Education is seen as an investment in ‘human capital’, and providing children with a good education is considered to be key to securing their future and their success in life. This article analyses ...how these discourses on education affect young people in the context of the dismantling of public services and growing social uncertainty. Surveys on youth in Slovenia in the late 1990s and 2000s indicate that children are exposed to the pressure of academic success very early in their lives. The article examines the symbolic meaning of academic achievement, the importance of school success in the educational path in post-socialist Slovenia, and its influence on teenagers’ self-understanding and identity construction. The analysis is based on short narratives written by secondary school students about their experiences with school (under-)
achievement. The wider social context is clarified based on some research and statistical data. The analysis leads to the conclusion that striving for school success is a response to the neoliberal process of individualising responsibility, which is also reflected in ‘truths’ about the importance of early child care for later academic achievement—these ‘truths’ can be understood as normalising discourses, which have an important influence on the construction of the self and the parent-child relationship.
This article analyzes discomfort about sexuality expressed in formal education. It draws on Foucault’s analysis of sexuality as a privileged object of biopolitics (the object of regulation, ...surveillance, and discipline) and the most instrumentalized element in power relations in the Western world. Related to this is also the pedagogization of child sexuality, which even today is still characterized by ambiguities and discomfort. The author concludes that silence about non-hetero-sexualities and the biomedicalization and physicalization of (homo)sexuality are the most common and obvious symptoms of discomfort about (homo)sexuality in Slovenian schools. These manners of treating sexuality are usually interpreted as neutral, but the author interprets them as strategies of conflict avoidance which in fact support a heteronormative social order and (implicitly or explicitly) even legitimize the exclusion of all who cross the boundaries of ‘normal heterosexuality’. They strengthen prejudice, motivate ignorance, and can even be used as an excuse for violence. The article points out that education does not provide a magic formula since it cannot foresee its own effects due to the complexity of social relations and the nature of the education process (e.g. Millot, 1983).
Predmet obsežnega in natančnega preiskovanja Lilijane Burcar so procesi in oblike institucionalizacije patriarhata v kapitalizmu, politike, ki so v socializmu zrahljale institucionalni patriarhat, ...ukrepi, s katerim ga postsocialistične države ponovno vzpostavljajo, ter učinki pozasebljanja oskrbovalnega in varstvenega dela na družbenoekonomsko državljanstvo žensk.
Trust in an individual physician and its contradictions Introduction: This article analyses the essential contradictions in the phenomenon of trust and the dilemmas this creates for empirical ...Research on health and the health care system. The trust a patient places in their physician (and--though more rarely--in the health system itself) is generally regarded as an important factor in the patient's health; hence, a crucial research problem is the question of which factors influence a patient's trust. Methods: In this article, we analyse the attitudes regarding the role of the state in health care - the analysis is based on Slovenian public opinion surveys (1995-2007). In the second part of the analysis we focus on an analysis of the influence of experience with medical institutions and medical personnel, the respondents' subjective evaluation of their own health and a group of sociodemographic factors relating to social inequality (Slovene public opinion, SPO 2001/3). Results: Similar to the results of numerous other empirical studies, our research shows that these factors only partially explain trust in an individual physician. At the same time, we find a relatively large difference between trust in an individual physician and trust in the health service. Conclusion: We explain the results by means of the contradictions and multidimensionality of the phenomenon of trust itself and the quandaries in the conceptualizations of trust. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Background. Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder that can lead to complex psychosocial consequences. Epilepsy can change the social status of persons with epilepsy (PWE) and has an effect on ...their social inclusion as well as their perception of social inclusion. This study aims to explore subjective experiences with social inclusion of PWE in Slovenia. Methods. This study takes a qualitative approach. Eleven semistructured interviews were conducted with eleven participants. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Results. Epilepsy has physical, emotional, and social consequences. Physical consequences of epilepsy are mainly tiredness and exhaustion following an epileptic episode, frequently accompanied by headaches. Emotional consequences are different forms of fear. The main social consequence identified is a negative effect on PWE’s social network, which leads to (self-)isolation and social distrust. Conclusion. PWE experience of social inclusion depends on various psychosocial factors and differs from person to person. The consequences of epilepsy are shown in PWE social contacts and their sense of social inclusion and autonomy.
In this article the values and life orientation of young people in Slovenia over a
recent 10-year period are analysed. As is the case in the majority of other European
countries, empirical research ...on large samples of various Slovenian youth
populations in 1993, 1995, 1999 and 2000 has disclosed young people's
marked preferential interest in the private and the personal spheres of life,
whereas their interest in politics is slight, as is the degree of trust in existing
political institutions and actors. In Slovenia this trend is usually characterized
as a ‘shift towards privacy’, and being apolitical is one of the
most frequently invoked defining features of the younger generation.In the
author's opinion, these research findings reveal huge changes in
Slovenia's political space–paradoxically, this space has
contracted in comparison to the situation in the 1980s, largely due to a narrower
understanding of politics and political activity.
Abstract
Background:
Numerous studies have found significant gender differences in health-related behaviour, while a lower
number analyse these differences within the gender. The aim of the article ...is to analyse the differences in individual
health-related behaviour indicators among women from different educational groups in Slovenia.
Methods:
The analysis is based on the CINDI Health Monitor (2008) survey for Slovenia. The nationally representative
sample was chosen using probability sampling and the analysis included 4,237 women aged 25 to 74. The independent
variables are: education, in consideration of age, community type, region of residence, the presence of a partner and
children and self-perceived social class. The dependent variables are health-related behaviours: nutrition, physical
activity, sleeping, stress and care for own health. By comparing averages in health-related behaviour with education
and other factors and by classifying participants into homogenous groups, we were able to show differences in
health-related behaviour in women with different educational attainment.
Results:
Individual health-related behaviour indicators show statistically significant differences between groups of
women with different educational attainment; however these are neither very distinct nor unambiguous. Women
with a higher educational attainment evaluate the majority of the indicators more favourably than women in other
educational groups, but differences can also be found within the group of women with a higher educational attainment.
The differences in the health-related behaviour of women with a lower educational attainment are relatively blurred.
Conclusion:
The relatively small differences in health-related behaviour can be partially explained by existing
differences within the group of women with a higher educational attainment and the fact that the group of women
with the lowest educational attainment does not have the worst health-related behaviour indicators, which affects the
greater equality in health-related behaviour. On the other hand, the well-established universal and targeted family
and child care policies, which have been implemented in Slovenia for decades, also affect these results.
The article presents arguments against legalization of the same-sex partnership in Slovenia (enacted in Jun 2005) and emphasizes the symbolic meaning of the Law on same-sex partnership particularly ...for its opponents. The author deconstructs apparently tolerant political debates on this question and finds out that embodying the principle of equality enhances hostility towards gays and lesbians. She analyses the motives and warns against the symbolic and juridical consequences of distinction between the same-sex and hetero-sex partnership and compares the political debates on legalization of the same-sex partnership with the debates on the single women's right to artificial insemination.
The new proposal of Family Code in Slovenia is the fifth bill, aiming at (among others) legal protection of same-sex partnerships & same-sex families in Slovenia. Just like previous bills -- some of ...them never made it to the parliamentary procedure -- it causes a lot of protests. The key dominator of these upheavals is the discursive interpolation of "nature" & "natural" into arranging social relations (such as partnerships & families). This argument is then used as an excuse for discriminatory treatment, based on one's sexual orientation. The history of several attempts to legalize same-sex partnership & families in Slovenia is presented & the key discourses, which emerged alongside, are analysed. The analysis shows that the new proposal of the Family Code does not introduce something, which can be classified as strange & new. It is rather a consequence of more than 25 years of endeavors for equality in Slovenia regardless of one's sexual orientation. Adapted from the source document.
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