<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The coexistence of people and societies marked by ethnic, social, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity is a subject that still generates controversies in contemporary societies. The “Ciganos’ situation” is an unavoidable issue that crosses the boundaries of different European countries, which leads to controversy and ambivalence in the so-called multicultural and/or intercultural societies characterised by the principle of universalism. In Portugal, despite the social and economic transformations that have occurred, the problems of exclusion and poverty among Ciganos persist. They are still considered the poorest ethnic group, with the worst housing conditions, lest schooling and the main target of racism and discrimination. The Portuguese Ciganos are not a homogeneous community. The diversity and plurality are not always easy to grasp by the glare generated by the adoption of interpretive perspectives that are reductively linear and deterministic of the Portuguese Ciganos. For the purpose of outlining a national picture of Portuguese Ciganos, a national study was developed that combines both qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches. The central goal of this article is to present the main results obtained through a questionnaire survey carried out to Ciganos persons and to discuss the social and spatial continuities and differentiations among Ciganos in Portugal.</abstract>

Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon, Portugal; Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIES-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal

ICS, Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and SOCIUS, Research Centre in Economic and Organizational Sociology, Lisbon, Portugal

Social and Spatial Continuities and Differentiations among Portuguese Ciganos: Regional Profiles

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Drawing on ethnographic and anthropological research on the Romanian communities in Eastern Serbia, this article seeks to contribute to the global scholarship on diaspora and migration. It reveals interesting differences between the well defined and intensely studied notion of “diaspora” on the one hand, and the understudied, but useful concept of “near diaspora” on the other. First, the presence of Romanians in Eastern Serbia is looked at from a gender perspective, in the wider context of feminization of international migration. Second, the paper argues that the Romanian women in Eastern Serbia adopt the strategy of living in the “social fog”, thus becoming what can be termed “foggy diaspora”.</abstract>

Foggy Diaspora: Romanian Women in Eastern Serbia

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The present paper challenges the dominance of the digital natives’ agenda and turns its attention to the social context in which Internet usage among adolescents occurs. Findings indicate that even when young people are using the Internet with the same frequency, i.e. every day, the differences among them remain significant. Therefore, it can be argued that considering an entire cohort to be similar in terms of Internet use only due its age is a misconception. The way children make use of the Internet and the gratifications they gain after using it depend, as van Dijk (2005) showed, on the quality of access, on the level of skills, and on the personal (e.g. Experience, self-efficacy, confidence) and positional resources (e.g. Age, gender, socio-economic status). Questioning the main determinants that lead to the most advanced way to make use of the Internet, the logistic analysis shows that, in order for a Romanian adolescent to turn into an experienced user once he or she embedded the Internet in his or her everyday life, is a matter of skills, experience, and time online, and is less a matter of socioeconomic background. However, we have to keep in mind the previous path analysis’ findings, which emphasize that online experience, time spent online, self-efficacy, and digital skills are all determined, through direct or indirect effects, by demographic variables (i.e. age, gender and socio-economic status), even when age is held constant (Fizesan [Balea], 2012).</abstract>

Digital Natives or Not? How do Romanian Adolescents Cross the Boundaries of Internet Common Use

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Recent demographic changes such as ageing, low-fertility, and large out-migration from Eastern European countries, brought into discussion the vivid question of the future of intergenerational solidarity within families. In the context of increasing geographical mobility of young people in search for better paid jobs, the unmet need for personal assistance among the elderly, the underdeveloped system of care services, Romania knows new dynamics of intergenerational support. Contrary to perspectives that consider spatial proximity between adult children and their elder parents the indisputable enabling factor for intergenerational support transfers (Rossi and Rossi, 1990), emerging literature on transnational families highlights that such tight kinship relations continue to exist even across borders (Baldassar et al., 2007). Using recent data from the nationwide survey “The Impact of Migration on Older Parents Left Behind in Romania” (2011), this paper examines the complex dynamics of intergenerational solidarity involving adult children as transnational migrants and their elder parents who remain at home. The statistical models used indicate the migrants’ role as providers of remittances, but also the ways in which other forms of support are distributed among the dyads. Despite a possible presupposition that parents who were left at home might only be beneficiaries of support, the data show the opposite: elderly persons, depending on their age, were active providers of help as well.</abstract>

Elderly Parents, Adult Children and the Romanian Transnational Family: An Intergenerational Solidarity Approach

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There are important differences between all Eastern European countries regarding the implementation of pension system privatization. The differences regarding the political configuration between the countries from Eastern Europe might be a possible explanation for the amount of diversity in this area. The ideology of political parties that form or sustain the government that implements the reform can also be an explanation, but this influence must be studied beyond the cliché that stipulates that the right-wing parties will support the public pension system reform and the left-wing parties will oppose it. Armeanu (2010a) showed that there are countries where privatization was supported by the centre-left coalitions that needed to overpass a strong opposition made by the right-wing parties. Using the Ideal Point Estimation technique within the voting sessions related to pension reform during the last three Romanian legislatures, we will explain the formation of pro and against coalitions regarding the pension reform from Romania during the privatization process of public pension system. We also test the hypotheses of the model presented by Armeanu (2010a, 2010b), model that predicts the behaviour of political parties based on the position they have on a two-dimensional space related to the costs of pension reform.</abstract>

The Romanian Pension System Reforms: Evidences from Legislative Roll Call Analysis

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In this paper, I suggest an alternative form of periodization of Romanian history. My aim is not to move around historical posts; rather I propose a different way of understanding Romanian history as such. This is the research agenda. I seek to write a world history from the perspective of a peripheral place like Romania has been. Therefore, this is not simply an attempt to insert a local, neglected, silenced or distorted history into a wider, European, global story (that is, to discover the history of “people without history”), just as it is not another attempt to “provincialize Europe” in favour of a view from its repressed margins. Instead, following Coronil (2004), I believe it is indispensable to globalize the periphery, to understand its worldwide formation. My investigation draws upon the conceptual toolkit of world-system theory and its underlining philosophy of history (Wallerstein, 2011). In the same vein, the guiding principles of my periodization elaborate on Andre Gunder Frank’s insight that the exchange (or rather direct transfer) of surplus between societies is what links regions and societies as whole (Frank, 1978). The focus then shifts from a given society/state and its internal relations to the wider world-system, or world-economy, in which it is embedded. The unit of analysis is not a geographical location, but relations and networks and their historical development.</abstract>

An Alternative Periodization of Romanian History. A Research Agenda

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Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Sociologia

The journal welcomes multidisciplinary and comparative approaches in the fields of sociology, social work, social policies, anthropology, urban and rural studies. Articles that address social issues from Central and Eastern Europe from a global perspective, develop historical comparisons or critical reflections, are particularly appreciated. The core of each thematic issue is composed of research articles with empirical grounding. Methodological discussion papers and book reviews compose distinct sections. A special section entitled Romanian Sociology Today publishes recent research papers relevant for the state-of-art of sociology in Romania.   Why subscribe and read  Studia UBB Sociologia was one of the first Sociology journals in Romania, fully published in English since 2008. The majority of articles are authored by Eastern European scholars who embrace a theoretically informed, empirically grounded, comparative and critical perspective on social changes in the region.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 