Academic literature on the topic 'Salesian youth center'

ResumenLa educación Salesiana tiene como centro de su misión educativa a adolescentesy jóvenes especialmente, hoy su radio de acción se ha extendido a niños y uni-versitarios, diversificando con ello su oferta educativa. Si queremos responder alos nuevos retos que nos plantea esta sociedad, debemos entender la esencia delsistema preventivo y como lo podemos aplicar ciento sesenta años después. Parareleer el Sistema preventivo y hacer un proceso hermenéutico debemos conside-rar tres elementos: el primero es hacer un recorrido por la realidad actual paracomprenderla e interpretarla; el segundo aspecto es profundizar los principiosque conforman el Sistema Preventivo de Don Bosco, la conceptualización desus elementos nos permiten saber con claridad el principio y fin de la propuestaeducativa pastoral del Oratorio Salesiano. El tercer momento es la actualizaciónde los fundamentos del Sistema Preventivo Salesiano para que se pueda aplicar ala realidad que vive cada uno de los Centros Educativos Salesianos. El principio“con Don Bosco y con los tiempos” es esencial para innovar nuestro modo deeducar y de actualizar la pedagogía salesiana.Palabras clave: Sistema preventivo. Educación salesiana. Juventud. Releitura do Sistema Preventivo de Dom BoscoResumoA educação salesiana tem como centro de sua missão educativa, especialmente,adolescentes e jovens. Hoje, seu raio de ação se estendeu às crianças e universi-tários, diversificando, com isso, sua oferta educativa. Se pretendemos responderaos novos desafios que nos colocam essa sociedade, devemos entender a essênciado Sistema Preventivo e como podemos aplicá-lo 160 anos depois. Para relero Sistema Preventivo e fazer um processo hermenêutico, devemos considerartrês elementos: o primeiro, é percorrer a realidade atual para compreendê-la einterpretá-la; o segundo aspecto é aprofundar os princípios que conformam oSistema Preventivo de Dom Bosco, pois a conceituação de seus elementos nospermitem saber com clareza o princípio e o fim da proposta educativa pastoraldo Oratório Salesiano; o terceiro momento é a atualização dos fundamentos doSistema Preventivo salesiano, para que se possa aplicá-lo à realidade vivida porcada um dos Centros Educativos Salesianos. O princípio “com Dom Bosco ecom os tempos” é essencial para inovar nosso modo de educar e de atualizar apedagogia salesiana.Palavras-chave: Sistema preventivo. Educação salesiana. Juventude. Re-reading of the Preventive System of Don BoscoAbstractThis article, a reinterpretation of the prevention system proposed by Don Bos-co, originates from the concerns with the little correlation that is perceived,at the same time, between the educational proposal of Don Bosco and theinstitutional and family educational practice. This can be seen, according toour argument, in the scarce co-responsibility between educators and parentsin the educational task; the failure to create a family environment; The lack oftrust placed in young people who attend Salesian centers and little concern tobe witnesses of life before these young people. It is said that the preventivesystem characterizes a Christian lifestyle, which is based on respect, toleranceand valuation of the other. Brands that an education based on salesianity mustalways seek and preserve.Keywords: Prevention system. Salesian education. Youth

Introduction Utopia has always been countercultural, and ever since technological progress has allowed, utopia has been using alternative media to promote and strengthen its underpinning ideals. In this article, I am seeking to clarify the connections between counterculture and alternative media in utopian contexts to demonstrate their reciprocity, then draw together these threads through reference to a well-known figure of the Rainbow Region–Rusty Miller. His trajectory from iconic surfer and Aquarian reporter to mediator for utopian politics and ideals in the Rainbow Region encompasses in a single identity the three elements underpinning this study. In concluding, I will turn to Rusty’s Byron Guide, questioning its classification as alternative or mainstream media, and whether Byron Bay is represented as countercultural and utopian in this long-running and ongoing publication. Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts Counterculture is an umbrella that enfolds utopia, among many other genres and practices. It has been most often situated in the 1960s and 1970s as a new form of social movement embodying youth resistance to the technocratic mainstream and its norms of gender, sexuality, politics, music, and language (Roszak). Many scholars of counterculture underscore its utopian impulses both in the projection of better societies where the social goals are achieved, and in the withdrawal from mainstream society into intentional communities (Yinger 194-6; McKay 5; Berger). Before exploring further the connections between counterculture and alternative media, I want to define the scope of countercultural utopian contexts in general, and the Rainbow Region in particular. Utopia is a neologism created by Sir Thomas More almost 500 years ago to designate the island community that demonstrates order, harmony, justice, hope and desire in the right balance so that it seems like an ideal land. This imaginary place described in Utopia (1516) as a counterpoint to the social, political and religious shortcomings of contemporary 16th century British society, has attracted accusations of heresy (Molner), and been used as a pejorative term, an insult to denigrate political projects that seem farfetched or subversive, especially during the 19th century. Almost every study of utopian theory, literature and practice points to a dissatisfaction with the status quo, which inspires writers, politicians, architects, artists, individuals and communities to rail against it (see for example Davis, Moylan, Suvin, Levitas, Jameson). Kingsley Widmer’s book Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts reiterates what many scholars have stated when he writes that utopias should be understood in terms of what they are countering. Lyman Tower Sargent defines utopia as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” and utopianism as “social dreaming” (9), to which I would add that both indicate an improvement on the alternatives, and may indeed be striving to represent the best place imaginable. Utopian contexts, by extension, are those situations where the “social dreaming” is enhanced through human agency, good governance, just laws, education, and work, rather than being a divinely ordained state of nature (Schaer et al). In this way, utopian contexts are explicitly countercultural through their very conception, as human agency is required and their emphasis is on social change. These modes of resistance against dominant paradigms are most evident in attempts to realise textual projections of a better society in countercultural communal experiments. Almost immediately after its publication, More’s Utopia became the model for Bishop Vasco de Quiroga’s communitarian hospital-town Santa Fe de la Laguna in Michoacan, Mexico, established in the 1530s as a counterculture to the oppressive enslavement and massacres of the Purhépecha people by Nuno Guzmán (Green). The countercultural thrust of the 1960s and 1970s provided many utopian contexts, perhaps most readily identifiable as the intentional communities that spawned and flourished, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (Metcalf, Shared Lives). They were often inspired by texts such as Charles A. Reich’s The Greening of America (1970) and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), and this convergence of textual practices and alternative lifestyles can be seen in the development of Australia’s own Rainbow Region. Located in northern New South Wales, the geographical area of the Northern Rivers that has come to be known as the Rainbow Region encompasses Byron Bay, Nimbin, Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Clunes, Dunoon, Federal, with Lismore as the region’s largest town. But more evocative than these place names are the “rivers and creeks, vivid green hills, fruit and nut farms […] bounded by subtropical beaches and rainforest mountains” (Wilson 1). Utopian by nature, and recognised as such by the indigenous Bundjalung people who inhabited it before the white settlers, whalers and dairy farmers moved in, the Rainbow Region became utopian through culture–or indeed counterculture–during the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin when the hippies of Mullumbimby and the surfers of Byron Bay were joined by up to 10,000 people seeking alternative ways of being in the world. When the party was over, many Aquarians stayed on to form intentional communities in the beautiful region, like Tuntable Falls, Nimbin’s first and largest such cooperative (Metcalf, From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality 74-83). In utopian contexts, from the Renaissance to the 1970s and beyond, counterculture has underpinned and alternative media has circulated the aims and ideals of the communities of resistance. The early utopian context of the Anabaptist movement has been dubbed as countercultural by Sigrun Haude: “During the reign of the Münster (1534-5) Anabaptists erected not only a religious but also a social and political counterculture to the existing order” (240). And it was this Protestant Reformation that John Downing calls the first real media war, with conflicting movements using pamphlets produced on the new technology of the Gutenberg press to disseminate their ideas (144). What is striking here is the confluence of ideas and practices at this time–countercultural ideals are articulated, published, and disseminated, printing presses make this possible, and utopian activists realise how mass media can be used and abused, exploited and censored. Twentieth century countercultural movements drew on the lessons learnt from historical uprising and revolutions, understanding the importance of getting the word out through their own forms of media which, given the subversive nature of the messages, were essentially alternative, according to the criteria proposed by Chris Atton: alternative media may be understood as a radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media. Alternative media privileges a journalism that is closely wedded to notions of social responsibility, replacing an ideology of “objectivity” with overt advocacy and oppositional practices. Its practices emphasize first person, eyewitness accounts by participants; a reworking of the populist approaches of tabloid newspapers to recover a “radical popular” style of reporting; collective and antihierarchical forms of organization which eschew demarcation and specialization–and which importantly suggest an inclusive, radical form of civic journalism. (267) Nick Couldry goes further to point out the utopian processes required to identify agencies of change, including alternative media, which he defines as “practices of symbolic production which contest (in some way) media power itself–that is, the concentration of symbolic power in media institutions” (25). Alternative media’s orientation towards oppositional and contestatory practices demonstrates clear parallels between its ambitions and those of counterculture in utopian contexts. From the 1960s onwards, the upsurge in alternative newspaper numbers is commensurate with the blossoming of the counterculture and increased utopian contexts; Susan Forde describes it thus: “a huge resurgence in the popularity of publications throughout the ‘counter-culture’ days of the 1960s and 1970s” (“Monitoring the Establishment”, 114). The nexus of counterculture and alternative media in such utopian contexts is documented in texts like Roger Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution and Bob Osterlag’s People’s Movements, People’s Press. Like the utopian newspapers that came out of 18th and 19th century intentional communities, many of the new alternative press served to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the countercultural movements, often focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events (see also Frobert). The radical press in Australia was also gaining ground, with OZ in Australia from 1963-1969, and then from 1967-1973 in London. Magazines launched by Philip Frazer like The Digger, Go-Set, Revolution and High Times, and university student newspapers were the main avenues for youth and alternative expression on the Vietnam war and conscription, gay and lesbian rights, racism, feminism and ecological activism (Forde, Challenging the News; Cock & Perry). Nimbin 1973: Rusty Miller and The Byron Express The 1973 Aquarius Festival of counterculture in Nimbin (12-23 May) was a utopian context that had an alternative media life of its own before it arrived in the Rainbow Region–in student publications like Tharnuka and newsletters distributed via the Aquarius Foundation. There were other voices that announced the coming of the Aquarius Festival to Nimbin and reported on its impact, like The Digger from Melbourne and the local paper, The Northern Star. During the Festival, the Nimbin Good Times first appeared as the daily bulletin and continues today with the original masthead drawn by the Festival’s co-organiser, Graeme Dunstan. Some interesting work has been done on this area, ranging from general studies of the Rainbow Region (Wilson; Munro-Clark) to articles analysing its alternative press (Ward & van Vuuren; Martin & Ellis), but to date, there has been no focus on the Rainbow Region’s first alternative newspaper, The Byron Express. Co-edited by Rusty Miller and David Guthrie, this paper presented and mediated the aims and desires of the Aquarian movement. Though short-lived, as only 7 issues were published from 15 February 1973 to September 1973, The Byron Express left a permanent printed vestige of the Aquarian counterculture movement’s activism and ideals from an independent regional perspective. Miller’s credentials for starting up the newspaper are clear–he has always been a trailblazer, mixing “smarts” with surfing and environmental politics. After graduating from a Bachelor of Arts in history from San Diego State College, he first set foot in Byron Bay during his two semesters with the inaugural Chapman College affiliated University of the Seven Seas in 1965-6. Returning to his hometown of Encinitas, he co-founded the Surf Research accessory company with legendary Californian surfer Mike Doyle, and launched Waxmate, the first specially formulated surf wax in 1967 (Davis, Witzig & James; Warshaw 217), selling his interest in the business soon after to spend a couple of years “living the counterculture life on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai” (Davis, Witzig & James), before heading back to Byron Bay via Bells Beach in 1970 (Miller & Shantz) and Sydney, where he worked as an advertising salesman and writer with Tracks surfing magazine (Martin & Ellis). In 1971, he was one of the first to ride the now famous waves of Uluwatu in Bali, and is captured with Steven Cooney in the iconic publicity image for Albe Falzon’s 1971 film, Morning Of The Earth. The champion surfer from the US knew a thing or two about counterculture, alternative media, advertising and business when he found his new utopian context in Byron Bay. Miller and Guthrie’s front-page editorial of the inaugural issue of The Byron Express, published on 15 February 1973, with the byline “for a higher shire”, expressed the countercultural (cl)aims of the publication. Land use, property development and the lack of concern that some people in Byron had for their impact on the environment and people of the region were a prime target: With this first issue of the Byron Express, we hope to explain that the area is badly in need of a focal point. The transitions of present are vast and moving fast. The land is being sold and resold. Lots of money is coming into the area in the way of developments […] caravan parts, hotels, businesses and real estate. Many of the trips incoming are not exactly “concerned” as to what long term effect such developments might have on the environment and its people. We hope to serve as a focus of concern and service, a centre for expression and reflection. We would ask your contributions in vocal and written form. We are ready for some sock it to ya criticism… and hope you would grab us upon the street to tell us how you feel…The mission of this alternative newspaper is thereby defined by the need for a “focal point” that inscribes the voices of the community in a freely accessible narrative, recorded in print for posterity. Although this first issue contains no mention of the Aquarius Festival, there were already rumours circulating about it, as organisers Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen had been up to Main Arm, Mullumbimby and Nimbin on reconnaissance missions beginning in September 1972. Instead, there was an article on “Mullumbimby Man–Close to the Land” by Nicholas Shand, who would go on to found the community-based weekly newspaper The Echo in 1986, then called The Brunswick Valley Echo and still going strong. Another by Bob McTavish asked whether there could be a better form of government; there was a surf story, and a soul food section with a recipe for honey meade entitled “Do you want to get out of it on 10 cents a bottle?” The second issue continues in much the same vein. It is not until the third issue comes out on 17 March 1973 that the Aquarius Festival is mentioned in a skinny half column on page four. And it’s not particularly promising: Arrived at Nimbin, sleepy hamlet… Office in disused R.S.L. rooms, met a couple of guys recently arrived, said nothing was being done. “Only women here, you know–no drive”. Met Joanne and Vi, both unable to say anything to be reported… Graham Dunstan (codenamed Superfest) and John Allen nowhere in sight. Allen off on trip overseas. Dunstan due back in a couple of weeks. 10 weeks to go till “they” all come… and to what… nobody is quite sure. This progress report provides a fascinating contemporary insight into the tensions–between the local surfies and hippies on one hand, and the incoming students on the other–around the organisation of the Aquarius Festival. There is an unbridled barb at the sexist comments made by the guys, implicit criticism of the absent organisers, obvious skepticism about whether anyone will actually come to the festival, and wonderment at what it will be like. Reading between the lines, we might find a feeling of resentment about not being privy to new developments in their own backyard. The final lines of the article are non-committal “Anyway, let’s see what eventuates when the Chiefs return.” It seems that all has been resolved by the fifth issue of 11 May, which is almost entirely dedicated to the Aquarius Festival with the front page headline “Welcome to the New Age”. But there is still an undertone of slight suspicion at what the newcomers to the area might mean in terms of property development: The goal is improving your fellow man’s mind and nourishment in concert with your own; competition to improve your day and the quality of the day for society. Meanwhile, what is the first thing one thinks about when he enters Byron and the area? The physical environment is so magnificent and all encompassing that it can actually hold a man’s breath back a few seconds. Then a man says, “Wow, this land is so beautiful that one could make a quid here.” And from that moment the natural aura and spells are broken and the mind lapses into speculative equations, sales projections and future interest payments. There is plenty of “love” though, in this article: “The gathering at Nimbin is the most spectacular demonstration of the faith people have in a belief that is possible (and possible just because they want it to be) to live in love, through love together.” The following article signed by Rusty Miller “A Town Together” is equally focused on love: “See what you could offer the spirit at Nimbin. It might introduce you to a style that could lead to LOVE.” The centre spread features photos: the obligatory nudes, tents, and back to nature activities, like planting and woodworking. With a text box of “random comments” including one from a Lismore executive: ‘I took my wife and kids out there last weekend and we had such a good time. Seems pretty organized and the town was loaded with love. Heard there is some hepatitis about and rumours of VD. Everyone happy.” And another from a land speculator (surely the prime target of Miller’s wrath): “Saw guys kissing girls on the street, so sweet, bought 200 acres right outside of town, it’s going to be valuable out there some day.” The interview with Johnny Allen as the centrepiece includes some pertinent commentary on the media and reveals a well-founded suspicion of the mediatisation of the Aquarius Festival: We have tried to avoid the media actually. But we haven’t succeeded in doing so. Part of the basic idea is that we don’t need to be sold. All the down town press can do is try and interpret you. And by doing that it automatically places it in the wrong sort of context. So we’ve tried to keep it to people writing about the festival to people who will be involved in it. It’s an involvement festival. Coopting The Byron Express as an “involved” party effects a fundamental shift from an external reporting newspaper to a kind of proponent or even propaganda for the Aquarius festival and its ideas, like so many utopian newspapers had done before. It is therefore perhaps inevitable that The Byron Express should disappear very soon after the Aquarius festival. Fiona Martin and Rhonda Ellis explain that Rusty Miller stopped producing the paper because he “found the production schedule exhausting and his readership too small to attract consistent advertising” (5). At any rate, there were only two more issues, one in June–with some follow up reporting of the festival–and another in September 1973, which was almost entirely devoted to environmentally focused features, including an interview with Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). Byron Bay 2013: Thirty Years of Rusty’s Byron Guide What Rusty did next is fairly well known locally–surfing and teaching people how to surf and a bit of writing. When major local employer Walkers slaughterhouse closed in 1983, he and his wife, social geographer Tricia Shantz, were asked by the local council to help promote Byron Bay as a tourist destination, writing the first Byron guide in 1983-4. Incorporating essays by local personalities and dedicated visitors, the Byron guide perpetuates the ideal of environmental awareness, spiritual experimentation, and respect for the land and sea. Recent contributors have included philosopher Peter Singer, political journalist Kerry O’Brien, and writer John Ralston Saul, and Miller and Shantz always have an essay in there themselves. “People, Politics and Culture” is the new byline for the 2013 edition. And Miller’s opening essay mediates the same utopian desires and environmental community messages that he espoused from the beginning of The Byron Express: The name Byron Bay represents something that we constantly try to articulate. If one was to dream up a menu of situations and conditions to compose a utopia, Australia would be the model of the nation-state and Byron would have many elements of the actual place one might wish to live for the rest of their lives. But of course there is always the danger of excesses in tropical paradises especially when they become famous destinations. Australia is being held to ransom for the ideology that we should be slaves to money and growth at the cost of a degraded and polluted physical and social environment. Byron at least was/is a refuge against this profusion of the so-called real-world perception that holds profit over environment as the way we must choose for our future. Even when writing for a much more commercial medium, Miller retains the countercultural utopian spirit that was crystallised in the Aquarius festival of 1973, and which remains relevant to many of those living in and visiting the Rainbow Region. Miller’s ethos moves beyond the alternative movements and communities to infiltrate travel writing and tourism initiatives in the area today, as evidenced in the Rusty’s Byron Guide essays. By presenting more radical discourses for a mainstream public, Miller together with Shantz have built on the participatory role that he played in launching the region’s first alternative newspaper in 1973 that became albeit briefly the equivalent of a countercultural utopian gazette. Now, he and Shantz effectively play the same role, producing a kind of countercultural form of utopian media for Byron Bay that corresponds to exactly the same criteria mentioned above. Through their free publication, they aim to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the Rainbow Region, focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events. The Byron Bay that Miller and Shantz promote is resolutely utopian, and certainly countercultural if compared to other free publications like The Book, a new shopping guide, or mainstream media elsewhere. Despite this new competition, they are planning the next edition for 2015 with essays to make people think, talk, and understand the region’s issues, so perhaps the counterculture is still holding its own against the mainstream. References Atton, Chris. “What Is ‘Alternative’ Journalism?” Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism 4.3 (2003): 267-72. Berger, Bennett M. The Survival of a Counterculture: Ideological Work and Everyday Life among Rural Communards. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004. Cock, Peter H., & Paul F. Perry. “Australia's Alternative Media.” Media Information Australia 6 (1977): 4-13. Couldry, Nick. “Mediation and Alternative Media, or Relocating the Centre of Media and Communication Studies.” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 103, (2002): 24-31. Davis, Dale, John Witzig & Don James. “Rusty Miller.” Encyclopedia of Surfing. 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/miller-rusty›. Downing, John. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Davis, J.C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Forde, Susan. Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Independent Media. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2011. ---. “Monitoring the Establishment: The Development of the Alternative Press in Australia” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 87 (May 1998): 114-133. Frobert, Lucien. “French Utopian Socialists as the First Pioneers in Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 35 (2011): 729-49. Green, Toby. Thomas More’s Magician: A Novel Account of Utopia in Mexico. London: Phoenix, 2004. Goffman, Ken, & Dan Joy. Counterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. New York: Villard Books. 2004. Haude, Sigrun. “Anabaptism.” The Reformation World. Ed. Andrew Pettegree. London: Routledge, 2000. 237-256. Jameson, Fredric. Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Martin, Fiona, & Rhonda Ellis. “Dropping In, Not Out: The Evolution of the Alternative Press in Byron Shire 1970-2001.” Transformations 2 (2002). 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_02/pdf/MartinEllis.pdf›. McKay, George. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London: Verso, 1996. Metcalf, Bill. From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality: Cooperative Lifestyles in Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. ---. Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living around the Globe. Forres, UK: Findhorn Press, 1996. Miller, Rusty & Tricia Shantz. Turning Point: Surf Portraits and Stories from Bells to Byron 1970-1971. Surf Research. 2012. Molnar, Thomas. Utopia: The Perennial Heresy. London: Tom Stacey, 1972. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York: Methuen, 1986. Munro-Clark, Margaret. Communes in Rural Australia: The Movement since 1970. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1986. Osterlag, Bob. People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: Anchor, 1969. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1-37. Schaer, Roland, Gregory Claeys, and Lyman Tower Sargent, eds. Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford UP, 2000. Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. Columbia: Columbia UP, 2001. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Ward, Susan, & Kitty van Vuuren. “Belonging to the Rainbow Region: Place, Local Media, and the Construction of Civil and Moral Identities Strategic to Climate Change Adaptability.” Environmental Communication 7.1 (2013): 63-79. Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Wilson, Helen. (Ed.). Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University Press, 2003. Widmer, Kingsley. Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts. Ann Arbor, London: UMI Research Press, 1988. Yinger, J. Milton. Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York: The Free Press, 1982.

The main theme of the diploma is the design of a new Roman Catholic church and parish within the framework of the construction of a panel residential complex in Nový Líšeň in Brno. Due to the fact that Salesian children and youth workers came to the area in 1990, it became necessary to build a church and a Salesian youth center. This proposal is based on an analysis of the urban context. The church is surrounded by prefabricated houses next to a school, a health clinic, a shopping center, and a Salesian youth center in a gently sloping area facing south with the dominant Palava hills.

Diploma thesis "The course and long-term effects of animation as a method of working with adolescents" deals with the methods of working with endangered youth in the field and in the low-threshold facility for children and youth. It represents the reflection of the development of the methodology of the work of a particular organization in the Vltava housing estate in České Budějovice in the perspective of six years, when the author also worked here with a break. This time perspective makes it possible to help assess whether and to what extent the chosen approach appears to be effective. Above all, it allows to monitor the development of clients' life paths during a sensitive period from adolescence to adulthood. The potential of animation over other guiding and prevention systems can be to focus on activation, respect for life situations and the needs of clients, which are largely developmental, but also reflects social and psychological deficits in specific individual cases as well as in group life. Phenomenologically and ethnographically oriented research follows the previous author's qualification work and monitors the development of the contact center client community in the context of workers' suggestions and spontaneous life events. It is also complemented by a trio of individual case studies...

The topic of the thesis is reflection of the conception of evangelization and its realization in the Salesian youth centres. It consists of two parts: the theoretical and the practical one. The first of them describes the evolution of the role of religion in the society in periods usually described as modern and postmodern. Then the meanings of the word evangelization and their relationships with other key words are introduced through some of the important church doctrinal documents set out afte

Annotation: The presented work deals with the contemporary Salesian education on the background of pedagogical principles of the preventive system of Don Bosco, which was formulated as a response to concrete historical conditions of life and needs of young boys in Turine in the second half of the 19th century and was based on a personal experience of a young priest and tutor John Bosco. The goal of the work is to ascertain through an analysis of the contemporary Salesisan education and concrete activities of Czech Salesian Youth Centres, whether and in what extant the Salesian activities can be considered as a social pedagogical work. The work is divided into five parts. Part One is focused on the historical context of the origin of the Salesian movement, whereas Part Two on the preventive system, as was applied by Don Bosco in his work. Part three is dedicated to the contemporary Salesian education and Part Four describes the functions, methods and forms of work in Czech Salesian Youth Centres. In Part Five I examine through the analysis of the contemporary Salesian education and activities of selected Czech Salesian Youth Centres, whether and in which extant the Salesian activities reflect and fulfil social pedagogical aspects of youth work. Key words: Social pedagogical work; Bosco Giovanni; Salesians of...

This Thesis is focused on the attitudes of Roma parents to the education of their children in the pre-school Education program at the Salesian Centre a centre for children and youth in ČB. The Thesis describes the Roma people, their ethnicity and cultural diversity and their relation to education. It also describes the Salesian community, their Centre for children and youth in ČB, its establishment and programs focused on the pre-school age-range. It follows the pre-school education curriculum in the Czech Republic. The practical part of this Thesis includes methodology of research and grounds for its usage, description of research and data evaluation. The conclusion includes a discussion about established parents attitudes to Education together with the literature and some recommendations for an adjustment and an improvement of the pre-school program, which is set up correctly, nevertheless the research shows some suggestions which could have led to the Program attendance increasing.

Presented work deals with analysis and description of the pastoral approaches of youth workers in the Salesian youth centres. The common characteristics of the Salesian youth centres are presented in the introductory part of the work. At first this theoretic part deals with the common conception of the Salesian youth pastoral ministry, afterwards deals with the official Czech conception. Second part of the work is applied. It is focused on the qualitative research realised in autumn 2007. It involved 18 respondents from the Salesian youth centres. This applied part starts with description of the research preparation and continues with description of the research process. Finally it deals with the data synthesis. There is a list of the results at the end of this part. There is a large supplement of the data attached at the end of the work.

The diploma thesis is focused on preventive activities in the context of social work with youth at risk and their implementation in NZDM (low-threshold facility for children and youth) at SaSM-DDM ČB (Salesian Centre for youth-children and youth centre in České Budějovice). The aim of the thesis is based on research and on available literary sources to mapp the development of preventive activities in NZDM at SaSM-DDM ČB, their functionality and consequences in efficiency on social environment and social functionality of clients of NZDM. The research was carried out by a qualitative method, using semistructured interviews. In the thesis, there is the term "low-threshold" specified, focusing on the NZDM. The thesis defines the topic of prevention of social failure and of preventive activities directed from employers towards employees. The work also presents the social pathological phenomena that occur in the target group of NZDM at SaSM-DDM ČB. Also, the target group of NZDM at SaSM-DDM ČB is discussed in the context of its life situation. Finally, there are ethical dilemmas related to preventive activities or the legal obligation of NZDM. Almost the entire period of function of the NZDM at SaSM-DDM ČB was mapped in this thesis and it was concluded that the preventive activities are still developing and responding to the needs of clients.

The thesis deals with school educational programs of institutions which organize free time activities for children and youth in Pilsen and in Blovice. The first part characterises school educational programs, free time education or institutions which organize free time activities.The beginning of this first part deals with law of free time education in school system, forms of free time education and then it deals with process of making the school educational programs, their content and structure. In practical part there is a specification of selected institutions which organize free time in which the research was done. There are the research characteristics, questions and methods of the research. Next part analyses and compares school educational programs in selected organizations which work with free time activities for children and teenagers. The aim of the practical part is to compare information which is written in school educational programs and assess the quality and quantity of detected data. At the end there are results of this research and résumé.

In exordium of thesis I am engaged in the explanation of the conception of socially pathological phenomena and in the diagnosis of this conception into the social pathology and then I describe some of these significant negative and dangerous phenomena, which threaten the youth, too. Mainly I target violent phenomena and dependencies. Subsequently I am resolving the problem of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention, too. I am writing especially about different recommendations and measures, how not to need occur the prevention, especially the tertiary prevention. Next I target the secondary prevention especially the prevention of violent phenomena and dependencies. In conclusion I am focusing on Salesian youth centre - centre of children and youth in České Budějovice and shortly I describe activities of these centre with an eye on the pursuance or the realization of the secondary prevention not to occur the origin or the expansion of socially pathological phenomena.

The aim of the master's thesis is to clarify the concept of open clubs. Basic terms connected to an open club are defined in the first part of the thesis. Spontaneous activities and low-threshold approaches are the most important there. The principle of low-threshold approaches are typical also for other institutions, that are registered in law. It concerns low-threshold centres for children and youth. The origin, development, aiming and activities of these centres are described. The thesis explains open activities for young people offered by different leisure time centres. Also open clubs and Salesian centres offer these activities. The last chapter of this part shows basic differences between an open club and a low-threshold centre for children and youth. The second part of the thesis deals with a detailed analysis of the School Education Programme of a chosen centre carrying on an open club. The aim of the research is to find information about the open club in the document and evaluate the extent and the quality of the discovered details.