Tiltai

Scientific journal Tiltai / Bridges / Brücken published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences, and seeking academic dialogue, also to other human and society functioning-related humanities and biomedical sciences, with expand and interpret different social phenomena and current issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science has no borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.Tiltai / Bridges is the scientifical periodical magazine, which publications, by the decision of Lithuanian Science Council, are recognized as convenient for doctoral dissertations and pedagogical scientific names.

Scientific journal TILTAI/BRIDGES/BRÜCKEN published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science hasn’t borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.TILTAI/BRIDGES is the scientifical periodical magazine, which publications, by the decision of Lithuanian Science Council, are recognized as convenient for doctoral dissertations and pedagogical scientific names.

Scientific journal TILTAI/BRIDGES/BRÜCKEN published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science hasn’t borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.TILTAI/BRIDGES is the scientifical periodical magazine, which publications, by the decision of Lithuanian Science Council, are recognized as convenient for doctoral dissertations and pedagogical scientific names.

Scientific journal TILTAI/BRIDGES/BRÜCKEN published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science hasn’t borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.

Scientific journal TILTAI/BRIDGES/BRÜCKEN published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science hasn’t borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.TILTAI/BRIDGES is the scientifical periodical magazine, which publications, by the decision of Lithuanian Science Council, are recognized as convenient for doctoral dissertations and pedagogical scientific names.

Today’s technological advance and rapid development provide teenagers with a lot of opportunities for learning, free time and self-expression. Main factors encouraging teenagers’ risky behavior online are distinguished into internal and environmental. Internal factors are structured in accordance to the individual level, which distinguishes the significance of age characteristics, personal features and behavior problems in regard to the expression of risky actions on the internet. Environmental influence is an important factor in point of risky actions of teenagers on the internet as well. Environmental factors are structured into the levels of family, peers and school. Quality of family relations, family context and circumstance may become a factor of risky behavior online. Negative influence of peers plays a significant role during the adolescence. Social isolation experienced among peers may have coherence with teenagers’ tendency to the risky behavior online. Psychological and social school aspects, academic achievements and self-realization opportunities through school work are also distinguished as factors of such behavior. Analysis of teenagers’ risky behavior online showed that it is important to look for theoretically grounded and practically checked ways of ensuring teenagers’ safety in virtual reality.

There is presented and shortly evaluated in the article the basic development of public administration in Central and Eastern European countries by indicating the most important stages of modernization in the light of prevailing theoretical paradigms. The authors identify three main stages – traditional public administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance, which are sometimes interrelated or contradicting to each other at the same time. New Public Governance is the most wanted and admired paradigm in Central and Eastern Europe, especially because of its social attractiveness and sensitivity, but it is still lacking more certain methods and tools to be implemented in practice. New Public Management, because of its capitalist entrepreneurship spirit, only partially changed public administration model. It was not an excellent model of reform, that’s why it is possible to point to NPM as socially irresponsible reform of the public sector. At the same time the principles of New Public Governance are orientated not only to the participation of citizens and citizens’ groups, but also to the development of social welfare, social quality, social responsibility and social justice. These are the values, which are most necessary to overcome the side effects of modernization. It is possible to draw a conclusion about this article, that by developing and presenting the more progressive principles and values of NPG, such as openness, transparency, social justice, social quality, absence of corruption and more active non-governmental organisations, Central and Eastern European countries could achieve more stable democratic development, as well as elimination or minimization of the negative impact of New Public Management for various spheres of public sector’s reforms.

Women’s alcohol dependence is a serious concern for the whole of society, negatively affecting not only various important areas of the lives of women themselves, but essentially the mental health of future generations. Researchers have attempted to address the main problems associated with women’s drinking; nevertheless, their findings are still incomplete. Moreover, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to exploring idiosyncratic alcohol-dependent women identity development processes. This study aims to fill the existing gap in the literature, by conducting an empirical study that would help elucidate the main psycho-social aspects contributing significantly to the identity development of alcohol-dependent women. Ten self-identified alcohol-dependent women participated in the study. Data was collected through life stories and in-depth interviews. The constructivist grounded theory approach (K. Charmaz) was used as a methodological strategy to explore how alcohol-dependent women develop and express their identities in their life stories. In this study, we present internal and external identity development processes, revealing the dilemma of internal detachment by alcohol-dependent women developing an illusory identity. The main aspects of this theoretical structure include compensatory adaptation, power seeking, and avoiding helplessness, which create a vicious triangle, with the need for acceptance and the fear of rejection at its core, all contributing to the development of an illusory identity. Moreover, based on traditional theoretical frameworks, the study builds on the premise that such internal detachment is linked to self-integrity problems, which is further associated with participants’ pursuit of a search for self-meaning in important others. The findings provide new insights about alcohol-dependent identity development processes, discuss the limitations and strengths of the current study, suggest directions for future studies, and highlight the need to see alcohol-dependent women’s problems from the perspective of identity, which is different from traditional psycho-pathological views.

This study is based on Intervention Research, where initially a literature study and a needs assessment of community caregivers regarding the content of an empowerment programme for caregivers to facilitate HIV and AIDS patients’ adherence to antiretroviral treatment, were undertaken. From these results an empowerment programme for caregivers was developed. In this article the evaluation of the programme will be reported on by means of quantitative measurement. An experimental design was utilised with both groups comprising of 12 caregivers with a pre-test, post-test and post-post-test. The results of the measurement indicated that the community caregivers were empowered and that such an empowerment programme is needed.

Spirituality is a basic human drive with diverse forms of expression that make for unique patterns of thinking consonant with an advanced level of cognition and integration of information. The paper features the Humanistic Spirituality Model, which captures the essential dimensions of humanistic spirituality through three components: self-actualisation, transcendence and ultimate meaning in life. The Humanistic Spirituality Inventory (HSI), a measure of spirituality developed on the basis of the Humanistic Spirituality Model, contains three scales corresponding to the three model components. According to the results of the HSI validation study (N = 331), the instrument has good psychometric properties, i.e. adequate content and construct validity as well as satisfactory internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities, which makes it a proper spirituality research measure.