Social Welfare: Interdisciplinary Approach
Founded in 2011. Social Welfare: Interdisciplinary Approach is a peer-reviewed open access journal that publishes original articles, critical reviews, research notes in the interdisciplinary area of social, education, health, environment, and other sciences. Interdisciplinarity is encouraged.
Vilniaus universiteto leidykla / Vilnius University Press
Features of Green Organisational Culture in Utena District Municipality: Implications for Social Welfare
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Sustainable development goals, social responsibility, the Green Deal and climate neutrality increasingly encourage local government institutions to reconsider their principles, values and modes of operation. Green organisational culture (hereinafter – GOC) is a multidimensional construct integrating value-based orientations with organisational practices, functioning as a strategic intangible resource. It enhances the capacity of local government to address environmental challenges, implement green initiatives, and support sustainable development. The study identifies four core GOC features – value-based, structural, behavioural, and symbolic – that collectively embed environmental principles into local government. These features facilitate not only environmental protection but also broader social welfare outcomes by promoting transparency, accountability, stakeholder participation, and policy continuity. Two dimensions of green public administration (hereinafter – GPA) <span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">are analysed: the transformation of internal organisational activities and management in line with sustainability principles, and the role of local government institutions in formulating, implementing and enforcing environmental and sustainability policies that affect citizens’ well-being. The analysis reveals that GOC functions as an intangible resource and organisational capacity necessary for the effective implementation of GPA and the pursuit of long-term social welfare goals. The research applies a qualitative case study methodology, focusing on Utena District Municipality as a single, embedded case. The research is based on triangulation, combining both qualitative and quantitative content analysis. A total of 31 municipal documents from the period 2020–2024 are analysed in order to ensure a comprehensive and reliable assessment of the phenomenon. Within the scope of this case study, the municipality is conceptualised as a unified organisational entity, integrating both the political level (the municipal council) and the administrative level (executive bodies). The case study of Utena District Municipality demonstrates a mature, proactive green culture. This is evident in the systematic integration of green values into decision-making, continuity of the green agenda, openness to innovation, and stakeholder empowerment. The findings demonstrate that GOC contributes to social welfare by improving the quality of life, fostering inclusive and transparent governance, and strengthening long-term sustainability-oriented decision-making at the local government level. The results highlight GOC as a mediating mechanism that translates environmental governance into tangible social and institutional benefits, thus confirming its role as a strategic capability in GPA.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sigita Strautnikienė | Rita Toleikienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Expression of Values as a Criterion for the Suitability of Volunteers to Provide Assistance to Children from Families Facing Social Risks
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">In Lithuania, assistance to children growing up in families facing social risks is provided by non-governmental organisations, which engage volunteers after assessing their suitability for working with children. The present article reveals the expression of the values of volunteers as an essential criterion for selection for work with children from families facing social risks. The article presents the results of a quantitative study obtained by using various instruments: a written questionnaire was used to assess volunteers’ involvement in voluntary activities, satisfaction with activities, etc.; the Schwartz basic human values questionnaire helped identify the core values of volunteers, the Thomas-Kilmann instrument helped reveal the conflict resolution strategies used by volunteers and their links to the expression of values. The study involved 102 volunteers working with children in NGOs<strong class="bold" lang="en-US" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">. <span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The results of the quantitative study revealed links between the volunteers’ successful long-term activities and the expression of values<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">. According to the results of the quantitative study, it can be stated that the expression of values should become one of the essential criteria when selecting volunteers to work with children from families facing social risks.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ilona Klanienė | Aleksandra Zamrykit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Subjective Perception of Violence: How Teachers Understand Violence Against Them
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">There is a lack of research analyzing how teachers themselves define violence and what patterns of behavior they personally consider to be violent. It is precisely this subjective perception of violence that may explain why some situations remain invisible at the institutional level: they are not named and reported, or they are normalized as part of a teacher’s job, even though, in the long run, they can negatively affect a teacher’s professional identity and well-being. A phenomenographic perspective was applied in this research. It has been found that teachers understand violence in the workplace as pressure to obey, aggressive behavior, insults, public humiliation, and non-transparent decisions, which are characterized by verbal, physical, written, and visual expressions. The scope of the research results shows that the teachers’ perception of violence is not limited to incidents but is revealed as a process of constructing meaning that combines the form of violence, structural features, and orientation toward the teacher as a professional or as a person. The study broadens not only the concept of violence in the school environment but also the field of analysis of the teacher as an object of violence, and it reveals that the teachers’ understanding of violence is more related to administrative power practices.
Copyright (c) 2026 Daiva Penkauskienė | Valdonė Indrašienė | Asta Railienė | Justinas Sadauskas | Odeta Merfeldaitė | Violeta Jegelevičienė | Romas Prakapas | Aistė Diržytė | Rugilė Bitinaitė- Motiejūnienė | Jolanta Pivorienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
(Re)Construction of Teachers’ Value Attitudes During the Retraining Studies: The Context of Inclusive Education
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The paper reveals how teachers’ value attitudes change during their retraining studies by employing qualitative research methods. The (re-)construction of teachers’ value attitudes during their study period most clearly revealed itself in two major directions. The first one is related to the concept of inclusion and is treated as one of the key value-based philosophies and educational strategies of contemporary education. The second direction is associated with reflection on the teacher’s professional identity field encompassing a new perception of the self as a teacher and an individual. Moreover, the re-identification of the professional role is emphasised too. Reconstruction of teachers’ value attitudes may be positioned as a core part of the retraining studies. The findings of the qualitative study prove that teachers (re-)construct value attitudes that are relevant for the professional field when they have a possibility to reflect on their pedagogical performance, attitudes, professional skills and personal characteristics in the context of the study process and content. Reflection becomes a significant tool allowing integration of the previously obtained and newly acquired experiences. It also provides preconditions for making the process of value-based transformation visible. This means that the change of value attitudes is inseparable from reflection which, in the context of the present study, can be identified as a catalyst of the value-based transformation necessary for the (self-)formation of the professional identity.
Copyright (c) 2026 Regina Karvelienė | Kristina Rūdytė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Model of Successful Interorganizational Collaboration in Digital Inclusion Field
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The aim of this article is to reveal the critical success factors of interorganizational collaboration in increasing digital inclusion in public libraries and to create a theoretical model of successful interorganizational collaboration. The theoretical significance of the study lies in integrating and extending existing knowledge on interorganizational collaboration by synthesizing relevant literature and applying the quadruple helix model to the field of digital inclusion. By using the constructivist grounded theory methodology, 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of public libraries, higher education institutions, local government bodies, NGOs, businesses, and digital inclusion experts. Based on the formed grounded theory, this model reveals the critical success factors of interorganizational collaboration: mutuality, the integration of contractual and relational governance mechanisms, and collaborative capability, which were identified as having the greatest influence on the criteria for the success of interorganizational collaboration: the achievement of collaboration goals, ensuring the sustainability of the results achieved, and partner satisfaction with the collaboration process. The practical significance of the study lies in providing a structured framework and actionable insights for public libraries and their partners to design, manage, and sustain effective collaborative initiatives that promote digital inclusion at the community level and thus contribute to the well-being of society.
Copyright (c) 2026 Kristina Kulikauskienė | Diana Šaparnienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Impact of AI on Teacher’s Profession: Beyond Boogeyman and Critique
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Aiming to ensure social well-being by investing in teachers’ attitudes toward technology, this study examines how the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) reconfigures teachers’ professional agency, while focusing on theoretical tensions between pedagogical innovation and governance-driven regulation. The analysis centers on the interaction between AI and the teaching profession, demonstrating how AI intensifies and reconfigures existing teaching theories and practices, rather than introducing an entirely new pedagogical paradigm. The study employs a theoretically grounded conceptual analysis, drawing on pragmatist-constructivist, post-structural (Foucauldian), and posthumanist perspectives, with the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) positioned as a relational analytical framework within the posthumanist tradition to examine human-technology entanglements in education. The analysis suggests that AI can support pedagogical experimentation and student-centered learning, but simultaneously introduces risks related to teacher autonomy, personalized learning, ethical responsibility, and new forms of surveillance and control. These dynamics reveal a central contradiction between pedagogical innovation and institutional regulation. The study concludes that a balanced approach which combines human agency with AI capabilities is essential for promoting equity, adaptability, and social well-being in education.
Copyright (c) 2026 Jurgita Bagdonaitė | Lilija Duoblienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Towards the Integration of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Dolphin-Assisted Therapy
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">The scientific article analyses the health care system of European countries and Lithuania in the context of complementary and alternative medicine. The article reviews the relationship between the traditions of conventional medicine and alternative and complementary medicine, patients’ attitudes towards the methods of complementary and alternative medicine, as well as dolphin-assisted therapy as one of the methods of complementary and alternative medicine. The impact on people with disabilities achieved by implementing the innovations of complementary and alternative medicine in the health system is reviewed. The aim is to investigate the links between conventional medicine and complementary and alternative medicine – specifically, dolphin-assisted therapy – through the impact on people with disabilities in implementing health system reforms. The research presents 147 interviews conducted with parents whose children with disabilities participated in dolphin-assisted therapy. The research data were processed by using qualitative content analysis. The research revealed that, from the point of view of parents raising children with disabilities, dolphin-assisted therapy is a health innovation that can be attributed not to complementary and alternative medicine, but rather to conventional medicine due to the complexity of the applied programme and methods. European Union countries treat complementary and alternative medicine methods in a different way, and the law adopted in Lithuania in 2020 opened opportunities for the development of conventional medicine and the regulation of complementary and alternative medicine, and the changes of health system reform expand the opportunities of integrative medicine for the choice of innovative methods for people with disabilities that affect the quality of life and better response to needs.
Copyright (c) 2026 Brigita Kreivinienė | Elvyra Acienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Diffractive Wanderings and Illuminations on University Students’ Career Learning
In pursuit of new ideas, questions and insights, this article explores undergraduate students’ career learning. It is based on the assumption that there is a need for new ideas and innovation in career development theory and practice, especially in times of rapid changes in the world and constant challenges. Performing diffractive analysis – in the sense of reading the ‘data’ (non-representational conversations with two undergraduate students) and poststructuralist as well as new materialist philosophical texts, career theories into and through one another, allow free movement of thought to explore beyond the normalized discourses of the field. It is wandering as well as wondering while being ‘of the world’ instead of observing from the outside, going further than universalisms. Philosophy of immanence and agential realism enacted here encourage to ask: what can be thought of students’ career learning? How does undergraduate students’ career learning emerge through entanglements with the human and non-human? The article is rhizomatic in its structure, it is also an attempt to break the rules and escape the enclosure of traditional empiricism in the field of educational research. Theory and practice are considered inseparable in Karen Barad’s agential realist framework; therefore, the theoretical and practical parts are intertwined. The results, or illuminations bring forward the ideas and concepts, that intensify and glow while diffractively reading the ‘data’, philosophical materials and career theories: thinking about career learning as life; attending to desire as the productive force in career learning; thinking about encounters and chance events as well as the non-human in career learning; drawing attention to how big narratives are created and disseminated. The article contains emergent thoughts, that appear in the process of thinking, they are noted in a different font, and I re-turn to them at the end of the work. I use ‘re-turn’ with reference to Barad’s idea of transformative process, the past that is with us.
Copyright (c) 2026 Laimutė Kodienė https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Environmental and Epidemic Sensitivity in the Context of Preserving Personal Health during Wartime
<span class="italic" style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">This article examines environmental and epidemic sensitivity as a psychological factor influencing health preservation during wartime. Based on a quantitative study involving 6042 adult respondents of varying ages, genders, educational and professional backgrounds, the research identifies key socio-demographic and social predictors of heightened sensitivity to ecological and health-related threats. The results show that women, individuals with higher education, older adults, and professionals in socially oriented fields (e.g., healthcare, education, safety services) report significantly higher levels of sensitivity. Furthermore, the quality and accessibility of medical services, health-supportive infrastructure, and the surrounding social environment were found to be significant contributors to environmental and epidemic sensitivity. These findings suggest that sensitivity in this context reflects not only emotional responsiveness but also a conscious cognitive and behavioural orientation toward health protection and environmental awareness. The study supports the view that, in the context of war-related stressors, environmental and epidemic sensitivity becomes an adaptive mechanism that can serve as a predictor of health-oriented behaviour and psychological resilience. The findings provide a basis for developing targeted psychoeducational and health-promotion interventions in crisis conditions.
Copyright (c) 2026 Oksana Kredentser | Tetiana Tytarenko | Maryna Dvornyk | Tetiana Larina | Volodymyr Savinov | Aglaya Savchenko | Iuliia Paskevska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0