The article describes Family Group Conference method, which was initiated in Poland over 10 years ago by J. Przepierski. The method is presented in historical context of their theoretical foundations and particular practical assets justifying its application in work with families in a crisis situation and moments of difficulties, which might constitute an obstacle in the use of the method.
The analyses and conclusions presented in the article are based on the results of qualitative panel surveys conducted among large indigent families in the years 2013 to 2014 and in 2017. The survey attempted to answer the questions of whether and to what extent the implementation of a pro-family policy in Poland in 2016 influenced the situation of large families receiving institutional social aid. On what do these families spend the payments received from the Family 500+ programme? Has their new economic situation favoured their activation or increased their ability to manage? Could the programme, in consequence, hinder or limit the intergenerational transmission of poverty? The author concludes that in fact the effects of financing large families differ from those that were intended. The programme, which was intended to be pro-natal, has acquired the nature of social aid payments. It has improved the material situation of many families, but it has not sufficiently contributed to changing ways of thinking about the children’s futures, which would contribute to limiting the processes of inheriting poverty.
The aim of this article is to examine how family policies contribute to changes in family practices and towards gender equality in families. Empirically we draw on interviews with two groups of Polish-born parents: Polish parents who have migrated to Norway and Polish parents living in Poland. Norway and Poland are relevant cases for our exploration because they represent different types of welfare states, which have followed different paths towards their current family policy package. In our analysis of actual work–family adaptations we found a convergence towards gender-equal dual-earner/dual-carer arrangements in both groups, although there were differences in the level of agency. Polish parents in Poland felt less entitled to use the measures available to them, and sometimes refrained from using them, compared to Polish parents in Norway who expressed a strong sense of agency in using family policy measures to create a good life in Norway and as part of a project of change towards more gender-equal sharing of work and care responsibilities. The analysis confirms the strong link between family practices and family policies, but also illustrates how the effect of policies on practices may be hampered or boosted by the wider historical-cultural context of the society in question. In conclusion, in analyses of the link between policy and practice it may be fruitful to distinguish between family policy packages – the concrete set of entitlements for working parents – and family policy regimes, meaning policies in their wider context, including migrancy as a mediating factor.
About 55% of over 14 million Polish households live in multi-family buildings. Cooperative or housing association buildings have a large share in this group. The heat is supplied from the district heating network or from local sources. With respect to facilities fed from gas boiler rooms, the signing and execution of fuel supply contracts is required. From October 1, 2017, the obligation to submit tariffs for gas trading set for all final customers (except for individual gas consumers in households) for approval to the President of the Energy Regulatory Office was lifted. Decisions regarding the choice of the supplier and the content of the concluded contract are made by the authorized bodies of the cooperative or housing association. The consequences of such decisions are borne by the owners and users of residential premises. Ensuring the continuity of a contract for the supply of gaseous fuel essentially comes down to establishing prices and rates in force for a given period. The right decision on the moment of signing the contract or the amendment, termination of the existing contract and signing a new one, or negotiation efficiency will result in financial profits for all users. The costs of heating and domestic hot water preparation are a significant component of the overall cost of the maintenance of flats in Poland. Therefore, it is even more important that the prices and rates agreed upon with the gas supplier are as favorable as possible to users. The high costs of heat are not only expenses for apartment owners. The attractiveness of flat on the rental market is also decreasing. The business activity carried out in facilities located in such buildings is also less competitive.
The authors of the article analyzed gas prices on the Polish market over the last 3 years and presented the results of simulations of the effects of specific prices and rates set in the contract for the supply of fuel at the cost of heating from the point of view of a single apartment. As these are not large amounts per year, they do not motivate to optimize the terms of the gas purchase contract in this respect. The dynamics of changes in gas prices in Poland, although slightly different from world trends, is high. This makes it difficult for those responsible to make the decisions, and for residential users, it often means spending differences in subsequent years. One of the consequences of setting prices and rates significantly higher than obtainable may also be the reluctance of local communities to take measures to increase the energy efficiency of the heat supply system. From the point of view of heating costs, such decisions may distort the economic effect of thermo-modernization.
In the introduction, examples from the Croatian language are used to exemplify the anthroponymization of appellatives (e.g. appellative kovač → family name Kovač), appelativization of anthroponyms (e.g. family name Penkala → appellative penkala) and transonymization (e.g. hydronym Una → first name Una). All of the listed transitions represent evidence that there are no firm boundaries between the onymic and appellative lexicon, nor within the onymic lexicon.
The central part of the study is dedicated to the so-called pure transanthroponymization of the type first name Vinko → family name Vinko. Pure transanthroponymization results in different combinations of homonymic pairs of anthroponyms in the anthroponymic formula / anthroponymic formulae (e.g. David David; David Vinko, Vinko David; David Novak — Josip David). Given that context does not contribute to the correct understanding of the message transmitted by the anthroponymic formula in the case of first name-family name homonymy, possible consequences of this homonymy for onomastic communication are emphasised. Also listed are examples of anthroponymic formulae of the Saša Pavlić type (it is impossible to distinguish whether the person is male or female from the first name) and Ivan Vinko Boris (it is impossible to distinguish whether the person has two first names or two family names from the anthroponymic formula) which also “stifle” the onomastic information.
The author concludes that the boundaries between first names and family names are not fixed and cautions of the need to carefully select the first name of a child bearing a family name created by the pure transanthroponymization of a first name.
Like all religions Islam, too, has substantial ethical contents. The unique character of Islamic ethics, however, comes from the fact that it is entirely rooted in religion and so cannot be separated from it. Thus it is formed by the teaching of the Quran, to which the way of life of the Prophet Muhammad (sunnah) offers explanations. Man’s behavior in this sense is an act of either obedience or disobedience to God himself. It is also true that in the Muslim world a philosophical conception of ethics has evolved mainly due to Islam’s encounter with Greek culture. The central concept of Islamic ethics is character (khuluq), which is the state of man’s soul. It is in his character that man develops a tendency to perform either good or bad actions. Such understanding of human dispositions has much to do with Aristotle’s perception of man’s inner state that guides him to good or evil actions. These preliminary basic clarifications on Islamic ethics are then followed by brief accounts of select issues of moral life. Among those there are three main virtues (justice, kindness, charity) and vices (indecency, wickedness, oppression), marriage and the family, or the sanctity of human life (implying an ethical rejection of abortion and euthanasia).
Villa architecture after 1914 comprises a diverse and extensive group of buildings. The lack of a system of valuating them leads to their analyses being a time-consuming and complex process. Their justification can refer primarily to architectural and urban planning tendencies, including: the impact on the space of previously built estates, the assessment of the quality of their architecture in the landscape context and the continuity of design traditions, contemporary interventions associated with renovation work. The protection of villas from the interwar period, appears to be particularly important. Their cultural value and the quality of the landscape, that they co-create with their accompanying gardens is highly significant to the identity of the city.
The issue of the educational system remains one of the crucial areas for the discussions pertaining to migrants’ integration and contemporary multicultural societies. Ever since the inception of compulsory schooling, children and youth have partaken in largely state-governed socialisation in schools, which provide not only knowledge and qualifications, but are also responsible for transferring the culture and values of a given society. Under this premise, the schooling system largely determines opportunities available to migrant children. This paper seeks to address the questions about the pathways to youth Polish migrant integration, belonging and achievement (or a lack thereof) visible in the context of the Norwegian school system. The paper draws on 30 interviews conducted in 2014 with Polish parents raising children abroad, and concentrates on the features of Norwegian school as seen through the eyes of Polish parents. Our findings show that the educational contexts of both sending and receiving socie-ties are of paramount importance for the understanding of family and parenting practices related to children’s schooling. In addition, we showcase the significance of Norwegian schools for children’s integration, illuminate the tensions in parental narratives and put the debates in the context of a more detailed analysis of the relations between school and home environments of migrant children. The paper relies on parental narratives in an attempt to trace and reflect the broader meanings of children’s education among Poles living abroad.
This study analyses and compares the fertility behaviour and childbearing plans of Polish migrant fam-ilies in Ireland and those of their counterparts – families in Poland. The study has a comparative and explanatory character and applies both quantitative and qualitative methods. The analysis is based on the author’s own data collected from an online survey of Polish family units in Ireland in 2014 and compared with secondary data on families in Poland retrieved from the 2011 Gender and Generation Survey (GGS). My research reveals fertility postponement and fewer families with children among mi-grant families; nonetheless, migrant parents have more children than their counterparts in Poland. The results highlight the significance of socio-economic and institutional contexts. The study also reveals a dichotomisation of fertility strategies within the migrant population, with distinct differences in the number of children, transition age to parenthood, and further fertility intentions between migrants who became parents in Poland and those who did so after the move. The results also provide insights into the childbearing motivations and fertility patterns of recent Polish migrants and contribute to the dis-cussion of migrants’ fertility in general.
Drawing on extensive qualitative research into experiences of migration and settlement among Central and East European (CEE) migrants living in Scotland, this article examines the role of intersecting emotional and material (in)securities in migrant families’ decision-making regarding and experiences of longer-term settlement. The article queries fixed or given understandings of either ‘family’ or ‘secu-rity’ and explores the complex and sometimes contradictory relationship between them. In so doing, it makes a number of significant and interconnected theoretical and empirical contributions to existing research in the field of family migration. Through a critical analysis of the relationship between family and (in)security the article offers nuanced insight into the ways in which family processes of reunion, separation and (re)formation link to decisions regarding migration and settlement. The intersecting and sometimes contradictory forms of emotional and material support, obligation and vulnerability which both family relations and processes of migration and settlement entail are critically analysed by bring-ing together theoretical frameworks of social (in)security and understandings of family as ‘made’ rather than ‘given’. Finally, attention given to the temporal aspects of (in)security, as well as the transnational aspects of migrants’ lives, provides new ways of understanding the open-endedness of decision-making processes relating to migration and settlement, especially where these involve multiple decision-makers.
The aim of the paper is to describe the main patterns and challenges of Ukrainian migration to Greece with reference to the consequences of the recent economic and social crisis in the host country on the migrants’ lives. Specifically, the paper discusses the impact of the legal framework related to migra-tion in four different periods. Historically, Greece was one of the first destinations attracting Ukraini-an migrants, but the migration flows have strongly decreased during the last years and a tendency for return migration has emerged. Among the key features is the fact that the migrant’s experience is deeply influenced and shaped by Greece’s policy response to migration. The paper will therefore spe-cifically examine the impact of the legislative measures on the mobility of the migrants.
For many years, people’s perceptions of wolves had nothing to do with actual knowledge about wolf biology and ecology. What can close observations of wolf families teach us about these mammals? Should we give wolves names? And why don’t they need our empathy?
The paper takes under scrutiny Michael Köhlmeier’s novel Abendland, which portrays the history of the twentieth century in the form of oral family stories based on the biography of the main protagonist of the work, Carl Jacob Candoris, written down by his godson Sebastian Lukasser. Authentic historical events and actual characters are intermingled with fictitious figures and events. The article poses questions on individual and collective memory as well as the significance of oral history in the life of an individual.
The article discusses the technical condition of buildings. An attempt was made to compare the technical condition and the degree of technical wear of two multi-family residential buildings erected at the interval of 25 years. The list of such objects is intended to illustrate that even relatively young buildings may exhibit differing levels of wear and technical condition of building elements.