Trade Union Education and Life Long Learning in Modern Greece —A Critical and Empirical Approach Concerning the Case of GSEE

The issue of lifelong adult learning has a long tradition in several EU countries and specifically in the field of the trade unions which seem to function not only as having a defending role towards their employees but an educational one as well. In light of the educational philosophy in the field of adult education, Greece still lags behind most of Europe in its modernization policies of the education system thus widening the social and democratic deficit. Based on this reasoning, in the context of lifelong learning, KANEP and INE/GSEE designed the training program “Education and Work” at a time when the applied policies of lifelong learning are faced with a number of challenges, succeeding though to combine a wide range of theoretical and technical methodological tools, in order to fully meet the several needs of the members of the trade union movement. So, at a time when the forces of labour gradually collapse, the trade union educational intervention in Greece becomes of vital importance in order for the vocational and social progress of the workers to be ensured

WORKING CONDITIONS OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS DURING THE PANDEMIC - THE CASE OF GREEK UNIVERSITIES

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted every aspect of human life including education. All around the world, campuses closed, and teaching-learning has moved online. Despite all these challenges, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have reacted positively and managed to ensure the continuity of teaching-learning, research, and service to society during the pandemic. This article highlights on major impacts of Covid-19 on HEIs in Greece and aims to capture in quantitative terms the working conditions of university professors during that period. This study thus employs a quantitative approach based on a survey design to purposively collect data from 219 tutors in order to discuss the implementation of online learning amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Greek higher education context and investigate the challenges experienced by university teachers during this period.  Article visualizations

NEETs and “Structured Social Interventions” in Rural Areas: The Case of Thessaly in Greece

This article aims at approaching the phenomenon of Young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEETs) using the empirical data from an action against unemployment in the region of Thessaly in Greece. The main purpose of the study was to examine the attitudes and perceptions of NEETs on important issues related to employment, training, entrepreneurship, as well as their main decisions and perspectives regarding their future. This approach tries to shape a multidimensional proposal which is linked to the core peculiarities of the region of Thessaly by highlighting the transition from “specialized individual action plans” to “structured social interventions”. In conclusion, it attempts to promote a structured and applicable policy framework, shedding light on the dimensions of a crucial social issue such as NEETs promoting the drastic role of structured interventions on local and regional level

The Entrance System to the Greek Tertiary Education: Critical Considerations and Conceptualizations

Abstract The entrance system to Tertiary Education has been and always is the peak of the Greek educational policy due to its connection with the increasing demand for University studies within the Greek society. University education is tied to the increased social status and access to the tertiary economic domain. Access to tertiary education is longitudinally an utmost administrative issue for every political authority. Therefore, entrance examinations to Tertiary Education are a central point both for the Greek educational system structure and the Greek citizen's educational and social course. It is regarded that up today this issue has been addressed seriously neither by the university community nor by the decision making political carriers

Higher-Spin Gauge Fields Interacting with Scalars: The Lagrangian Cubic Vertex

We apply a recently presented BRST procedure to construct the Largangian cubic vertex of higher-spin gauge field triplets interacting with massive free scalars. In flat space, the spin-s triplet propagates the series of irreducible spin-s, s-2,..,0/1 modes which couple independently to corresponding conserved currents constructed from the scalars. The simple covariantization of the flat space result is not enough in AdS, as new interaction vertices appear. We present in detail the cases of spin-2 and spin-3 triplets coupled to scalars. Restricting to a single irreducible spin-s mode we uncover previously obtained results. We also present an alternative derivation of the lower spin results based on the idea that higher-spin gauge fields arise from the gauging of higher derivative symmetries of free matter Lagrangians. Our results can be readily applied to holographic studies of higher-spin gauge theories.Comment: 26 pages, v2: references adde

The Refugee Issue in the Greek, German, and British Press During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The media hold an essential role in circulating information, disseminating knowledge, constructing representations, shaping ideologies, and influencing contemporary societies. Since the outburst of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, their attention has been mostly paid to the protection and the health situation of citizens worldwide. Although millions of refugees are also exposed to a new risk with their vulnerable position being deteriorated, the refugee issue in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have been downgraded. In this regard, the current article explores to what extent the refugee issue was salient in the Greek, German, and British press during the pandemic. At the same time, it looks at how the media outlets in all three countries addressed it, focusing on the key topics reported and the interpretive schemata of the pertinent coverage. We use a qualitative content analysis, examining a sample of newspaper articles that were published between 1 January 2021 and 1 May 2021. The results presented by this article suggest that the epidemiological developments or other health aspects related to local populations seem to overshadow the situation of refugees. Yet, media outlets mostly perceive refugees as victims of the pandemic, underlining their vulnerability and marginalisation in health, economic, and education terms. The findings seek to feed the public discussion, providing a fruitful approach to the media narratives and representations of refugees during the Covid-19 crisis

Filling in the implementation gap? Problems in the Greek educational system--An evidence-based explanatory framework and critical reflections

The Greek educational system the last 50 years recounts among numerous reformations and counterreformations. All the continuous changes seem not to be characterized of a clearly defined operational aims and rational continuity. Nowadays Educators, pupils, university students, parents, politicians and citizens criticize various structural and functional aspects of the Greek educational system. The main scope of that piece of research is to record and to analyze the problems of the Greek educational system according to the opinions of Greek undergraduate students. We asked from 400 undergraduate students the written answers to the following question: “According to your opinion which are the main problems of the Greek educational system?. The written answers have been analyzed according to the methodological standards of the classical thematic content analysis. 1468 statements have been summarized and taxonomized in ten main thematic categories. The Cohen test showed a high degree of taxonomic accordance among the reviewer of the written texts (κ=0,97). The content analysis showed that statements can be categorized in 7 main thematic categories