The 7th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy called “Social and Solidarity Economy: Moving Towards a New Economic System” was organized in Bucharest, Romania, on June 6-9, 2019. ...The conference gathered more than 140 paper’s presentations about social and solidarity economy in 35 parallel sessions. The paper aims to present the structure of the conference, the main topics of the parallel and of the plenary sessions.
Youth unemployment has been an issue in European countries for many years. However, the attention paid to it by policymakers has varied over time, and there are high cross-country variations in both ...the size of the phenomenon, representations of it, and policy interventions. This study adds an intra-country component to the country-comparative dimension and assesses the factors affecting how young adults perceive youth unemployment. From a theoretical perspective, we postulate that the perception of youth unemployment as an issue depends on both sociotropic and egocentric evaluations. To address these research questions, we analyse data from the Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency (CUPESSE) dataset, which comprises responses from more than 20,000 young adults (aged 18–35) from 11 European countries (nine European Union member states together with Switzerland and Turkey). The empirical analysis is based on multilevel modelling and reveals that the problem perception varies both across countries and within them following the hypothesised pattern. The findings show that two factors are particularly important for explaining young people’s perception of youth unemployment as a problem: first, whether they experienced their parents being unemployed when growing up, and second, whether their friends are unemployed.
In the last decades, young people not in education or employment have become the focus of policy-makers worldwide, and there are high political expectations for various intervention initiatives. ...Despite the global focus, there is currently a lack of systemic knowledge of the factors supporting policy-making. Therefore, using scoping review methodology, a systematic literature overview of research findings in 2013–2021 on young people not in education or employment will be provided. The research revealed five categories to consider from a policy-making perspective: “NEET” as a concept, the heterogeneity of the target group, the impact of policies for young people, possible interventions, and factors influencing young people's coping strategies. Based on analysis, the target group requires applying the holistic principle where the young person is a unique person whose involvement in service creation supports the service's compliance with the actual needs of young people. To support young people, it is important to consider differences within a single social group; the interaction between the different site-based policies; young people's sense of self-perception and autonomy in entering support services; possible coping strategies and the need to provide support in a time and place-based flexible and caring environment through multidisciplinary teams. The study's results support the importance of implementation and the identification of existing opportunities of the EU's reinforced Youth Guarantee guidelines and point to possible future research topics related to the target group.
Abstract
Young people Not in Employment, Education, or Training (NEET) have become a target population of policymaking in Europe. After one decade of political attention and corresponding policy ...action, we consider it a good time to take stock of the literature that has dealt with young people who are classified as NEET and the policies adopted in response to the risk of leaving this group of vulnerable individuals behind. To this end, we carry out a systematic review of 83 articles published between 2011 and 2022 in pertinent journals indexed in the Web of Science (WoS). Our scoping review investigates how i) NEETs are defined in the literature, ii) which factors the authors have reported to be relevant for explaining whether a young person becomes NEET, and iii) how policymakers have responded to the existence of this group. We find that there exists no unanimous definition in the literature of young people classified as NEET, even though the European Union has enacted policies that target them. Our review also highlights that individual-level factors as much as contextual variables and policies determine the likelihood of individuals entering into the NEET status and that it matters whether young people live in urban or rural areas. Lastly, the literature has shown that European policymakers have adopted a wide range of policy responses in order to engage young people in employment, training, or education.
Higher education is awash with data that, when refined, facilitates data-informed decisions. Such decision-making is much more prevalent in support of undergraduate education given the much larger ...number of undergraduates pursuing higher education in contrast to the much smaller proportion of graduate students. A simple extension of current undergraduate-focused tools to the population of graduate students risks ignoring large differences in the students, processes, and policies that are unique to graduate education. Graduate education is more decentralized, less grade-focused and more milestone-focused (e.g., passing preliminary exams, defending a thesis), graduate admissions is driven by department-level processes and criteria, expected products vary across programs (e.g., performances, journal articles, books), and curricular specialization is the norm. Consequently, local contextual variables predominate. This article describes the development of a milestones dashboard to support programs in their pursuit of graduate education excellence by creating data transparency at the student level, visualizing student progress through milestones, allowing benchmarking against other programs at the university, and empowering college and university administrators to identify trends and to ask questions when unusual data arise.
The Romanian non-profit sector is experiencing an explosive growth, an increase of 60% in the last ten years due to the rapid economic and political changes taking place in the region. Currently, ...there are over 100,000 non-profits with approximately 40% of them being active (FDSC, 2017). This exploratory research aims to provide an understanding of the current Romanian non-profit governance model, the balance of power between board members and the executive director, and their implication on organizational relations with the community. The research analyzes the board--executive relation in the current social-economic context and the board's involvement in the organization. The study also looks at how these affect the relations of the organizations with the community. Finally, the paper also analyzes how the financing model impacts the Romanian non-profit governance model. An online capacity-building assessment was used to collect the data. It was administered in the period August--October 2015 (for 55 active non-profit organizations with a 66% response rate). Keywords: Romanian non-profit organizations, governance model, community relations.
For universities to create beneficial and sustainable engagement with the community requires attention to three dimensions: internal (politics, organizational dynamics, and culture interior to the ...university); external (relationships and dynamics of the community, management of power and resource imbalances, and development of a community identity); and personal (the psychology, competencies, and career issues of the faculty). Sustainable types of engagement are those that lead to valued capacity building for the community and positively address each dimension. We offer illustrations of the challenges and strategies for building successful university–community relationships.
Background: The importance of using evidence to inform the policymaking process has been well established in the literature and practice. In Western countries evidence-based policy (EBP) is already ...accepted and implemented in many policy areas, including disability policy. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) the interest in EBP (evidence-based policy) is new and limited, hampered in many aspects by the regional specificity of the public administration and welfare services reform. Aims and objectives: The present article aims to explore the development of evidence-based disability employment policy in Romania, in a specific area of work integration: sheltered workshops. Methods: The article draws on the findings of extensive research on sheltered workshops that included multiple research methods, such as public policy analysis, social documents analysis, and secondary data analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. Findings: A number of issues concerning the implementation of evidence-based disability policy in Romania have been identified. Some of these issues are related to the administrative and policy capacity of the government. Others are linked to the limitation of the advocacy capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) active in the disability area, or to the weak presence of the academic/research community in the disability policy forum. Discussion and conclusions:There is a limited knowledge of how evidence-based disability policy is developed in CEE countries. This article will emphasise the role of the sheltered workshops in shaping the policy solutions in the area of work integration for persons with disabilities. The article will contribute to better understanding of the disability policy reform, looking closely at how the evidence is built and used within the disability policy process.
Participarea socială reprezintă una dintre dimensiunile importante ale calităţii vieţii individului şi societăţii în ansamblu, fiind esenţială într-o democraţie. Implicarea activă a cetăţenilor nu ...doar politică, ci şi civică sau comunitară constituie o premisă importantă a procesului de dezvoltare socială (Sen, 2004; Putnam et al., 2003; Putnam, 2002). Participarea individului în activităţi sociale (întâlniri cu prietenii, implicarea într-un club/asociaţie) satisface nevoia de apartenenţă a oamenilor, iar la nivel social poate preveni apariţia unor fenomene de excluziune socială. Implicarea oamenilor în activităţile unor asociaţii/cluburi sau cea religioasă are impact asupra participării lor civice, politice şi comunitare (Verba et al., 1995). European Quality of Life Survey măsoară diverse tipuri de participare (în special în funcţie de tipul activităţii realizate): socială/comunitară, civică, politică, religioasă, sportivă. Participarea socială/comunitară este analizată printr-o serie de indicatori cum sunt: implicarea în activităţile unor organizaţii non-profit/club, voluntariat, apetenţa spre munca voluntară, încrederea în organizaţii umanitare şi caritabile, frecvenţa întâlnirilor cu persoane din afara gospodăriei şi a contactării acestora prin telefon/internet. Participarea civică şi politică este măsurată prin indicatori care vizează utilizarea unor instrumente specifice (directe sau indirecte) – participarea la întâlniri ale partidelor politice sau sindicatelor, participarea la proteste/demonstraţii, semnarea de petiţii, comentarea on-line a diverselor probleme, boicotarea unor produse sau contactarea politicienilor sau factorilor de decizie.
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