Are The Banks on The Way of Sustainability Reporting Practices: From A Developing Country Perspective?

<p class="Imar-Abstract"><em>This study examines the extent and nature of social, economic, and environmental reporting practices of Bangladeshi-listed banks. Using content analysis technique, Information was gathered from the available annual reports of 25 banks from 2014 to 2019. Findings revealed that overall reporting of environmental information has increased by 47% from 2014 to 2019, whereas overall social reporting has increased by 30% from 2014 to 2019. Again, we tried to explore sustainability reporting practices of these banks considering 26 categories too, where the first 12 categories are used to identify environmental accounting and reporting practices and the rest 14 for social and economic reporting. The findings of 26 categories of sustainability reporting reflect that social, economic, and environmental reporting has increased greatly by 74.90% in 2019. Most of the banks disclosed mostly about energy consumption (D6) from environmental reporting while economic social (D16), education, and training (D18), health and safety (D19) and culture (D20) from social perspectives and least about activities undertaken for tree plantation (D3) from an environmental perspective. This study has great implications for the policymakers of the corporate sector and government.</em></p><p class="Imar-Abstract"> </p>

Students’ Beliefs and Attitudes in Exploring Critical Literacy Comprehension towards Online Media Information into their Writing Practices

Addressing critical literacy exploration into students’ language learning is perpetuated in this digital media- dependent environment. Reading and writing competencies have also pertained the critical enactment in order to present the beyond textual values. Through class discussions and class observations among 12 tertiary English major students in a private university in Indonesia, this study explores students’ beliefs and attitudes towards their critical literacy comprehension on online media information through writing practices. This exploratory case study collect the data covering the recordings of class discussions and class observations from student lesson implementation during their writing course. The results of this study reveal that most of the students are aware of the critical understanding of particular information conveyed from certain messages in their written works. Their beliefs on critical literacy agency has raised several attitudes of how they construct the social perspectives based on selections of what to include and exclude in their written texts. The article is also present recommendation to enlighten the learning in a critical stance.

Metalanguaging Matters

In this article, the authors build on empirical data from the ongoing longitudinal research project Signs of language (2008 – 2018) to examine how multilingual children in a primary school setting use metalinguistic resources linked to several written languages. Grounded in social semiotics and drawing on newer social perspectives on metalanguage, the authors focus on a researcher-generated activity designed to invite the children to reflect on language and literacy. In two particular interactions, they explore how the children “engage with the meta” by navigating between different languages and sign systems, and how their use of metalinguistic resources in a referential sense is inextricably linked to a dialogically formed and performative negotiation of social identity and social relations. Thus, adopting a metalanguaging perspective, this article demonstrates how metalinguistic statements about language are closely interwoven with an ongoing production and negotiation of the communicative situation.

CRISIS OF URBAN IDENTITY: AMBIVALENCE OF VALUE GROUNDS AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES

The article discusses the problem of urban identity in the opposition between global and local processes in urban space. Urban identity is viewed as a type of individual’s social identity in relation to his/her affiliation to a certain urban community. The study of the causes and effects of the urban identity’s crisis is based on the notion of this identity as valuable and meaningful cohesion of individuals and urban community. The problem of urban identity is studied via the analysis of modern concepts of social change in urban space, related to mainstream of human resources, financial, material, information resources. The article indicates that the crisis of identity is represented in the potential loss of individual and personal links to the city, in the loss of affiliation to the place of living, in the vanishing demand for urban identity. The notions of retrospective and prospective urban identity are introduced to identify the ground to maintain urban identity. Retrospective urban identity is based on the existence of so-called “places of memory” in urban space that integrate physical space, fragments of collective memory and individual valuable attitude to this memory as the inclusion to the city history. Prospective urban identity rests on individual’s cohesion and affiliation to future states of urban community as a source of potential social options. Assessments of directions for social change are figured out in positive and negative prospective urban identity, which defines residents’ migration intentions and their active participation in the city life.

Deinstitutionalization in Macro Practice

The deinstitutionalization policy sought to replace institutional care for populations in need of care and control with prosocial community-based alternatives. U.S. institutional populations, however, have increased since the policy’s inception by 205%. As implemented, with the assistance of advocacy and cost-cutting factions, it has succeeded only in enabling the divestiture of state responsibility for target groups. It sought to prevent unnecessary admission and retention in institutions. As implemented, deinstitutionalization initiated a process that involved a societal shift in the type of institutions and institutional alternatives used to house its target groups, often referred to as trans-institutionalization. For many in need of institutional placements, it has succeeded in preventing all admissions, expanding admissions for others. In seeking to develop community alternatives for housing, treating, and habilitating or rehabilitating its target groups, it has succeeded in establishing a variety of alternative living arrangements and showcase and model programs illustrating what can be done; yet, it has failed to deliver on investments in such programs to serve the majority of its target groups. It has resulted in the abandonment of substantial numbers to homelessness. It has been documented, from political, economic, legal, and social perspectives, how this policy has affected the care and control of populations such as older adults, children, people with mental illness or developmental disabilities, people under correctional-system supervision, and, more recently, individuals without a home. Suggestions for a truer implementation of deinstitutionalization’s initial aspirations are available.

Introductory Comments

Introductory CommentsThe 10th, jubilee issue of Colloquia Humanistica (2021) contains a thematic section: Heritage and the Post-Socialist City: Cultural and Social Perspectives. Alongside this section devoted to cities and towns of Central and Eastern Europe, in the issue’s Materials section we publish the first Polish poetic translation, authored by Małgorzata Borowska, of the second poem by Grigor Prličev (1830/31–1893), Skanderbeg (1862, Σκενδέρμπεης). The translation is accompanied by two papers/commentaries in English, for a wider audience prepared by Małgorzata Borowska and Jolanta Sujecka. The Discussions, Presentations, Book Reviews, section features three reviews, including a presentation of the monograph “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en Bulgarie by Nadège Ragaru.Uwagi wstępneDziesiąty, jubileuszowy numer „Colloquia Humanistica” (2021) zawiera blok tematyczny zatytułowany: Heritage and the Post-Socialist City: Social and Cultural Perspectives. Obok poświęconego miastom i miasteczkom Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej bloku tematycznego, w dziale Materials publikujemy pierwszy polski poetycki przekład drugiego poematu Grigora Prličeva (1830/31–1893), Rzecz o Skanderbegu (1862, Σκενδέρμπεης), autorstwa Małgorzaty Borowskiej. Przekładowi towarzyszą dwa artykuły/komentarze w języku angielskim, dla szerszej publiczności, których autorkami są Małgorzata Borowska i Jolanta Sujecka. W dziale Discussions, Presentations, Book reviews, publikujemy trzy recenzje, wśród nich znajduje się prezentacja monografii francuskiej badaczki Zagłady Nadège Ragaru, “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en Bulgarie.

Ethical, Legal and Social Issues of Digital Phenotyping as a Future Solution for Present-Day Challenges: A Scoping Review

Digital phenotyping represents an avenue of consideration in patients' self-management. This scoping review aims to explore the trends in the body of literature on ethical, legal, and social challenges relevant to the implementation of digital phenotyping technologies in healthcare. The study followed the PRISMA-ScR methodology (Tricco et al. in Ann Int Med 169(7):467–473, 2018. https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-0850). The review systematically identified relevant literature, characterised the discussed technology, explored its impacts and the proposed solutions to identified challenges. Overall, the literature, perhaps unsurprisingly, concentrates on technical rather than ethical, legal, and social perspectives, which limits understanding of the more complex cultural and social factors in which digital phenotyping technologies are embedded. ELS issues mostly concern privacy, security, consent, lack of regulation, and issues of adoptability, and seldom expand to more complex ethical issues. Trust was chosen as an umbrella theme of a continuum of major ELS and technical issues. Sustained critical analysis of digital phenotyping showed to be sparse and geographically exclusive. There is a continuum and overlap between ELS issues, suggesting the need for a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to each of the challenges posed by the various technologies of digital phenotyping.

A Characterization of European Collective Action Initiatives and their Role as Enablers of Citizens’ Participation in the Energy Transition

This paper provides novel additional evidence on the characteristics of Collective Action Initiatives (CAIs), investigating their role within the European energy sector. It analyses and presents results of a survey administered in six European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Estonia, and Spain. CAIs are studied in light of four key dimensions, those being their creation dynamics, the way they are organized, financed, and the activities they undertake. The results presented are also interpreted to reflect on their role as drivers of social innovation (SI) within energy transition in Europe. The analysis shows that the contribution of CAIs to the energy transition has a much wider scope than the development of energy projects and provision of energy services. CAIs are intrinsically socially innovative models of implementation as characterised by a strong level of citizen involvement and participation. Moreover, they have a potential multi-level role in the energy transition, from the technological and social perspectives. Indeed, alongside traditional energy activities, our results show that CAIs are evolving and expanding towards socially innovative activities, raising awareness on environmental issues, promoting citizens’ mobilization, and fostering social inclusion.

Psychosocial, clinical, and organizational perspectives of the risks of remote work for employees` mental health

The objective of the study was to analyze the modern data on the risks of remote work influence on the employees` mental health from psychosocial, clinical, and organizational perspectives. Methods. The analysis of literary sources, policy documents, publications in the mass media with an emphasis on the period from the beginning of the spread of the new coronavirus infection 2019-nCoV to the present. Results. The current state of the problem of the impact of remote work on the employees` mental health in Russia and in and in other countries during the global COVID-19 pandemic is analyzed. The causal relationships of medical, social, and organizational perspectives of labor activity are considered, and strategies for prevention of negative effects are studied. The widespread using of remote work all over the world is due to the need to limit the direct interpersonal contacts of citizens to contain the spread of infection. It is established that employees of organizations that perform labor functions remotely can be recognized as a type of risk group for mental, behavioral, and addictive disorders due to medical and social perspectives. The development of self-employment and the provision of services on the principles of freelancing may contribute to reducing the number of employees covered by preventive maintenance medical examinations and complicate the early detection of mental and somatic deviations in freelance workers. Conclusion. The result of the growing popularity of remote work is the spread of a hybrid work regime, which requires a comparative assessment of the medical and social risk factors of remote workers, amendments to several regulatory documents as well as the development of evidence based psychohygienic methodological recommendations for employers and early detection of employees with contraindications to remote work.