Böcker utgivna av Verlag Barbara Budrich

Research in Vocational Education is an international book series, dealing with challenges in VET, workplace learning, and professional learning from different perspectives.

How do we know when countries progress in controlling corruption so to adjust our policies? The authors show which instruments can be used to understand changes in institutional corruption and review some global success cases to see if what experts report is checked by facts on the ground. The book includes award winning new methodology as well as

The formation of governments without a majority in parliament is a counterintuitive, albeit empirically relevant, phenomenon: minority governments make up about one-third of all governments in Europe. The author offers an analysis of the conditions leading to the formation of minority governments in Central and Eastern Europe and provides the reade

The authors deal with the place of parliamentary politics in democracy. Apparently a truism, parliamentarism is in fact a missing research object in democratic theory, and a devalued institutional reference in democratic politics. Yet the parliamentary culture of politics historically explains the rise and fall of modern democracies. By exploring democracy from the vantage point of parliamentary politics, the book advances a novel research perspective. Aimed at revising current debates on parliamentary politics, democratization and democratic theory, the authors argue the role of the parliamentary culture of politics in democracy, highlighting the argumentative, debating experience of politics to recast both some of democratic theory's normative assumptions and real democracies' reform potential.

Families international - the new milestone How may care be secured-particularly in ageing societies, how may families, relatives and friends support each other and live together beyond market reasons? How can social welfare be secured? How do different countries and different cultures solve the problems they may or may not, now or in days to come, share with other countries and cultures? Families, as is found in this publication by internationally renowned experts, are the base and well of society's fortune in a humane paradigm. Furthermore, it is the very backbone of lifelong solidarity in inter-generational relations, and the very place where the readiness of taking on care and responsibility are experienced and learned. The publication's underlying idea opens up two perspectives: on the one hand, differences and similarities in family life forms are chiselled out on the base of an international cooperation. Simultaneously, the international authors are called upon to express their ideas about their own country's future more distinctly and clearly; thus, distinctions and similarities of the respective paths of development are rather easily perceived.

Gender relations in post-socialist countries Even more than 20 years after turning away from socialism, Eastern European and Central Asian states are still characterized by the regime change in the fields of work, politics, and culture. What are the effects and implications that this change has produced for gender relations in post-socialist countries? And what does this mean for the situation of women and men living there today? In this context gender relations are especially interesting since gender equality was perceived as a political goal and, moreover, a given reality in socialism. The articles in this volume show the changes as well as the stability of gender relations and power structures during the transformation process and in post-socialist times. They shed light on topics like labour market policies, fertility, political representation of women or male artists concerned with gender issues covering the geographical space from Hungary and Poland over Bulgaria and Romania to Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Beyond that, some of the descriptions and analyses challenge understood certainties about how to create gender equality and about the women and men living in post-soviet regions today.

What is special about small states? How do they adapt their policies and patterns of governance to meet turbulent times such as a new security environment and the international financial crisis? Answers to these and further questions are provided by experts. What are the constraints on and opportunities of governance of small states in an interdependent and increasingly turbulent global setting? How do small states deal with radical changes in the international environment? What is the role of political institutions in facilitating and constraining policy responses to a rapidly changing international environment? How can political leadership contribute to stability in times of change? This book seeks to answer these questions by taking a comparative perspective on the processes of change and adaptation in the governance of Norway and Slovakia. These two small European states with highly open economies have been exposed to the same set of global turbulences related to post Cold War changes in the security environment and the global financial crisis; they are also facing internal challenges that spring from rapidly rising expectations while demographic shifts put pressure on their welfare systems. Their governance structures and processes are informed by their different political-administrative cultures, different history and levels of stability of democratic governance structures and, indeed, by their different modes of attachment to the European Union and other regional integration frameworks. These differences and a comparative approach in exploring the questions raised above can shed light not only on the specific forms of adaptation of governance structures in two small European states, but also generate insights into the role of integration structures in facilitating and constraining change.

Family in all its aspects Familienbande International experts provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art of European family research and outline the multiple formations, structures and configurations of family in Europe. Four aspects are discussed in depth: family images, sex/gender roles, globalisation and family development processes. Influenced by globalisation, European countries experience processes which still have greatly varying consequences. Cultural differences, reflected in a range of family schemes and national family policies, are one reason for the continued existence of differences in the scope and speed of change processes. Quite generally, images and concepts of family have become more heterogeneous and flexible. The flip side of this coin is that family members are increasingly faced with the challenges of achieving a satisfactory work-life balance - a task aggravated by globalisation. We therefore need to ask how family policy can help families enjoy adequate freedom of action and latitude for their decision-making. To summarise: a read well worth the effort for all experts working in family research and family policy.

The book will survey the recent development and current "e;state of the art"e; of political science in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. It will comprise (a) three comparative overviews: Political Science and Regime Change in East-Central Europe from the 20th to the 21st Century; Analytical and Normative Elements in Political Science Approaches: Is there a Specific Central-East European Pattern?; Political Science Associations in East-Central Europe: How Important, how much International Cooperation?; (b) 20 detailed and comparable country reports: Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine; (c) a chapter on the European Confederation of Political Science Associations. The country reports will include tables on political science faculty, students with political science as a major, and sub-fields taught at both state and private universities (as per the end of 2008). They will cover the following topics: Institutionalization of the discipline; achievements, deficits, prevailing approaches, and funding of research in the discipline's sub-fields; curricula, admission regulation, and degree system in political science teaching; national representation and international cooperation (major journals and published books, political science associations, international links); public impact of the discipline, labor market, challenges and opportunities.

As children grow up, they discover taboo areas in their environment and in life. They are in need of advice to prevent them from placing themselves in risky situations. The primary preventive approach to a life skills programme on HIV/AIDS and sex education, called "Child Mind Project", can be seen as such an initiative.