Imagining the Etruscans: Modern European Perceptions of an Ancient Italian Civilization

The Etruscans, ancient people of pre-Roman Italy, have been the subject of lively discussions among both scholars and disseminators of popular pseudo-scientific theories from the late Humanistic age, an interest and popularity that reached a crescendo in the 18th to 20th centuries. This paper aims to explore the ideological features of the foundation of the highly specialized but often self-referential discipline, the so-called “Etruscology” that finally developed in the 20th century, with particular reference to the complicated connections between the very Italian territorial context of Etruscan civilization and the European dimension of its reception and popularization.

Polish Approach to Sharing Resources Deployable for the EU Civil Protection Mechanism

Poles are highly aware of the fact that Polish civil protection assets are being deployed abroad in order to assist other disaster- and crisis-stricken countries around the world. Such a type of urgent assistance provided from one country to another in an emergency response situation is regulated and organised by the European Union. Poland, as a state participating in the EU international system, is very active in sharing its civil protection assets, such as in the Beirut explosion case in Lebanon (2020), and during forest fires in Sweden (2018). Using its civil protection resources to assist other countries poses a question on the potential influence of such activities on the homeland’s internal security. Solving the problem has to be preceded by answering the following question — How is the process of international civil protection deployment organised in Poland? Responding to this question required utilising such methods as a review and analysis of literature sources on the European dimension of civil protection, EU legal regulations, statistics, reports as well as Polish standard operating procedures and internal regulations on the national level and was the key method applied in the research. Furthermore, semi-formal interviews with Polish and EU experts were done. The findings prove that operational planning in the researched area is well organised, which significantly diminishes the identified risk for internal security.

Si vis pacem, para bellum: The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830-1848

It was not after 1848 but actually before this revolutionary year that Europe witnessed the abusive proceedings perpetrated by the great powers which undermined the functionality of the post-Napoleonic international order. Even worse, their abuse of power in European and overseas affairs provoked a feeling of mistrust, pessimism and fear and led to discussions about the disappearing justice from the world among a considerable number of Europeans. By the 1840s, under the influence of various crises and conflicts members of the educated middle and upper middle classes in particular changed the way they judged and approached issues of international politics, justice, security and nation building. This process was all the more important in Italy since the search for greater security against external threats became the driving force in the spread of the idea to unite her politically from the Alps to the Sicily. This unity, along with well defensible frontiers, a strong army and navy and good material resources including colonial ones, was to ensure a more secure position within the system of European politics and thereby better prospects for a peaceful future according to the phrase Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, this power-oriented response to insecurity had devastating consequences for the generally shared desire to live in peace with other nations, represented by another aspiration deeply rooted in the national movement: to establish a better international order. To reveal this important process of pan-European dimension is the principal aim of this book, and the Italian arena of politics in 1830–1848 has been chosen to clarify this sea change in political behaviour.

Competences of Career Counsellors in Conditions of Uncertain Future - Context of 4th Industrial Revolution

Current labour market is influenced by uncertainty posed by challenges of occurring trends. Those trends are on the one hand shaped by demographic changes influencing labour supply and on the other hand transformations provided by 4th industrial revolution. Emerging innovative technological development, in addition to demographics and rising inequality, brings widespread automation and irreversible shifts in the structure of jobs giving rise to new opportunities but also creating new areas of uncertainty. The unpredictability of the labour market sets new tasks for the institutions supporting better adjustment of labour supply to demand needs. Crucial institution realizing those tasks are career counsellors who provide their service for different groups of clients. Effective career guidance is determined by comprehensive competences of counsellors. It should be noted that with regard to competences in the context of Industry 4.0, most of the research to date has focused on the analysis of employees' competences rather than on the competences of career counsellors. The development of the future labour market is subject to a hitherto unknown transformation. These premises, as well as the originality and validity of the research, both in the national and European dimension, prompted the authors to conduct innovative qualitative study. The aim of the article is to identify future competences of career counsellors in line with the ongoing trends on the labour market

Psychosocial and Curricular Determinations of Intercultural Education Programs

The article is scientifically and axiologically justified by the assumption that the conceptual-methodological basis and the results in the field of intercultural psychosociology are sources and landmarks in the development of intercultural education and school curriculum. In this respect, this study highlighted relevant contributions in intercultural psychosociology, their educational and curricular impact and also explored some possibilities of developing intercultural education and reconfiguration of the school curriculum from the perspective of interculturalism. The article started from the general hypothesis that if we outline the students’ social representations, attitudes and curricular preferences concerning intercultural education of students, correlated to the European dimension of education, then it will be possible to develop the premises for action and intervention model in the field of intercultural education curricula. The general hypothesis was operationalized in four particular hypotheses that were subsequently confirmed. The research was conducted using an adapted questionnaire (InterQ) based on authors’ previous studies in the field of curriculum and was applied on a sample of 213 students from the University of Craiova. The article also includes critical analyses, personal opinions and authors' opinions on concerning socio-educational transposition of the research results from intercultural psychosociology, and also advances some directions for future research.

A Pan-European Dimension to the Implementation and Protection of Civil Rights

The study of subjective law in the scientific and theoretical literature has a long history, which is conditioned by the crucial importance of this category for private law in general and legal relations in particular. The purpose of the article is to analyse the pan-European dimension of the exercise and protection of civil rights. Key methods of research used are the method of comparative legal analysis and the method of linguistic and systematic interpretation of legal texts. It was concluded that the court’s method of protecting subjective civil rights must comply with the rules of law and their meaning, which should be understood on the basis of a systematic analysis of the mechanism for legal regulation.

Fricke, Carola (2020): European Dimension of Metropolitan Policies. Policy Learning and Reframing of Metropolitan Regions

Book review

The Europeanization of metropolitan regions from below: Comparing the European engagement of two archetypical metropolises

Since the early 2000s, the Europeanization of metropolitan regions from below takes place in a political process with variable geometry and differential intensity. While ‘the metropolitan’ as a political label and research topic has witnessed an impressive upswing in Europe, a concrete understanding of the Europeanization of metropolitan regions is still missing. This article highlights and explains the Europeanization of metropolitan regions in Europe as particular subnational authorities of which only a small group of forerunners recently develop the capacity to act at a European scale. The Europeanization of metropolitan regions is conceptualized as a political process from below, going beyond the initial definition of Europeanization as domestic impact. Thereby, the article lays particular focus on ‘where’ and ‘when’ the European dimension of metropolitan regions is produced. Moreover, the analysis puts the emerging European engagement of metropolitan regions into a larger perspective by discussing it in the context of the increasing international agency of cities. The article questions, first, how a European dimension has developed in metropolitan policies and, second, what modes of engagement contribute to the metropolitan regions’ increasing Europeanization. Empirically, the metropolitan regions of Lyon and Stuttgart present examples of Europeanized metropolises with an exceptional engagement. Comparing modes of engagement in these two metropolitan regions allows understanding the particular characteristics contributing to the formation of an archetype of Europeanized metropolis.

European Platform for Collaborative Educational Networking

The European Schoolnet (EUN) is a network of networks. The objective of the EUN is to promote the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) among schools in Europe: * to strengthen collaboration between schools * to foster a European dimension in education * to develop the use of ICT in schools