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.

The present paper states that social work constitute at same time a political economy and a critical science. The presentation offers some alternative approaches to social work. Current social work faces resource inequality, vital inequality and existential inequality. These inequalities stem from structural and qualitative societal changes due to an aging population, long-term unemployment, globalization, technology developments, production advances, political conflicts as well as to individualization issues in the society. Consequently, social work’s old research approaches and practical strategies are now ineffective. Social work faces a crisis and must endure a “paradigm shift” to return to its standard science practice. By means of a new paradigm, it is possible to arrive at a novel type of ontopraxeology, at a different ontological and practical understanding of social work, which per se is poor in emphasizing personal service along with its ethical and moral aspects. Problems may be simplified and targeted at individuals and families, at the same time when social and individual lives become more complex. Hereafter, social work must perceive itself as an economic factor as well as a societal resource with political characteristics. By solving conflicts and increasing trust, social work increases social capital and furthers equality.

Habilitation of children with hearing impairment is becoming an integral part of the education system in Republic of Moldova, which remains one of the poorest countries in Europe. The research data presented in this article show that accessibility to education for children with disabilities is full of contradictions. The research focuses on the ongoing reform of special education and assesses the adaptation of democratic values in education from the perspective of habilitation. The families involved in this research were low income full families who had a school age children with hearing impairment, lived in an urban environment of the big city and experienced shortage of services for their children. The assumption was taken, that in search for solution these families tend to compensate for the lack of services by self-creating the resources of habilitation. Results of the qualitative research highlighted two problems: social and economic. The essence of these problems – management of social stigmatization through realization of habilitation resources as a mean to compensate and replenish the lack of services. Research data also revealed the necessity of further construction and conceptualisation of habilitation resources.

The article examines sociocultural contexts of the genesis of the processes of the professionalization of performance within the paradigm of specificity vs generality. It emphasizes the increasing specialization in the area of human-human interactions inherent in the medical profession that are pertinent to the conditions of modern consumer society. The authors analyze the consequences of professional specialization in relation to the shifting physicians’ worldview and through individual self-expression explore professional deformations associated with moral and spiritual phenomena within the context of doctor-patient interactions that, on the one hand, are oriented towards missionary nature of the medical profession and, on the other, towards the opportunities of individual professional development. In the examination of occupational continuum, the authors utilize a phenomenological approach that enables to characterize different aspects of professional and personal deformations, as well as to analyze the meaning of professional opportunities through recognition and comprehension of their essence.

The focus of this article is on the personality of a social worker as most qualified representative of the profession. The task of the article is to explore social worker’s personal agency and context beliefs as a factor to increase the motivation of social worker’s professional activity. The methodological basis of the research is the Concept of Effective Functioning (Motivational Systems Theory, Ford, 1992). The talk – interview was used to gain factual information about social worker’s capability beliefs related to the main elements of problem solving process. To explore social worker’s context beliefs, a construct embracing essential factors characteristic to social organizations was made. The research provide information about the mentioned parameters of the beliefs and reveal the dominating patterns of social workers’ professional functioning indicating the level of their motivation.

The qualitative and quantitative analysis of canine therapy with children with special educational needs is presented in this article. Canine therapy sessions were carried out in two groups of participants. The 1st group consisted from children with behavioural-emotional problems, the second group – consisted from children who have disability of intelligence and have diagnosis confirmed by physicians. The qualitative and quantitative analysis confirmed positive social, emotional, psychological and educational changes in both groups of children. Relatively greater changes are observed in the group of children with disability of intelligence. The parents of first group of children evaluated their behavioural-emotional difficulties before and after canine therapy sessions. There were no significant differences in mothers scores of children behavioural-emotional difficulties before and after canine therapy sessions, fathers’ scores of behavioral-emotional difficulties of children are lower after canine therapy sessions, and significantly lower are scores of anxiety / depression difficulties after canine therapy sessions.

The goal of this article is to analyze the challenges that arise from stigma and that relatives of people with Schizophrenia face in their relationships in primary social network. Schizophrenia does not only change everyday life and relationships of the ill but also of their relatives. This topic is not researched in Lithuania. Meanwhile in the international context, the biggest attention is paid to the subjective and objective burden that relatives of the people with Schizophrenia face, leaving aside the changes and dynamics in their relationships. Therefore, in this article the influence of the stigmatization on the relationships in the closest environment of patient is discussed. In order to achieve this goal, qualitative research has been completed and 15 half-structured interviews with the people who have relatives, who suffer from Schizophrenia, were carried out. The relation to the person with Schizophrenia varied according to the individual cases – some of them were spouses, some where children, parents, siblings or further relatives. The results of the research reveal that Schizophrenia causes complex emotional experiences of patient’s family members, and gives an effect on relationships within the family, as well as on relationships of the ill and his family members with further relatives, friends, neighbors and colleagues.

Although the representatives of different social sciences are trying to highlight and raise the methodological and methodical peculiarity of social sciences with respect to natural sciences, it should be noted that a big part of social sciences research is based on the positivist research paradigm. The positivist tradition allows a researcher to choose certain research methods that originated from natural sciences and to apply them in the research of social sciences. Regarding the possibilities to determine causality, an experiment is considered to be the best empirical research method. However, the emphasis is placed on the complicated application of this method to social sciences due to certain practical, political and ethical aspects. When developing ideas about an appropriate and effective use of the experimental research method in social sciences, the use of natural experiment is recommended. Although in recent years, the research based on the methodology of natural experiment is gaining popularity, there is still a lack of literature on how and when this methodology can be applied, what problems it can help to solve, how data can be collected and analysed. Thus, on the basis of methodological literature analysis, this article is an attempt to present natural experiment as a method for social researches, to provide guidelines and recommendations for the application of the methodology of natural experiment and to inspire scientific discussion about using the strategy of natural experiment in social sciences.

The authors of this article examine the evaluation of education service quality from parents’ perspective, since parents as well as their children are the consumers of these service. Often there is a trend in Lithuania that education services are provided to children; even though, the service provision contract is signed between the education institution and parents. On the other hand, a part of services of specialists of education assistance are dedicated to parents. Moreover, parent education, cooperation and communication process is between the education institution and parents. The education institution is not able to solve most of the problems without the assistance of parents. Therefore, the authors present the point of view of 400 parents towards the quality of the provided education services.

This paper explores the relationship between paternal religious affiliation, practice, and health behavior, namely consumption of alcohol. This research models alcohol consumption as an aggregate sum of weekly glasses of wine, 50 ml vodka shots, half-liter bottles of beer, and cocktails. The model includes religious confession among other independent variables including self-reported health status. In confessional comparison, the largest fraction, Catholic, is the reference category opposite Orthodox, Protestant, Other non-affiliated believers and Atheist. Significantly, Other believers and Lithuanian Protestants consumed significantly more alcohol than Catholic respondents. A unit increase in prayer or religious reading did not significantly predict a change in alcohol consumption. However a unit increase in weekly work hours significantly decreases alcohol consumption in contrast to a unit increase in time spent with children. Higher consumption is associated with lower self-reported health status.