Siniša Zrinščak

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Student Volunteering: Is It All About Résumé Building?

This research adopts the utilitarian view of volunteering as a starting point: we posit that for an undergraduate student population volunteering is motivated by career enhancing and job prospects. We hypothesize that in those countries where volunteering signals positive characteristics of students and helps advance their careers, their volunteer participation will be higher. Furthermore, regardless of the signaling value of volunteering, those students who volunteer for utilitarian reasons will be more likely to volunteer but will exhibit less time-intensive volunteering. Using survey data from 12 countries (n = 9,482), we examine our hypotheses related to motivations to volunteer, volunteer participation, and country differences. Findings suggest that students motivated to volunteer for building their résumés do not volunteer more than students with other motives. However, in countries with a positive signaling value of volunteering, volunteering rates are significantly higher. As expected, students motivated by résumé building motivations have a lower intensity of volunteering.

Service-Learning: Findings From a 14-Nation Study

Service-learning literature has been dominated by studies from North America with little cross-national comparative work. This article reports on a survey of university students conducted across 14 different countries. The study examines the relationships between service-learning programs (both compulsory and optional) at high school and university, along with current volunteering, study subject, and sociodemographic variables. The survey found variation in service-learning across the different countries along with relationships between service-learning participation and gender, family income, and study subject. By contrast to previous research, however, both mandatory and optional service-learning at high school and university led to higher participation in general volunteering.

Citizenship and Social Welfare in Croatia: clientelism and the limits of 'Europeanisation'

Abstract This article addresses clientelism as a complex structure impacting on social welfare in the context of transition, war, new nation-state building and authoritarian populist political settlements. The paper explores the development of clientelistic welfare in Croatia through an examination of captured and categorical distributional effects, the dominance of nationality over territorial-based citizenship claims, and the politicisation of the nature and scale of governance. The privileging of the rights of war veterans and of those of Croatian ethnicity particularly from neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina constitute dominant clientelistic practices largely resistant to change. The capacity of the European Union (EU) accession process to counter clientelistic aspects of welfare has proved to be extremely limited. Although the accession process impacted on and reconfigured economic, political and social arrangements, this was not a radical ‘break’ with the social and political circumstances, particularly in the 1990s, which had produced and consolidated these clientelistic welfare arrangements. Indeed, after the gaining of EU membership on 1 July 2013, with the translation of EU-led austerity politics, ideas of social citizenship may be unravelling once more in Croatia.

What gives? Cross-national differences in students’ giving behavior

Abstract This study is targeted to understanding the giving of time and money among a specific cohort – university students across 13 countries. It explores predictors of different combinations of giving behaviors: only volunteering, only donating, neither, as compared to doing both. Among the predictors of these four types of giving behavior, we also account for cross-national differences across models of civil society. The findings show that students predominantly prefer to give money than to volunteer time. In addition, differences in civil society regimes provide insights into which type of giving behavior might dominate. As expected, in the Statist and Traditional models of civil society, students consistently were more likely to be disengaged in giving behaviors (neither volunteering nor giving money) in comparison to students in the Liberal model who were more likely to report doing ‘both’ giving behaviors. An important implication of our findings is that while individual characteristics and values influence giving of time and money, these factors are played out in the context of civil society regimes, whose effects cannot be ignored. Our analysis has made a start in a new area of inquiry attempting to explain different giving behaviors using micro and macro level factors and raises several implications for future research.

Rôles, Attentes et Conflits: la Religion et les Eglises Dans les Sociétés en Transition:

Drawing on data from the European Values Study (EVS) 1999, the author gives a brief overview of religions in post-communist societies and Croatias place among them. He shows that for some societies religion is still crucial for their overall functioning. In order to understand this role, which is only partially visible on the level of empirical data, and to point out some difficulties in the sociological approach to it, the author discusses two themes: religion and war, and religion and transition. Although the recent war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia was not a religious one, the Churches played a key role both at the symbolic level of maintenance of separate national identities, and on the level of complex social processes. The contradictory and uncertain nature of transition processes additionally complicated the role of religion in society and partly prevented its accommodation to new social circumstances. These elements can all be seen in the different roles that religion has to play, contradictory expectations of the public towards the Church and sharp social conflicts that divide society.

Active ageing and demographic change: challenges for social work and social policy

Introduction Sinisa Zrinscak & Susan Lawrence 1. Look after yourself: active ageing, individual responsibility and the decline of social work with older people in the UK Liz Lloyd, Denise Tanner, Alisoun Milne, Mo Ray, Sally Richards, Mary Pat Sullivan, Christian Beech & Judith Phillips 2. Social work and intervention with older people in Portugal: a critical point of view Maria Irene Carvalho 3. Social policy, social work and age care in Nepal: mapping services and missing links Sara Louise Parker, Bala Raju Nikku & Rose Khatri 4. Austerity, personalisation and older people: the prospects for creative social work practice in England Mark Lymbery 5. Care workers in long-term care for older people: challenges of quantity and quality Henglien Lisa Chen 6. Framing of intimate care in home care services Hildur Kalman & Katarina Andersson 7. Social counselling for older people - between advice and therapy Stefan Pohlmann, Paula Heinecker & Christian Leopold 8. Critical educational gerontology: what has it got to offer social work with older people? Trish Hafford-Letchfield

One pope, two churches: Refugees, human rights and religion in Croatia and Italy:

This article analyses the responses of the Catholic Church in Croatia and Italy to the refugee crisis, particularly the churches’ discourses on human rights issues and positions in public debates on refugees and migrants. Although both Catholic churches followed the Church’s teachings on ‘strangers’, associated with providing concrete help to people in need, the Catholic Church in Croatia pursued what can be classified as a charitable approach, while the Catholic Church in Italy followed solidarity and utilitarian approaches. Equally, the Catholic Church in Croatia remained a silent public actor in the refugee crisis, while the Catholic Church in Italy became a prominent actor in public debates, engaging with human rights discourses. The selective and ambivalent uses of human rights discourses emerged as a factor in understanding these two churches’ different positions on refugees and migrants.

Nonprofit Leadership Development in the Post-Socialist Context: The Case of Croatia

While nonprofit social services are developing rapidly in post-socialist countries, little is known of their leadership. This research examines models of leadership as perceived by social service administrators in Croatia. Technical management with limited stakeholder involvement is recognized as most prevalent, though inadequate in many respects. More relational styles are considered desirable, but not feasible at present, while advocacy-oriented and purely Western approaches are more strongly rejected. We analyze these findings in the context of social legacies, dependency on state funding, Western aid paradigms, and fiscal crises commonly found in post-socialist countries. We assess implications for future development of, and research on, nonprofit leadership in these settings.

Church and State in Croatia: Legal Framework, Religious Instruction, and Social Expectations

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of Church-state relations in Croatia since the collapse of communism. Our focus is mainly on the general development of the legal framework, and on the introduction and development of religious instruction in public schools. The issue of religious instruction serves to illustrate and discuss the main dilemmas about how to frame Church-state relations in the post-communist era, or more precisely in a country with a high level of religiosity, with the marked social role of the Catholic Church. Yet, in spite of that, Croatia opted for the separation of Church and state, for equality of all religions before the law, and for respect of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Therefore the presentation of different aspects of religious instruction is followed by a summary of public debates on the introduction of religious instruction in public schools in the 1990s. In addition, the chapter touches on social perceptions and expectations from religion in the public sphere, as the development of Church-state relations largely reflects the overall social climate in a country, an important part of which are the social expectations of people from different religions.

The Social Dimension in Selected Candidate Countries in the Balkans: Country Report on Croatia

The European Commission awarded a contract in November 2005 to a consortium composed of t TARKI (Social Research Institute in Hungary), CASE (Center for Social and Economic Research in Poland) and CEPS to analyse the socio-economic developments and the process of structural reforms in what were then four candidate countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey. The objective was to identify the major challenges in the current demographic, social and economic context that could be considered relevant in determining the capacity of these countries to function in the European Union. This study presents the findings for Croatia and consists of an analytical section and a statistical annex. The other country reports and synthesis report are published separately in this same series.