International Relations and European Studies

Success involves learning and cultivating relationships, building
the capacity of teachers, figuring out better pathways to success, and providing
the support teachers need to come together as communities of practice. Enhancing
a teacher's professional identity is a potential solution to the drift and
disconnection experienced by many teachers during their career. Mid-career
teacher leadership involvement in a multi-experienced professional cohort
presenting and attending together at a conference is one way to increase their
professional identity. The potential of an enhanced sense of professional identity
through self-awareness of their mastery experiences, collaborative skills and
teacher leadership is that it may impact a mid-career teacher's connection to the
profession, resulting in a renewal of commitment to teaching. Revolution, not
reform, is needed to re-discover the power of teaching. Almost all teachers have
tremendous power which can be released, given the proper exposure. This cannot
be accomplished by tinkering with a broken system. Intellectual structures,
definitions and assumptions should be changed, and then teacher power can be
released.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship
between education and the economic growth of a country. Education is one of the
most important factors for the economic and social developments of a society; and
it is also the main component of the construction of human capital. It is very
difficult for a country to accomplish a successful economic progress if it does not
invest sufficiently and judiciously in education. Therefore, investment in
education is seen as the vital part of a country’s economic development. It is clear
that educational investments are expensive and long-term projects and must be
more important than other possible development projects in order to ensure the
welfare and prosperity of societies. Unfortunately, this idea falls especially
focusing on most under-developed countries. For this reason, the importance of
education in a country’s economic development and growth must be stated and
asserted overtly and unambiguously.

The utilisation of Social Networking services has become an
important part of teenagers’ daily life. Every day, more and more teenagers are
increasing the number of the members of social networking services. In this paper,
I am examining whether this habit affects or not the school success of teenagers. I
have prepared a survey about the impact of the utilisation of social networks on
the study habits of teenagers. More than 525 teenagers participated in the present
survey.

Intercultural Education is one of the newest in the area of studies on education. The development of the area took place in the context of social and historical transformations during the twentieth century. Developments were not uniform but were mediated by local conditions. According to the intercultural education, schools play an important role to establish the foundation for the transformation of the community and the avoiding from oppression and injustice. This article analyses the importance and the role of teachers in intercultural education. I prepared a research about the competence of teachers in an international school in Bucharest for the intercultural education.

In human history, living together in peace without violence and problem
has been a challenge for all humanity. Sometimes it has achieved, but it has just as
frequently failed. It means that human beings prefer living together with people who
are like them rather than with people who are different in appearance, speaking,
eating, dressing, behaviour and beliefs, i.e. people from different cultures. However,
cultural diversity and difference is a standard characteristic of modern societies. In
these societies, individuals have to live with the people from different nations, colors,
religions, languages and cultures. Black Sea Region is one of the most diverse regions
in the world in terms of all these differences. Ethnic and religious diversity is an
historical reality in this part of the world. There are Christians, Muslims and Jewish
populations living together over centuries in a peaceful atmosphere. The States in
Black Sea Region should develop cultural, educational and social policies to maintain
this coexistence for the future generations.

The authors seek out to investigate the concept of ideology from a
philosophical perspective. This study attempts to answer the very difficult question
whether one can talk about “ideologies’’ after the end of the Cold War. Starting
from the sources of this concept and from the definition provided by its inventor,
Antoine Louise Destutt de Tracy, that of “science of ideas”, the authors consider
that, irrespective of the negative connotations associated with the concept in time, one
should continue discussing it.

The aim of this article is that how the international non-governmental organizations in Turkey have affected the Turkish Foreign Relations in the last several decades especially during the process of EU membership. The article gives also a general idea about the effects of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) on the image of Turkey for the rest of the world. The civil society and INGOs have a key role for the democratization process in Turkey. Their importance is also directly related with the implementation of human rights legislation and preparation of new civil constitution.

Social life and social structure of Romania were changed forcefully by the communist system which aimed an egalitarian society having no class among the parts of society. Family was one of the first social institutions affected as a result of these changes. Policy, structure, importance and quality of life of the family changed during all these years. To understand how the quality of life of a Romanian family was during the Communist Regime, it is important to know other social conditions and welfare of the society such as housing, health care, education and social life. In this paper, I wanted to underline some important points about the quality of family life during the communist regime in Romania.

The communist regime in Romania like in the other ex-communist countries has affected social life, the cultural background, the economical context and the religious traditions of the people of this country, including those of the minorities. These effects were accomplished forcefully by the communist government that wanted to create an egalitarian society having no class difference between social groups. Of all the elements that form the life of a society, family is the most important institution and it can be the most easily affected negatively. The aim of this paper is to examine how family policy changed and applied in Romania during the communist regime and which are the changes that occurred in the respective policy after the Revolution of December 1989. This paper also underlines the effects of these policies on family and society. In the first part of the paper, the concept of family policy and its types manifestation are briefly explained. Different approaches about family policy are also discussed in this section. In the second part, the role and status of women during the communist system is underlined. In this part, difficulties of being a woman in the communist system is discussed because the regime considered the woman as a great mother, achieving all her responsibilities at home, but also she had to be a good socialist worker in social life. Family policies during communism are discussed in the third section. 'The 1966 Law' concerning prohibition of abortion and its consequences are also examined in this part. In the fourth section, the structure of family in this age is described briefly. The changes in the family policies are examined in the last section. The implementation of the new policies is also discussed in this part of the paper.

The social network sites have had important impacts on the people who use them in their daily life frequently. This situation is also true for teenagers. The number of teenagers using social network sites has been increasing continuously in the last decade and its use has become an important part of teenagers' daily life. This frequent utilization has started to affect their social life and communication skills. In this paper, I examine whether the use of social network sites by teenagers affects the face to face communication of teenagers with their family members. If it does affect the communication with them, I want to investigate whether it is considered as a problem by teenagers. I have made a survey about the use of social networks and communication periods of teenagers with family members. I have conducted the survey on 445 teenagers from two different cities, Bucharest and Constanta in Romania.

The aim of this paper was to separate the social and behavioral profile of the young population from the eight development regions of Romania. Poll data and statistic methods of variation comparison and factorial analysis allowed us to describe in comparable terms the young population from the development regions. The most differentiating dimensions between the eight regions are those related to the endowment of the young people with ITC goods and to their behavior in their spare time. The paper presents social and behavioral "portraits" of young people in each region.

The system of education during communism had many shortcomings: underfinancing, low performance, regret and even social discrimination (despite praise from official propaganda on "free education"). The post-communist education reform has been corrective and reactive, driven by global pressures and limited by budget constraints but not only. The comparison at the level of several post-communist countries highlighted their common orientation. Romania has similarly embraced the imitative modernization process in line with Western values, privatization (partial), liberalism, the adoption of the Bologna process in higher education. The results of youth opinion polls since 1996, conducted within the Center for Studies and Certification for Youth Problems, have allowed us to analyze how transition youth reacted to education reforms. Although the reforms responded to unsatisfied needs in the communist period, the result was not an increase in the interest and trust of young people...