avoidance-oriented coping in fathers has been confirmed. Parental aspirations are part of adaptation to living with a child with a disability and will be important to support parents in recognizing the child’s potential correctly and strengthening it at all stages of development until adulthood.
Parental participation in co-management of state school becomes a key issue for democratization of public life in poland and for the quality and effectiveness of civic education of the young. The system of education needs social control, first of all of those whose children are subjected to school duty. “Such will the Republics of poland be as their youth is educated” is the thesis forming the foundations of the school system in the 3rd Republic of Poland. In compliance with the postulates and ethics of Solidarity, the system was supposed to be self-governing. What is analyzed in this study is the relation between politics and school education in the normative-empirical dimension. The (so far unpublished) research results of the author's own studies on democratization of state education are popularized here. This is done, after the dispute on some studies diagnosing the nationwide lack of socialization, in order to indicate subsequent aspects of fiction and appearances of the central authority, the rule of safe position employment, common paralysis of parental care, as well as natural expectations and aspirations which should be fulfilled by the subjects running state schools.
Self-fulfilling prophecy is seen as an important phenomenon linking social perception with social interaction, being in line with the assumption that conviction creates reality. The adoption of such a perspective upgrades the rank of expectations, which being in control of human behaviour, permeate all areas of people’s activity. Within the area of interpersonal interaction, its participants either perceive what is expected of them or make assumptions about expectations on the basis of behaviour which is directed towards them. Following this lead, and referring to the possibility of co-operation between teachers and parents, we are confronted with a question whether within the anticipated interaction parents may cope as well, or as badly as it is expected of them by teachers. This article attempts to answer this question as well as to analyse the relationships between teachers and parents through the prism of the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy, bearing in mind that the phenomenon itself consists of extremely complex interaction of cognitive and behavioural factors.
Based on a study of Polish migrants living in England and Scotland, this paper explores how Polish families who have decided to bring up their children in the UK make initial school choices. The Polish parents taking part in our study generally had low levels of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu 1986) upon arrival in the UK: they had limited networks (predominantly bonding capital) (Putnam 2000) and a poor command of English, and lacked basic knowledge of the British education system. Meanwhile, this is a highly complex system, very much different from the Polish one; moreover, school choice plays a much more important role within the UK system, especially at the level of secondary education. We found that while some parents acted as ‘disconnected choosers’ (Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe 1995) follow-ing the strategy they would use in Poland and simply enrolling their children in the nearest available school, others attempted to make an informed choice. In looking for schools, parents first and foremost turned to co-ethnic networks for advice and support; nevertheless, parents who attempted to make an informed choice typically lacked ‘insider knowledge’ and often held misconceptions about the British education system. The one feature of the system Polish parents were very much aware of, however, was the existence of Catholic schools; therefore, religious beliefs played a key role in school choice among Polish parents (with some seeking and others avoiding Catholic schools). The ‘active choosers’ also made choices based on first impressions and personal beliefs about what was best for their child (e.g. in terms of ethnic composition of the school) or allowed their children to make the choice. Parents of disabled children were most restricted in exercising school choice, as only certain schools cater for complex needs. All in all, the Polish parents in our sample faced similar barriers to BME (Black Minor-ity Ethnic) parents in exercising school choice in the UK and, regardless of their own levels of education, their school selection strategies resembled those of the British working class rather than of the middle class. However, the risk of ‘bad’ initial school choice may be largely offset by a generally strong pref-erence for Catholic schools and parents’ high educational ambitions for their children.
Jotunites (hypersthene monzodiorites/ferromonzodiorites) are rocks coeval with plutonic AMCG (anorthosite– mangerite–charnockite–rapakivi granite) suites, which are characteristic of the Proterozoic Eon. It has been experimentally shown that jotunite magma can be recognised as parental to anorthosites and related rocks: since then, research on these rocks has taken on a particular importance. Jotunites were recently described within the deeply buried c. 1.5 Ga Suwałki and Sejny anorthosite massifs in the crystalline basement of NE Poland. The major and trace element compositions of Polish jotunites show them to have a calc-alkalic to alkali-calcic and ferroan character, with a relatively wide range of SiO2 content (40.56 wt. % up to 47.46 wt. %) and high concentrations of Fe (up to 22.63 wt. % Fe2O3), Ti (up to 4.34 wt. % TiO2) and P (up to 1.46 wt. % P2O5). Slight differences in textural features, mineralogical compositions, and geochemistry of whole-rock jotunite samples from distinct massifs allow us to distinguish two kinds: a primitive one, present in the Sejny Intrusion, and a more evolved one, related to the Suwałki Massif.
In education, information and Communications Technologies mostly play the role of a medium of communication, as well as a means of imparting knowledge. ICT, however, is used less as a subject for student activity, i.e. a subject for students to learn, where they can operate the technology, as in robotics or mechantronics. Information technologies are also very rarely implemented in education as a way for students to build their identity and shape their attitudes towards their outside and inside worlds. In spite of this, in the history of educational technology there have been a number of researchers and educators who have promoted interesting ideas for implementing technologies as tools for human cognitive, affective, psychomotor and moral empowerment. Today such people are also present in education, however, they play unimportant roles on the periphery of formal education. This paper is a reminder of a number of ideas by theorists and researchers concerning the implementation of ICT, but mainly highlights the empowerment it gives students and its humanizing/humanitarian role.
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