Search results for "Community"

Social Space for Self-Organising: An Exploratory Study of Timebanks in Finland and in the UK

2018

The article examines the challenges to self-organisation and upscaling of alternative economies from the viewpoint of defending and negotiating social space. Timebanks in Finland and the UK are presented as examples, analysing the difference of defending such social space in the contexts of a traditional welfare state (in the case of Finland) and an austerity-driven government with a “Big Society” ideology (in the case of UK). Both systems of government present different kinds of pressures on timebanks, pushing them to a given ontological categories and to action in accordance with pre-defined political goals. This difference, along with timebank reactions and the question of prospects of o…

Region Community in Communication Theory

2014

The aim of the report is to determine how local and regional newspapers represent local communities and how their communicative integration has been promoted. Mass media, establishing community cognition about its existence, involvement into the community, identification and belonging to the community, represent a perfect model of interaction between community and communication. During the content analysis of the press publications of local newspapers of Latgale region the typological characteristics and classification are emphasized, the role of the press in the development of the region inhabitants is defined, the direction and structure of the editorial board activities, newspapers’ cont…

Slow populations and «greengreyways» in two Italian regional case studies

2007

Troubled Multiculturalisms and Disrupted Secularities: Religion and Social Integration ‘Crises’ in North Western Europe in Comparative Perspective

2013

These quotations give a sense of the range of themes addressed in this book. Since the turn of the millennium, European societies have been shaken by the re-emergence of religion as a contested factor in public life, arguably part of a worldwide pattern, but taking distinctive form in this most secular part of the world (Norris and Inglehart 2011: 85–9). In this introduction, and again in the conclusion, the European cases which lie at the heart of this book will be situated in the context of broader global developments, in order to better understand the politics of religion in today’s religiously diverse but differently secular societies.

Northern Ireland: Sectarianism, Civil Society and Democratic Deepening

2013

The main aim of this chapter is to provide an overview and evaluation of evidence of efforts at peace-building at the level of civil society (rather than political processes, where most analyses have focused) in Northern Ireland, particularly since the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) of 1998. How successful have attempts, at the level of civil society, by the people of Northern Ireland, the Irish and British governments, the EU and US governments and other actors been in creating community cohesion in a society with a long history of social and political division? In particular, what has been the role of cross-community and religious groups in these efforts? A second aim is to begin to articula…

‘Community Cohesion’ and English Disruptions of the Multicultural Peace: The Northern Riots, White ‘Backlash’ and the ‘Evocation of a Faith Sector’

2013

This chapter takes as its starting point controversies surrounding the concept and policy ‘agenda’ associated with community cohesion, a concept first voiced in the official reports into the riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in May–July 2001. The most influential of these, the ‘Cantle Report’, deliberately framed itself in opposition to the analysis of reports into previous urban disturbances (e.g. Scarman 1981) with their emphasis on ‘systems, process and institutions’, and hence by implication their link to much academic discourse in the social policy field; choosing instead to focus on the interpersonal, on communication between individuals and groups, and on ‘values’, in line with t…

Religion and Civil Society: Theoretical Reflections

2013

Using World Values Survey data, this chapter begins with the global distinctiveness of European societies in terms of both religious vitality and support for the public role of religion. They exhibit a secularity that has been challenged in recent years by an unexpected return of religion as a contentious public issue. The chapter then asks, which theories in the social sciences can help to think constructively through the challenges of religion and civil society in such media-rich, religiously diverse, consumer-oriented secularised societies? It begins with sociology of religion, arguing that while secularisation and rational choice theories shed light on some developments, their conceptua…

Community Currencies (CCs) in Spain: An empirical study of their social effects

2016

Despite its sudden proliferation along the economic crisis period, no previous study has investigated the social effects of the community currency (CCs) experiences in Spain. Previous research on CCs experiences from different countries provided evidences about social capital improvement, introducing CCs as sustainability tools. This research uses the theoretical frameworks of social capital and complex adaptive systems to approach concepts like sustainability, networks, trust, norms, participation and cooperation. Statistical analysis of the data collected in June 2013 through online survey explores social capital and resilience indicators among the Spanish exchange community users, conclu…

Algorithms for Graph and Network Analysis: Clustering and Search of Motifs in Graphs

2019

In this article we deal with problems that involve the analysis of topology in graphs modeling biological networks. In particular, we consider two important problems: (i) Network clustering, aiming at finding compact subgraphs inside the input graph in order to isolate molecular complexes, and (ii) searching for motifs, i.e., sub-structures repeated in the input network and presenting high significance (e.g., in terms of their frequency). We provide a compact overview of the main techniques proposed in the literature to solve these problems.

Ecological approach and community education as promoters of the social development of reform school students

1995

ABSTRACT New models of operation are being sought for Finnish reform school education traditionally based on segregation. This article deals with the possibilities of applying the ecological approach and community education to support the socialization of reform school students. The aim is to describe the participation of the students in one Finnish reform school, as well as their expressed need to join in the production system, cultural system, contact system and the decision‐making system of society. This article presents part of a larger project carried out at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. In the research project a three‐part division in the description into an ideal state, a r…