Socialno delo, Vol. 46 (2007), Part 1–2
ARTICLES
Emotional Experiences of Elderly People: From Traditional to Modern Views - 13, (Abstract)
Directions for Warranting the Rights of the Youngest Blind and Visually Impaired Children - 33, (Abstract)
Public Mandates of Centres of Social Work in Administrative Proceedings - 57, (Abstract)
Abstracts
Mojca Pajnik
Media Images of Refugees
The author analyses the presentations of refugees that appeared in Slovenian printed media between 2003 and 2005. They are mainly concerned with the position of individuals who have come to Slovenia at the outbreak of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina (1992–1993). This was the period of the most intensive media reporting on the subject in the 90s. Earlier analyses of the rhetoric of the Slovenian refugee policy have indicated the processes of ideological legitimisation of discriminatory discourses. Refugees were treated as a problem, a threat to public order and to the security of the state. Today, new issues are raised. Some contents have changed, though the legitimisation tones that incriminate refugees as a threat to the national state have remained in use. Analysis shows that media reports still treat refugees as a massive threat, and that the statesmanly attitude may still serve as a legitimating frame for some discriminatory discoursive turns. On the other hand, some shifts in reporting have been perceived as well, for example, the appearance of human interest stories, in which refugees themselves gain a voice, or a greater emphasis on the problems refugees meet when they search for employment or accommodation.
Keywords: critical discoursive analysis, journalist’s texts, strategies of legitimisation, discrimination, anti-discriminatory engagement.
Dr. Mojca Pajnik is a Researcher at the Peace Institute – Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies, Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana, +386 1 2347720 [mojca.pajnik(a)mirovni-institut.si].
Zdenka Šadl
Emotional Experiences of Elderly People: From Traditional to Modern Views
Traditional views of emotionality on the one hand emphasise the diminishing and weakening of emotional functions in advanced age, and on the other hand link aging with increasingly negative emotional experiences. Contemporary research, however, shows that simplified views on the relationship between aging and emotions are problematic. Most examinations present a better image of emotional life in advanced age. Aging does not bring an increase in risk but rather protects from negative emotional experiences; positive emotionality of elderly people increases or at least remains on a relatively stable level; and emotional control and regulation improve. Next, the author discusses the theory of “socioemotional selection,” which explains the improvements in emotional well being of elderly people, and theorises that the attribution of a specific emotionality to them is a way of producing “the others.”
Keywords: aging, theory of socioemotional selection.
Dr. Zdenka Šadl is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Social Sciences. Zdenka Šadl, Gregorčičeva 7, 1000 Ljubljana, +386 1 4259835, +386 31 684370 [zdenka.sadl(a)fdv.uni-lj.si].
Klelija Štrancar, Majda Pahor
Dying as a Social Phenomenon
Institutional practices of care for terminally ill and dying people and their relatives are discussed in the light of certain sociological theories. The process at work is treated in terms of Giddens’ concept of unintended consequences of action and Habermas’ concept of the duality of social space. Berger and Luckmann, on the other hand, open the questions of pluralism and of the crisis of meaning in modern society, as they are reflected in the domain of dying and death. The author further presents the places and situations of dying and examines the understanding of care for the dying there. Finally, she focuses on power relations in health care systems, which appear to be one reason for the inadequacy of care for the dying – power relations between physicians and the other health workers as well as those between health workers and patients – explaining this with Saleeby’s concept of strengths perspective. Having established the insufficiency of care for terminally ill and dying people and their relatives, she turns to the potential advantages of palliative care and hospice.
Keywords: institutions, society, power, care, marginalisation, palliative care, hospice, death.
Klelija Štrancar, MA, works at the Oncological Institute, Zaloška cesta 2, 1000 Ljubljana, +386 1 5879637 [kstrancar(a)onko-i.si].
Dr. Majda Pahor is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ljubljana Superior School of Health Services, Poljanska 26-a, 1000 Ljubljana, +386 1 3001173 [majda.pahor(a)vsz.uni-lj. si].
Barbara Kobal, Darja Kobal Grum
Directions for Warranting the Rights of the Youngest Blind and Visually Impaired Children
In most European countries, blind and visually impaired children are granted professional aid by services, which have developed from institutions and which operate, with their mobile units, in their users’ living environments. Many state policies emphasise the importance of early individual treatment of the children who are born blind or visually impaired, or who loose sight in the earliest years. In Slovenia, awareness of the importance of early treatment of children with special needs for their subsequent development is still very low. The authors discuss the issue, present the situation of blind and visually impaired children in Slovenia between 2000 and 2004, and suggest improvements. They stress personal assistance as an important means of providing the youngest with the possibility of later independent life.
Keywords: children with special needs, early treatment, personal assistance.
Dr. Darja Kobal Grum is a Senior Lecturer at University of Ljubljana Faculty of Arts Department of Psychology, Aškerčeva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana [darja.kobal(a)ff.uni-lj.si].
Barbara Kobal, MA, is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of the Republic of Slovenia for Social Protection, Rimska 8, SI-1128 Ljubljana [barbara.kobal(a)guest.arnes.si].
Sandra Stare
Trafficking Women for Prostitution
Global factors contribute significantly to the propagation of the titular phenomenon, since one of their effects is the feminisation of poverty in the countries of eastern and central Europe that have emerged with the fall of communist regimes. They are marked with patriarchal relations, and women are subjected to physical verbal, and sexual violence. They are not respected, and their self-esteem is low. The aim of contemporary trade of women is sexual abuse. Women are the victims of social-economic situation in their country (the country of origin); they are exposed to violence and gross violations of human rights, which continues and increases in the countries of transit and the country of destination. Victims of such trafficking are the women who were allured or forced into offering sexual services, the women who were acquainted only with the half-truth of their job as a stripper in a bar but not with the sexual part of the job, as well as the women who were fully acquainted with what their job would be, but were put by traffickers into the position of debtors. White slavers are linked into well-organised criminal societies in the countries of origin, transit, and destination. Slovenia represents all three.
Keywords: human rights, abuse, crime, migration.
Sandra Stare, a social worker, works at the RS Institute of Employment on the project of counselling the youth that are not included into the educational system. Sandra Stare, Trg svobode 6, 4264 Bohinjska Bistrica, +386 51 358217 [ism.info@siol.net].
Tea Smonker
The Strengths Perspective in the Field of Community Mental Health
In the last decade, non-governmental organisations for support and help to the people with long-term difficulties in mental health represent a new dimension of civil society in Slovenia. The concept of action in most of them is based in community and on complementing the medical approach with the psychosocial one. The author presents a part of the qualitative analysis of the efficiency of three NGO’s programmes in empowering the users for inclusion in ordinary life. Saleeby’s principles of strengths perspective in social work practice are used as the theoretical framework for the criteria of assessment.
Keywords: empowerment, social work, measuring efficacy.
Tea Smonker, MA, is a consultant of the Social Chamber of Slovenia and an associate of the Association for Mental Health and the Creative Spending of Free Time VEZI, Sežana. Social Chamber of Slovenia, Koseška 8, 1000 Ljubljana, +386 1 5819315, +386 40 226045 [tea.smonker(a)soczbor-sl.si].
Polona Kovač
Public Mandates of Centres of Social Work in Administrative Proceedings
Centres of social work are important bearers of public mandates in Slovenia, especially with regard to decision-making on rights and obligations in administrative matters. Statutorily, they are public institutes, but they function as the administrative organs of the state. This gives rise to the conflict between the tasks of counselling and help on the one hand and authoritative decision-making on the other. The conflict has been deepening since the latest amendments (in force since January 2005) of the General Administrative Proceedings Act, by which CSW have to carry out their decisions (such as separating a child from his or her family). Many rules of the Act are thus inadequate for the specifics of social care. Possible solutions are: to transfer proceedings from CSW to courts, to simplify the Act for the bearers of public mandates, and to regulate administrative procedures materially, i.e., develop them into a substantive law.
Keywords: administrative procedure, social care, subsidiary use of General Administrative Proceedings Act, access to files, execution of mandate.
Dr. Polona Kovač is a Higher Lecturer at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Administration and Faculty of Social Work. Faculty of Administration, Gosarjeva 5, 1000 Ljubljana, +386 41 787 335 [polona.kovac(a)fu.uni-lj.si].