Editorial board / Editorial
Editorial
Dear Readers,
We would like to introduce the inaugural English issue of the Social Education Journal. Following the
foregoing single-concept issue which has until now contained a topic subject (the relation between
social education and social work), this issue is again open. In spite of that, in the articles introduced
in this issue there seems to be a common denominator, one which is represented by a dialogue
between environments, between the theoretical and empirical and between professional discourse
and the public opinion.
The editorial board has been subjected to some personal changes during the last few months. First of
all, we would like to thank the editor-in-chief Jiří Němec and the editor of the manuscript Radim Šíp
for their three-year cooperation with our editorial board. We have appreciated the mutual
cooperation and are happy that we can continue with the editorial board with Soňa Vávrová as its
new member. Jakub Hladík became the new editor-in-chief of the Social Education Journal. The
editorial board has been also reinforced by two new study editors, namely Karla Hrbáčková and
Dušan Klapko. Jan Kalenda became the new reviews of books and information editor.
Consequently we will outline the editorial boardś activities for the next time period. Next year in
2017, we will start with new scopes of studies along with the following changed instructions
intended for authors:
the recommended scope of study abstracts amounts to 900–1.500 characters including spaces;
the recommended maximum scope of a study (full-text) amounts to 45.000 characters
including spaces (it goes for all parts of the study);
the maximum number of key words stays without changes and amounts to at most ten.
In terms of double-sided anonymous review procedure, the Social Education Journal will respect the
recommendation of the American Psychological Association, which has issued its Publication Manual
of the APA (6th edition, 2010) for these purposes. We are further respecting these conventions in
terms of requirements on the bibliography citations, and expanding it to address other fields (text
structures, text contents and presentation of results). We would therefore like to ask
authors/reviewers to read this manual before publishing or reviewing in the Social Education Journal.
We intend to bring the journal to a higher qualitative level in line with international standards.
It can be stated that activities of the professional journal’s editorial board is not easy and there is a
direct pioneering work if we take into account the other tasks, including directing the journal and the
formulation of goals, means and visions. For this reason, we appreciate every published issue.
Now we are going to introduce the contents this issue’s topic. An introduction to theoretical study
entitled Testing of Intellectual Abilities in Various Sociocultural Environments opens a remarkable
discussion about an highly relevant subject concerning fair testing of children in diverse sociocultural
environments. Its author Denisa Denglerová focuses on not only a history of the development of
testing intellective abilities and their possible misuse, which she has demonstrated by means of four
examples, which examine relations between intelligence and the instruments to measure it in diverse
sociocultural environments. She, however, accents especially different options of assessment in such
a way that they shall be widely used without reference to an environment from which an individual
comes.
Following is an empirical study entitled Teacher Self-Efficacy within the Context of Socially
Disadvantaged Pupils’ Education by authors Anna Petr Šafránková and Karla Hrbáčková. Here, we
meet phenomenon of a dissimilitude based on socialization in diverse sociocultural environments.
The study, based on sociocultural theories of A. Bandura, obtains its main findings from research
Editorial board / Editorial
procedures focused on the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their own efficiency
against the perceptions of aspects concerning the education of socially handicapped pupils. Currently
in the Czech education environment there is an important discussion about inclusion. That is why we
are pleased that we are able by means of the given study to give space (at least marginally) to this
topic.
The third study, titled Proactive Coping Behavior in Sample of University Students in Helping
Professions by author Jitka Vaculíková, represents an empirical study as well. The author presents an
item and scale analysis of the Czech version of the Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI) on a selected
sample of university students in helping professions as well as the PCI subscales correlations with a
subjective well-being, social support and depression. Furthermore, the author has been focused on
using proactive coping according to gender, age, specialization and year of study.
The fourth study, Selected Aspects of Social and Legal Protection of Children: Expert Approach
versus Public Opinion, represents two basic levels of the phenomenon under research: searching
and finding a cross-point between the expert discourse (so called epistomology communities) and of
the public opinion. Authors Soňa Vávrová, Jitka Vaculíková and Jan Kalenda indicate the co-existence
and the possible antilogy of these two approaches through selected aspects of the social and legal
protection of children. The study presents an interesting dialogue examining these two approaches.
This issue also contains another in a series of interesting interview. Professor Carl A. Grant from the
School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is among the most important experts in
the field of multicultural education in the United States. During his long academic career he has
written many books and professional studies which represent a valuable source of information and
inspiration for readers around the world. We very much appreciate the fact that Carl A. Grant found
the time to respond to the questions we sent him. You will find in the discussion Grantś point of
view on average multicultural life in the United States, both in the past and today. Grant also
considers what is relevant for successful multicultural education and offers his outlook on the
struggle for equality and equity in education for all people. We have concluded the interview with a
short profile in multicultural education (representing medallion) and a book review of Carl A.
Grantś book Multiculturalism in education and teaching. The selected works of Carl A. Grant,
concluded by Jakub Hladík . We intend in November 2017 to publish an issue of Social Education
Journal focused on the diversity in education. The section "The Guest of the Journal" in this issue
might represent a very interesting inspiration for authors.
The presented issue is concluded by Eva Šmelová with a book review of the publication Play and its
use in the pre-school age (2014) from author Eliška Suchánková. Lastly, we would like traditionally to
thank all the members of the editorial board, the authors and especially the reviewers for their
cooperation to produce the first all-English issue of this journal. Furthermore, our thanks belong to
all members of the editorial board and to others who participated and continue to participate in
creating and building the journal.
Editorial board