Klaipėdos universitetas

The article deals with the attitude to Protestantism in the post-soviet Russia. Formation of Protestantism in Russia can be considered in the present paper. Thus, the purposes of this research are to examine formation of Protestantism in Russia, to analyze attitude of Russians to Protestantism and to identify its reasons. The author’s periodization of Protestantism formation in Russia is proposed. This periodization is based on 3 criteria: types of Protestants activities at each stage; the government’s attitude to it; its functions. It is shown that the establishment of the Russian Protestantism version took five basic steps. In modern Russia, Protestantism has its own history, values it gained its traditions, and it has its own distinctive character. Protestant churches are ready to actively participate in solving the pressing issues facing the people of the country. The authors suggest that the most authoritative of them can and should acquire the status of social partners of state institutions and significantly contribute to the spiritual and moral education of young people, to overcoming child homelessness and neglect, to family strengthening, to improvement of moral atmosphere in society and to the formation of high standards of business, economic and work ethic. The positive development of this process and its dynamics are largely dependent on Russian Protestants consolidation and on their willingness and ability to develop and strengthen interfaith relations and cooperation. According to the article, the attitude of most Russians to Protestantism is largely negative, although most of them have friends or acquaintances among the followers of this religion. The reasons for this are stereotypes in the public opinion of Russians: about the church itself (simplification of ceremonies, of the Bible, of the decoration of the church), and about the personal qualities of the congregation (the rejection of community service and charity, lack of citizenship).

The usage of phrasemes evidences not only their variability, transformations and modifications, but also the most frequent forms of their realization (phraseme-types) and frequency (phraseme-tokens), i.e. phrasemes’ flexibility. In this paper, selected Lithuanian idiomatic predicate phrasemes are analysed in the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian Language, in the Phraseological Dictionary and in the lexical database of the Dictionary of Lithuanian Phrases. The results of comparison show that the corpus research can give rich evidence about the morphological flexibility of phrasemes. This information can help to improve representation of phrasemes in the phraseological dictionaries of Lithuanian, in order to make them more usage-based and more usage-oriented.

The continuous reduction and aging of population poses a serious threat to social economic development in Latvia. The consequence may be an imbalance of the social budget and the pension system, lack of human resources, reduction of business activity, etc., which has the potential to cause deeper economic and political crisis. Particular importance in this context takes early identification of negative trends and development of adequate strategic decisions.Three hypothetical scenarios of social economic development in Latvia are generated using simulation model based on system dynamics methods. The novelty of research is the design of the model, range of selected factors and their structure, dependency between factors and time horizon. This made possible to calculate dynamics of population and its structure in dependence on GDP and average income.General trends for social economic development in Latvia are shown and several recommendations are offered. The research can be used for dynamic analysis in any specific field related to social economic development and demography.

The purpose of this study is to find out how the settlement systems in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia changed during the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century, and what the trends for further urban change are. In the Soviet period, single farms that existed in all three east Baltic countries were destroyed. The inhabitants of single farms were moved to central settlements. Cities grew in all the republics, especially in the largest centres. A network of satellite settlements grew up around the capitals, which was particularly dense around Tallinn and Riga. The capitals and their surrounding settlements are currently growing at a very high speed in all the east Baltic countries. This concentrates administrative functions and a highly skilled workforce, and attracts the most investment. As a result, peripheral areas, especially villages, are disappearing, and their inhabitants are emigrating. Such areas are becoming unattractive to business.In order to show the situation, the authors used a comparative analysis method, as well as cartographic, graphic and other methods. The anticipation of settlement principles and trends is one of the most important tasks of regional policy in each country. Therefore, an interpolation method was used to make estimates of the urban population in the three largest cities in the east Baltic countries from 2020 to 2023. The trend analysis indicates that the populations of most of the largest cities in the east Baltic countries will decrease.

The present paper is focused on the specific treatment of the sea topic in the Latvian writer Egons Līvs’ prose fiction. His works are focused on people who are related to the sea – fishermen and their families. Using the methodology of semiotics, two major variants of actualizing the sea topic in E. Līvs’ prose fiction are singled out: (1) the sea as a space of the rite of initiation, (2) the existential sea that preserves or takes one’s life. Within each of these thematic groups, one work by the writer is analyzed, emphasizing the specificity of the sea topic in it and characterizing the significance of the sea in the revelation of the conception of human and the construction of the world model. The literary and biographical contexts are briefly characterized by means of the biographical and anthropological methods.

Professional activation is an important part of the economy, in particular local and regional authorities. Properly initiated entrepreneurship significantly affects, among other things, the direct development of the region, including local businesses and the investment opportunities of local government units. Improving competitiveness and the socio-economic image of the region can be seen by taking direct economic initiatives (also in cooperation with economic entities and/or scientific research units) and by implementation of innovation, the use of various forms of external financing, but primarily through new jobs and business activity. The aim of the study is an attempt to present the issue of professional activation of disabled people in the former Central Pomeranian province, in the county Słupsk. The study public opinion poll (own questionnaire study) was conducted at the turn of 2013–2014y. Survey was also conducted in Polish and English literature. In the years 2007–2015 local government organizations implemented 7 projects in the region of Słupsk and also activities are constantly supported by District Labour Office (PUP) activation, which provides services to 97 % of respondents.

Social pedagogue’s assistance to social risk children is a relevant, complex and difficult topic. Social pedagogue is one of the key figures in country’s schools in terms of ensuring social equality, social integration, socialisation or simply the provision of social pedagogical assistance in the education process. However, currently there is not enough of a deeper understanding about the entire notion of school social pedagogue’s assistance to social risk children: how and in which situations it takes place, how it is organised and what is the role of a social pedagogue as well as which specific activities are carried out. Even though social pedagogical assistance itself is regulated in the legislation, there is still a prevailing lack of the actual situational and in-depth analysis that would reveal the entire process of social pedagogical assistance, allow to have a better look at it and through understanding it, enable the improvement of the situation. In this article, assistance provided by school social pedagogue to social risk children is analysed through narrative approach. In this article is represented one social pedagogues (Sigita) narrative about her assistance to social risk child Rytis. Sigita’s narrative is analysed on the following logic: description (narratives themselves, based on stories told by respondents during interviews, divided into smaller units), interpretation (personal insights about the narratives provided, personal approach, reflections based on memories) and explanation (objective analysis of a narrative provided in the description (or a part of it), based on scientific literature).

Young people with disabilities are one of the most sensitive groups of society because they are discriminated against by stereotypes of disability, sewing in the labor market and education. This is acknowledged by organizations operating in the field of international human rights and disability, which are mentioned in documents protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, are reflected in the researches of Lithuanian and foreign scientists. A child’s autism diagnosis affects every member of the family in different ways. Parents / caregivers must now place their primary focus on helping their child with ASD, which may put stress on their marriage, other children, work, finances, and personal relationships and responsibilities. The theoretical part of the article examines disabilities, conceptual basics of a autism. The empirical part is compliant with a provision that a human life can be understood by analysing one’s experience, opinions, worldview, and context. The justification of the research methodology – narrative analysis – is presented. The study involves demographic characteristics of fourth people – parents (male sex), circumstances of research data collection, the role of the researcher is revealed. Data processing is carried out in accordance with the methodological requirements of the dialogical narrative analysis. Conclusions are drawn with regard to the phenomenon – perception of the career of young people with slight intellectual disabilities.