Background:The pandemic, as an event that is new and dangerous to the health and life of the population, has put employees at risk of losing their job and experiencing deteriorating working and employment conditions. In this situation, authors were particularly concerned with the extent to which job insecurity (both quantitative and qualitative) contributed to the deterioration of workers' well-being. Material and Methods: The study was carried out on 382 Polish employees in April and May 2020. The following research tools were used: the Job Insecurity in Pandemic Scale by Chirkowska-Smolak and Czumak and the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DASS-21) by Levibond and Levibond. Results: The quantitative and qualitative job insecurity were significant predictors of depression and stress, but they did not explain anxiety symptoms. The scope of the explained variance of these negative emotional states by concerns related to work and employment was not large (from 11% to 17.6%). The moderating role of perceived employability was confirmed only in the case of the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and depression, as well as quantitative job insecurity and stress. However, the increase in the explained variance was very small. Conclusions: Uncertainty related to the maintenance of employment and concerns about the deterioration of working conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on emotional disturbances of employees, but they only explained some of the variance of depression and stress and did not affect the perceived level of anxiety. The smaller role of economic stress in the emergence of negative emotional states could be associated with the occurrence of much more serious threats to the health and life of the population in this period. The very low level of unemployment in Poland, which remained at a similar level throughout the pandemic despite the catastrophic forecasts of economists, could also have played an important role.
The article analyzes the level of development of educational systems in Eastern European countries by using empirical data from international comparative studies. The tools of comparative analysis are used to group the studied publications, which directly or indirectly consider an educational system at the level of different countries and regions of the world. The newest western approaches to the issue of educational systems are represented. The unsurpassed value of multi-object international comparative research in the study of educational systems of the world enabling the analysis of the phenomenon at the interdisciplinary level is emphasized. The author's definition of “international comparative research” is formulated based on modern scientific studies, which is interpreted as a special type of research, which purpose is to conduct multilevel analysis to compare macro-objects, based on subjective empirical data. Emphasis is done on the lack of a unified terminological apparatus of the studied issue in modern science, which indicates the availability of the following definitive plurality: “comparative studies”, “international issues”, “cross-cultural studies”, and “international comparative studies”. The analysis of the level of development of educational systems of Eastern European countries is based on a comparison of official statistical materials of the World Bank. The processed statistical materials are correlated with the results of descriptive statistics during the testing of statistical hypotheses. Subject analysis of educational systems in Eastern Europe is based on a comparison of empirical data on three criteria – international educational projects, the highest educational results (“S.A.B.E.R”), and the amount of external funding for the educational branch.
The content of the article provides a theoretical analysis of international comparative research, which potential is rather significant in pedagogical theory and practice. The relevance of the study has been problematized by the need to deepen the profile of international research cooperation to overcome the current destabilization processes. The priority of comparative analysis has been outlined at the level of phenomenological functioning. The importance of the influence of these factors (in particular, political, social and cultural, scientific, organizational, and methodological) on the development of the phenomenon under study has been considered as a whole. The theoretical (analysis, systematization, and modeling), empirical, and statistical methods have been used as research tools. The prospects for further development of international comparative studies of pedagogical centering have been presented in terms of the priority of the conditions of the decentralization. The cross impact on the domestic phenomenological functioning of two interrelated factors – the transformation of the socialist camp into the post-socialist space, the globalization and the integration of education into the international social and cultural space has been generalized. The supranational social orientation of the studied phenomenon has been considered in terms of its theoretical, methodological, and empirical content. The importance of exogenous (international educational policy, the level of international recognition of educational structures and the quality of educational training taking into account the requirements of the international labor market, indicators of external financing of educational projects, etc.) and endogenous (consistency of the norms of the current legal framework of the state with the trends of world educational progress, financing the development of the industry, the interest of management structures in the innovative development of education, etc.) determinants of the productivity of phenomenological functioning has been highlighted. The advantages of multi-object international comparative research over mono-object research in terms of the study of multifaceted pedagogical phenomena has been emphasized. It is worth noting that the priority of integration trends on the way to resolving everyday problems is especially relevant for the education sector, in which productive functioning is not possible under the conditions of international isolation. It has been emphasized that by comparing domestic and foreign branch achievements to make rationally balanced decisions at the national level, it is possible to gain further social and cultural well-being and educational progress. It has been identified that only with a fair assessment of the functioning of education, upbringing, and learning at the level of different countries, a set of effective measures to improve the efficiency of these branches can be chosen. A special value of pedagogically centered international research, which allows analyzing the chosen subject of the study within wide geographical and time limits has been generalized.
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