Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The League of Polish Families'

This study examined intergenerational value similarity in Polish immigrant families in Canada in comparison to value similarity in non-immigrant families, that is, Polish families in Poland and Canadian families in Canada. The 460 volunteers---members of 155 families living in Poland and Canada---participated by filling out the parent's or young adult's version of the questionnaire. In order to determine an impact of immigration on the value transmission process, the four scales of the Emic Questionnaire of Cultural Values and Scripts (EQCVS) were employed to measure similarity of value priorities and value congruence between parents and their grownup children in the three cultural groups. Comparisons of the groups' mean value scores revealed a generational effect, which depending on the value type, has shown to be culture-specific. However, both the group and family level of analyses showed no effect of immigration on the parent-child value similarity. The five scales of the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire - College Version (PAFS-QCV), the four scales of Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (OEMEIS) questionnaire and some demographic data were employed to test a possible association of contextual variables with parent-child value similarity. The study identified intergenerational relational styles, value similarity within the family and young-adult's identity status as culture specific predictors of parent-child value similarity. Even though the study applied different methods and levels of data analysis, it did not detect a difference in the levels of parent-child value similarity among immigrant and non-immigrant families. The lack of statistically significant difference as well as observed trends in differences in intergenerational similarity of values among the groups tested, and possible explanations for these results are discussed.

This thesis takes as its subject Polish families who migrated to Edinburgh after Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004. It analyses the families’ post-migration trajectories and experiences, and investigates how these are influenced by factors relating to Polish history and culture, by features particular to the post-accession migration wave and by families’ individual characteristics. Theoretical approaches are drawn from a range of academic disciplines including, reference group theory, literature relating to gender-division of paid work and child-care, and ‘mobilities’ theory, and these approaches are all employed in exploring the factors that influence family members’ integration, employment and lifestyles and their plans for the future. This qualitative study focuses on the experiences of thirty families living in and around Edinburgh in the two years from 2009 to 2011, and combines a variety of methods in data-collection and in analysis. Families were interviewed twice with a year lapse between interviews, couples were interviewed jointly and conversational interviews were supplemented with questionnaires. These design features enable analysis of change over time, provide insight into family-dynamics and generate a range of forms of data. In analysis the combination of thematic coding of interview transcripts with Qualitative Comparative Analysis, allows in-depth exploration of experiences at the individual and family level to be positioned within the context of trends and patterns observed across the whole group. The study finds that the families fall into distinct types according to particular key characteristics and migration strategies, and that the different family types are linked to different experiences of life in Scotland and plans for the future. Younger migrants who arrived independently, decided to stay and later started families are found to be embarking on new careers and making use of the greater flexibility of the employment market in the UK to enact their preferred division of work and childcare. In line with previous research findings, for families whose oldest child is preschool age, school start date in Poland is identified as critical in limiting the period in which parents feel the decision about whether to return can be made. Parents who migrated with school-age children because of financial hardship in Poland are highlighted in this study as a previously under-researched post-accession migrant group; among these families most parents within the study group are found to have been considering permanent settlement at the time of migration and to be maintaining this intention; their decision to stay is particularly influenced by concerns about the difficulties that they anticipate their children would encounter in re-entering the school system in Poland and about their own reduced ability to re-enter the labour market there after de-skilling in employment in the UK. Parents who migrated to take up professional work in the UK are identified as possessing the highest levels of ‘motility’, that is, capacity to make use of mobility generally; among the study group these parents are found to have the most varied options and future plans and to be those who indicate the greatest likelihood of leaving the UK in the short term.

This thesis investigates the workings of belonging to explore the concept’s inherently temporal nature. Through in-depth qualitative case studies of ten Polish families who have moved to Manchester since the 2004 European Union enlargement, time is revealed as a prominent theme in the search for belonging. While the field of migration studies tends to portray migrant belonging as a simple linear accumulation, my study focuses on the more nuanced and complex way in which my participants’ relationship with time as a subjective, relational and lived experience of space has impacted on their migration stories. Time-space is prominent in their tales of searching for belonging as the Polish migrant families make the decision to leave their home country, make their new homes in Britain and face the decision whether to return or remain. By exploring the way in which homely time-spaces are (re)created, negotiated, and interpreted, I highlight the significant role of a temporal framework in understanding migrant belonging.

A comprehensive survey of more than 1,500 former participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) along with more than 300 semi-structured interviews with former WIC participants were designed and conducted in order to identify the barriers influencing eligible program participants to leave the program prematurely. Results from the two phases of data collection were used to determine why eligible families are leaving the WIC program, to better understand the program participation barriers cited by former program participants in order to facilitate the development of a typology of program â leavers,â and to identify the policy and organizational components that provide context for premature WIC program departure by participants. A narrative approach to organizational understanding and Symbolic Interactionism are utilized to provide a theoretical framework for highlighting program areas which may contribute to the participation barriers discovered in this research. Implications for public administration and policy evaluation are provided.
Ph. D.

Cette thèse compare deux pays dont les niveaux de fécondité sont très différents et se pose la question de savoir dans quelle mesure les dispositifs des politiques familiales, et notamment les mesures qui permettent aux femmes de concilier activité professionnelle et vie familiale expliquent cette différence. Les deux pays ont en effet en commun de consacrer proportionnellement un même pourcentage de leur PIB pour soutenir les familles. Or la conciliation entre vie familiale et vie professionnelle est différemment soutenue. Tandis qu'en France les dispositifs et les modes de gardes pour les enfants d'âge préscolaire permettent une rapide reprise de l'activité professionnelle pour les femmes après une naissance, en Hongrie c'est une longue interruption de cette activité qui est soutenue avec les allocations-interruption. Ce système, hérité des années 1960-1990 influence la durée de l'inactivité des femmes qui est en moyenne de 4,7 ans après une naissance. Les mentalités soutiennent d'ailleurs ce mode de fonctionnement puisque les normes sociales préconisent en Hongrie la garde maternelle avant l'âge de trois ans des enfants. Ces normes sont toutefois en train de changer, les femmes jeunes étant plus permissives et souhaitant travailler plus rapidement après une naissance. La quasi obligation de quitter le marché du travail après une naissance a comme résultat que le statut professionnel influence significativement la réalisation des intentions de fécondité en Hongrie tandis qu'en France, en conséquence d'une plus grande neutralité des politiques familiales, le statut professionnel joue moins sur ces intentions dont la réalisation est d'ailleurs plus fréquente.

En république tchèque, les politiques de conciliation travail/famille ont été profondément remodelées à l’occasion de la transition systémique vers l’économie de marché : l’objectif de cette thèse est de décrire les récentes évolutions de politique familiale et d’estimer leurs effets sur l’emploi des mères. Malgré l’accession du pays à l’UE en 2004 et une disponibilité croissante de données, la littérature économique sur le régime d’Etat social, les politiques sociales et familiales et leur effet sur le marché du travail reste très rare. Je montre que l’orientation des politiques familiales après 1989 a induit un fort recul de garde publique d’enfants et creusé un très fort écart d’emploi entre les femmes avec et sans enfants en âge préscolaire. J’analyse les effets de deux réformes de congé parental : la réforme de 1955 qui a prolongé le paiement de l’allocation parental à 4 ans par enfant sans prolonger la durée de la protection d’emploi (3 ans), puis la réforme de 2008 qui a au contraire encouragé un retour en emploi plus rapide qu’auparavant. J’utilise l’Enquête Emploi et j’applique la méthode des Différences-de-différences pour estimer l’impact sur l’emploi des mères à court et moyen terme. Enfin, j’examine les déterminants culturels de long terme des préférences des ménages tchèques en termes de conciliation travail/famille, et je mets en évidence une évolution des valeurs de genre vers un modèle conservateur de la division des tâches. Cette évolution, qui court sur les années 2000, s’oppose à la tendance Européenne générale et est susceptible d’influencer l’orientation des politiques familiales ainsi que leurs effets sur les ménages
Czech work-life conciliation policies and practices have gone through dramatic changes since the 1989 transition from centrally planned to market economy. The objective of this thesis is to describe the recent evolutions of family policies, and to assess their effects on maternal employment. Surprisingly, despite the country’s EU accession in 2004 and an increasing data availability, the economic literature on the Czech welfare state regime, its social and family policy and its effects on labour market outcomes is extremely scarce. I show that post-transitional policies differed from the former interventionist and paternalist orientation, and resulted in a sharp decrease in public childcare supply and the widest parenthood-related employment gaps among OECD countries (41 pp in 2011). I focus on two reforms of the parental leave system: the 1995 Parental Benefit reform which extended the payment of universal parental benefit to 4 years instead of 3 without an equivalent extension of the job protected parental leave; then the 2008 Multi-Speed Parental Benefit reform, which encouraged yet again a faster return to employment. I use the Labour Force Survey and rely on a difference-in-differences strategy to assess the net effect of these reforms on mother’s labour market participation, in both short and medium run. Last but not least, I investigate long-run cultural determinants of the observed work-life conciliation preferences and show that a significant evolution towards conservative gender roles has been taking place in the post-transitional decades. This opposes the general European trend, and is likely to influence family policy orientations as well as the reforms’ outcomes

La politique de l'Union européenne a suscité des débats académiques sur son impact potentiel et l'effet qu'elle exercerait sur les processus politiques au niveau national. les récentes réformes des politiques familiales allemandes et anglaises peuvent être attribuées à l'influence de l'Union européenne au travers de la participation dans les processus d'apprentissage initiés par cet organisme. Cette étude examine les éventuels glissements dans les objectifs des politiques familiales vers la politique de l'Union européenne
The policy of the European Union has packed academic debate on its potential impact on the political process at national level. Recent reforms of german and english family policies can be attributed to the European Union influence through its participation in the learning process initiated by this organisation. This examines the potential shifts in the objectives of national families to European Union objectives

Bonnie Singleton, wife of United States Air Force helicopter rescue pilot Jerry Singleton, saw her world turned upside down when her husband was shot down while making a rescue in North Vietnam in 1965. At first, the United States government advised her to say very little publicly concerning her husband, and she complied. After the capture of the American spy ship, the U.S.S. Pueblo by North Korea, and the apparent success in freeing the naval prisoners when Mrs. Rose Bucher, the ship captain's wife, spoke out, Mrs. Singleton changed her opinion and embarked upon a campaign to raise public awareness about American prisoners of war held by the Communist forces in Southeast Asia. Mrs. Singleton, along with other Dallas-area family members, formed local grass-roots organizations to notify people around the world about the plight of American POWs. They enlisted the aid of influential congressmen, such as Olin "Tiger" Teague of College Station, Texas; President Richard M. Nixon and his administration; millionaire Dallas businessman Ross Perot; WFAA television in Dallas; and other news media outlets worldwide. In time, Bonnie Singleton, other family members, and the focus groups they helped start encouraged North Vietnam to release the names of prisoners, allow mail and packages to be sent to the POWs, and afford better treatment for prisoners of war.

The dissertation addresses the issue of the relationship of parenthood, employment and economic inactivity of childcare holders. It focuses on the mother's motivation to work (mothers taking care of children under 3 years of age) in the context of Czech social policy measures. The aim of the thesis is establish proposals for measures that would encourage the motivation of women with children up to 3 years to return to work and simultaneously quantify the impact of these measures on the state budget. This dissertation builds up on the underlying studies (Jahoda, Šinkyříková, 2011; Kalíšková, 2012). These studies deal mainly with examining implemented reforms in the view of their support to women's employment and their effects on household incomes. The decision making of mothers about their involvement in the labour market was analyzed by indicator of Effective cost of return to work. Negative net financial effect of returning to work was found independently of the region and the extent of the examined working time of women, taking care of children up to 2 years. For mothers taking care of children from 2 to 3 years old was this negative net financial effect detected only partly. This result clearly demonstrates that mothers, taking care of children below 3 years of age, entering the labour market are confronted with very high additional costs that would not be covered by their income from employment and other received benefits. Estimated amount of potential wages, which would encourage women to return to work, reach in some cases up to four times the median wage of women in the region. Given these findings, this dissertation proposes several specific social policy measures, which would support the mother's incentives to work return. Economic effects of the proposed measures were quantified, including the cancelation of conditional entitlement to parental benefit, introduction of tax relief for working mothers and 50% relief on employer's mandatory contributions, which employ parents part-time. Implementation of these measures, which would motivate more women to return to work, would bring an estimated net income effect for the state budget amounting to 9.5 billion crowns per year.

The aim of the diploma thesis "Comparison of the League of Polish Families and the Palikot's Movement in the Context of Changes of Polish Society" was to describe activity of the LPR and the RP, to chararacterize their ideology and to find out whether their policies caused changes in opinions of the Polish society on some social issues (abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality and gay rights and involvement of priest in politics) or not and whether these changes caused gain or loss of the electoral support of both parties or not. The analysis of both parties revealed that the League of Polish Families, which was supported by part of the Roman Catholic Church in elections and was against abortion, euthanasia and strengthening of gay rights, is a populist Catholic far-right party (in the sense of the Cas Mudde's definition), and the Palikot's Movement, later Your Movement, which holds opposite positions, can be defined as a liberal movement with populist elements. The analysis of public opinion surveys revealed that the Polish society has tendencies to more conservative attitude during public debate about controversial issues, no matter if "ultraconservative" or "ultraliberal" party succeeds in elections. The analysis also revealed that change (or preservation) of the opinions of the Polish society did not affect...

Based on the case study of the mediation of the Polish-Lithuanian dispute from 1920 to 1923, this dissertation explores the League of Nations' emergence as an agency of modern territorial and ethnic conflict resolution. It argues that in many respects, this organization departed from prewar traditional diplomacy to establish a new, broader concept of security. At first the league tried simply to contain the Polish-Lithuanian conflict by appointing a Military Commission to assist these nations in fixing a final border. But the occupation of Vilna by Polish troops in October 1920 exacerbated Polish-Lithuanian relations, turning the initial border dispute into an ideological conflict over the ethnically mixed region of Vilna, claimed by the Poles on ethnic grounds while the Lithuanians considered it the historical capital of the modern Lithuanian state. The occupation spurred the league to greater involvement via administration of a plebiscite to decide the fate of the disputed territories. When this strategy failed, Geneva resorted to negotiating the so-called Hymans Plan, which aimed to create a Lithuanian federal state and establish political and economic cooperation between Poland and Lithuania. This analysis of the league's mediation of this dispute walks the reader through the league's organization of the first international peacekeeping operation, its handling of the challenges of open diplomacy, and its efforts to fulfill its ambitious mandate not just to prevent war but also to uproot its socioeconomic and ethnic causes. The Hymans Plan reflected this ambition as well as commitment to reconciling the tenets of balance of power and territorial status quo with the principle of self-determination and minorities' protection when drawing new boundaries and creating new states.

The intention of this thesis is to offer insights into those features of marital violence in Polish immigrant families in Winnipeg that might be considered important for the planning, delivery and evaluation of social services. This plan is congruent with the need for ethnic awareness and sensitivity in social work practice which, as stated by Green, "implies an awareness of prescribed and proscribed behavior within a specific culture, and it suggests that the ethnically competent worker has the ability to carry out professional activities consistent with that awareness." Probation officers, as well as immigrant batterers and their victims frequently say that limited English skills and cultural differences create a serious challenge to effective treatment within the existing paradigms of intervention. These opinions, however, have little impact on decision-making when it comes to the implementation of effective preventive approaches to dealing with the problem of family violence in immigrant families. Among 125 programs which were offered to male batterers across Canada in 1993, only a few provided individual counseling and interpretation services in the immigrant clients' first languages. Furthermore, only two programs - Services to Immigrants on Probation (SIP) in Winnipeg and MOSAIC in Vancouver - provided group intervention with immigrant male clients. There is a shortage of trained interpreters and workers specializing in counseling or therapy with the abused immigrant women and their abusive partners. In Winnipeg, one such illustration is the lack of such services for Polish immigrant clients with limited English skills. In light of my experience counseling batterers of Polish descent and Polish- Canadian families, and in the opinions of "front line" professional workers (probation officers, counselors, settlement workers), there is a need for a knowledge base to social work intervention with victims of abuse and abusers of Polish background. Programs and approaches that would take into account the specific needs of Polish-Canadian clients have been requested during meetings and workshops on family violence organized for the Polish community, for example, by the Multicultural Partner Abuse Prevention Project (MPAPP). My own observation from Poles in Winnipeg suggests that violence in Polish- Canadian families is a problem which needs to be addressed in a way which is appropriately and specifically designed for this population.

The goal of this dissertation is to describe an evolution of visions of the Slovak future, as they were introduced during the Great War (1914-1918) by groups of Slovaks living mainly abroad. It strives to decide, which of these visions had a chance to become real and which were only fantasies without real political importance. To reach this goal it tries to describe Slovak relations to other relevant nations in pre-war years and also the position of Slovaks in their fatherland or abroad including the ideologies by which they were influenced. One of most decisive goals of this dissertation should be answering the question if the Czecho-Slovak orientation was the only alternative to the idea of Hungarian state for Slovak politicians, or if the victory of this conception in 1918 was just a result of unpredictable processes, and whether other conceptions had their chance to influence the Slovak future, too.