Young Romanians Research Articles

New Trends of Thought in Response to Post-Pandemic Work Precariousness Among Second-Generation Romanian Citizens in Spain

Drawing on 65 in-depth interviews with young Romanians between 22 and 33 years old, the contribution of this article is to offer an innovative analysis of the work experiences of second-generation young people who, having studied and completed their degrees in Spain during the pandemic, are developing their skills and creativity in a difficult labour market. I argue that unlike their parents’ generation, who in many cases have returned home or practice mobility, this generation wishes to remain in Spain. Consequently, the (im)mobility experienced by second-generation young people has become a fundamental post-pandemic trend. Three interlinked profiles were identified: (1) young graduates doing work for which they are overqualified, who want to find better jobs; (2) young people who have completed master’s or doctoral degrees and now have their own business, are applying for research funding or are unemployed; and (3) unemployed graduates who are making a living from self-employment or aspire to have their own business. The conclusions highlight new trends of thought among young Romanians educated and trained during the pandemic in terms of how to overcome work precariousness and live in Spain.

The Role of the ”Petru Maior” and ”România Jună” Societies in the Formation of the Romanian Elite

In the second half of the 19th century, both in Vienna and Budapest there were numerous Romanian students, but also a Romanian elite consisting of several Romanian intellectuals who held important positions. Vienna and Budapest were the most important university centers for Romanians in Transylvania. Arriving in the two capitals, the young Romanians became aware of the problems faced by the Romanian society and some of them got involved in various activities aimed at solving them and emancipating the Romanians. Among them we might mention Nicolae Oncu, who will stand out as the director of an important Romanian bank from the Dual Monarchy, the future publicist Iosif Vulcan, the composer Ciprian Porumbescu, the politician Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, the writer Ioan Slavici, the politician Vasile Goldiș, or the Romanian national poet, Mihai Eminescu. The two societies of Romanian students in the Austro-Hungarian capitals are important, because it was here that these young people met and made friends. In less than a decade they asserted themselves as important personalities, active both in Romania and in the ranks of Romanians from the Dual Monarchy. Most of them became supporters of the idea of national unity of all Romanians. The beginnings of their activity are linked to the experiences they lived through in Vienna and Budapest.

Youth Perspectives on Collaborative Consumption: A Study on the Attitudes and Behaviors of the Romanian Generation Z

With the emergence of the sharing economy, a significant change in consumer behavior can be observed worldwide, which has a considerable impact on various industries. The rise of the sharing economy has changed the way people experience transport services, with ridesharing being a catalyst for change. In Romania, the debut of Uber in 2015 sparked controversy and led to legal regulations that were adapted to local specificities, highlighting the adaptability of ridesharing platforms to different legal frameworks. In the context of this development, the views and perceptions of Generation Z will be crucial in determining the direction in which this conflict between disruptive models and traditional players in the transport sector develops. The article deals with business models based on collaborative consumption, with a focus on ridesharing, and examines the attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of Romanian youths (aged 18–26) towards these models. The aim of the study is to determine the opinion of young Romanians on collaborative consumption in transport services—ridesharing (Uber case)—and their attitude towards the ethical controversies related to Uber’s business model. A quantitative research approach was chosen, and an exploratory study was conducted using a questionnaire, with the non-probabilistic sample consisting of relevant observation units aged 18–26 years. The results show that almost 90% of the young Romanians surveyed use Uber and are satisfied with the quality, convenience, and speed of the service. Despite the positive attitude, there is a paradoxical tendency among respondents to regulate ridesharing services in a similar way to traditional taxis. Ethical considerations show that respondents tend to neutralize perceptions and justify the emergence of new models as normal and beneficial for competition and consumers.

Young People and Projects for the Future. Case Study Romania

In recent years, the problem of young people has become a dominant one both in the scientific literature, being analyzed from different perspectives, as well as at the level of leaders from various European and national institutions, being interested in the identification of measures, and policies to support young people. The problems that today's young people face are increasingly complex, and the decisions they make and the solutions they identify have a significant impact not only on their own lives but also on the community and the society they belong to. Our study aims to answer the following questions: what are the expectations of young Romanians vis-a-vis their educational, professional, and family future? What are the actions they undertake to achieve their proposed objectives? From a theoretical point of view, we will use a multiple trajectories perspective. From a methodological point of view, we will use quantitative data collected in 2022-2023 in Romania at the level of the South-West Oltenia region. The results confirm the fact that young people are uncertain about their future mainly because the socio-economic and political situation is unstable; that they have a great capacity for adaptability that allows them to change their strategies to obtain the best result for their future; coherence in the development of plans has a close connection with the level of education and qualification of young people.

A mânca la Viena. Digresiuni despre ce înseamnă să fii bucovinean în capitala Imperiului

Once in Vienna to get an education, the young Romanians that left Bukovina, be they sons of boyars, priests, peasants, or public servants, often found themselves in awe. One way or another, they soon experienced a hard time getting board and lodgings. To make ends meet, they had to pawn their belongings or borrow money, which spelled trouble for all of them. Consequently, their food choice and cooking skills welcome a cultural studies approach that reveals their worldview, identity or history proper. Taking into account mostly unknown memoirs, diaries and letters, the present paper aims to give insight into the eating habits and the world of young Bukovinians living in Vienna. Fitted within a chronological sequence, the case studies under scrutiny range from the Hurmuzachi brothers (Constantin, Eudoxiu, Gheorghe), Eminescu, and the so-called ‘Bukovinian colony’ to Ciprian Porumbescu and, eventually, Leca Morariu. Strangely enough, Morariu, although wounded in WWI, is the only one who managed to eat well while in Vienna. However, both his war and Vienna diaries are meaningful from many other perspectives than his meals. Beyond the actual or the implied questions they trigger, my somewhat random reading comes across as an opportunity to rediscover a lost world.

Postmemory sits in places: the relationship of young Romanians to the communist past

ABSTRACT Geographers have studied memory for decades, but there is currently a renewed interest in places of postmemory: sites to which memories of a past are connected, that engage those who have no living memory of the past in question. By combining a process-tracing approach to several post-communist surveys with in-depth interviews with members of the younger generation about their postmemories of the communist past, this paper explores places associated with postmemories of communism amongst young people in contemporary Romania, focusing on two types of place: (1) mega-constructions, prisons and deportation sites; and (2) sites connected to everyday life (home, shops, hospitals). The findings suggest that “postmemories in places” are reproduced and co-produced by younger people in a nuanced and complex way. Spatial postmemories of communism are not simply formed by parental or grandparental experiences of communism itself, but are also shaped by experiences of the initial post-communist period. Younger people’s complex range of “postmemories in places” toward the communist past are politically multivalent: postmemory of specific sites related to the cultural welfare of the communist past did not necessarily indicate a political commitment to its restoration amongst interviewees; and postmemories of political violence associated with particular sites did not preclude unilateral pride in national achievements prior to 1989. Furthermore, “postmemory in place” is not a passive process, but one that is shaped by both a critical attitude to the responses of older generations toward particular places, and the challenges of the capitalist present.

Transnational Far Right and Nazi Soft Power in Eastern Europe: The Humboldt Fellowships for Romanians

Foreign students and researchers in Germany became, after 1933, a tool of Nazi propaganda. Those receiving financial support from the Germans, such as the recipients of the Humboldt fellowships, were further compromised. This article aims to shed light on the role played by Humboldt fellowships in the political and ideological transfer between Nazi Germany and Romania. It aims to re-create the profile of the fellows and the influence of the fellowship on the Romanian fellows’ political and ideological development, in order to establish how they functioned as Nazi propaganda tools. Throughout the 1930s, the number of young Romanians going to study and carry out research in Nazi Germany increased considerably, while the financial support they received from the Germans became more significant—including a larger number of Humboldt fellowships. This shows not only that Nazi Germany had a special interest in developing its relations with Romania but also that Romania was embarked on a path of far-right radicalization, with students and youth becoming sympathizers of Nazi Germany and sometimes members of the Iron Guard. The Romanian Humboldt fellows were politically instrumentalized by the Third Reich: they were engaged in far-right political activism, were influenced in their professions and writings by the Nazi ideology, and sometimes they even went on to occupy various positions in the Romanian bureaucratic or diplomatic apparatus.

Romanian Funds and Foundations in Transylvania that supported the Phenomenon of Peregrinatio Accademica (The Second Half of the Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Centuries)

In the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many young Romanians from Transylvania went to the universities of the Habsburg Empire, but also to universities in France, Germany, Switzerland, or Italy. For material academic support, they resorted to the foundations and funds established by the Greek‑Catholic Church and the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Transylvania, as well as by banking institutions or private individuals. The amount of scholarships varied depending on the number of years of study and the city where the young scholars were studying. After graduation, most of these youth returned to Transylvania, where they either practiced liberal professions such as medicine or law, or became teachers in Romanian high schools. These young people, trained at prestigious European universities, later formed the Romanian political and intellectual elite in Transylvania.

Belonging among young people with migrant background in Portugal: local, national, and transnational identifications

ABSTRACT Belonging is a timely and highly relevant social phenomena both in youth studies and within migration research. Drawing on a multi-sited qualitative study carried out in Portugal, this article aims to discuss the sense of belonging that young Afro-descendants, Ukrainians, and Romanians forge in relation to their national and local context, and to their cultural heritage. The findings indicate that most young people with migrant background develop multiple belongings, combining a sense of belonging to Portugal, to their homeland and cultural heritage. Moreover, while some afro-descendants reveal a sense of identification with a ‘world culture’, others manifest strong attachments to their city and neighborhood. We argue that young people’s belonging to places and cultures is shaped by the aesthetic appreciation of spaces, landscapes and cultures, as well as by social class, cultural practices, thick interactions with people of the same ethnic background, and by civic and political participation.

Quantitative and qualitative centrality of a social representation's core elements: The use of the Basic Cognitive Schemes model

The general aim of this research was to investigate the use of the Basic Cognitive Schemes (BCS) model in examining the qualitative vs. quantitative centrality of a social representation’s (SR) core elements. Firstly, we examined the internal structure of the social representation of the European integration (Study 1, N = 71) according to Central Core Theory of the structural approach of social representations. Secondly, we investigated the qualitative vs. quantitative centrality of its core elements (Study 2, N = 106) using the BCS model. The study included young people from Eastern Romania enrolled in a Psychology undergraduate degree. The results permitted the identification of the elements defining the internal structure of the SR of the European integration among young Romanians. We identified five central elements with prescriptive functions (i.e., mobility, unity, opportunity, European funds, and civilization). Furthermore, after checking their qualitative and quantitative centrality using the BCS model, only three of them were confirmed as both qualitatively and quantitatively central. Thus, the results also underlined the importance of the BSC model in better understanding the relationships between the SR’s internal elements. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

The power of anticipated regret: Predictors of HPV vaccination and seasonal influenza vaccination acceptability among young Romanians

BackgroundUnderstanding lay perceptions concerning vaccination and identifying the most important psychological determinants of vaccine acceptability are relevant for health promotion campaigns. MethodsThis cross-sectional study aimed to identify the psychological determinants of HPV vaccine and seasonal flu vaccine acceptability in a national sample of young adults. An extended version of the health belief model (HBM) provided the main theoretical framework. Four hundred and one adults aged 18–26 (79% women), completed the theory-based survey and were included in analyses. The main outcomes were intentions to vaccinate against HPV and the seasonal flu. Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations and hierarchical multiple regression were used for data analysis. ResultsThe models predicted 51% and 60% of the variability in intentions to vaccinate against HPV and the seasonal flu, respectively. For both decisional contexts, anticipated inaction regret (assuming one were unvaccinated and later contracted infection) was the strongest predictor of intentions, contributing above and beyond the role of traditional risk belief constructs (HBM constructs). Other shared predictors of intentions were perceived effectiveness of vaccine, perceived vaccine safety, perceived susceptibility to disease and previous vaccine refusal. The study also provides insights into young adults’ vaccine-related knowledge and their information-seeking practices. ConclusionFindings outline directions for future research and implications for health communication campaigns.

Identification of Cultural and Transcultural Health Assets Among Moroccan, Romanian and Spanish Adolescents Through Photovoice.

The health assets model focuses on recognizing the strengths, capacities and resources of individuals and their communities to improve health control processes. This study focuses on identifying and comparing the transcultural and cultural assets in health as accounted for by 45 young Romanians, Moroccans and Spaniards living in southern Spain. The research uses a photovoice method to understand what young people consider to boost their health. Of all the photographs taken, each young person selected the six most relevant images, and individual interviews were carried out. Both images and interviews were analysed qualitatively using Atlas Ti. We identified 40 transcultural assets in health that were common among the 3 cultural groups and 7 cultural assets that were specific to cultural groups. The seven assets include religion and spirituality, cultural symbols, medicine, traditional food, thinness, freedom/autonomy and plants. The definition of transcultural and cultural health assets facilitates the development of educational health interventions that reinforce the strengths of others in a culturally sensitive manner.

Education and post-communist transitional justice: negotiating the communist past in a memorial museum

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of education within post-communist transitional justice. It focuses on the ways in which young Romanians negotiate the communist past during an educational visit to a memorial museum. The museum enabled these visitors to better understand the repression of the communist era and had limited impact in changing their attitudes towards communism, but it did provoke reflection upon and comparison between the present and the communist past. Visitors recognized the role of the museum as a site of memory within post-communist transitional justice, but were also critically aware of the limitations to what the museum could achieve. The implications of these findings for post-communist transitional justice are examined.

Language attitudes of young Romanians in Catalonia (Spain): The role of heritage language maintenance programs

Abstract This article presents a mixed method analysis of the language attitudes held by secondary education students of Romanian origin, which are members of the second largest immigrant population living currently in Catalonia. The relevance of this data is based on the cardinal role played by attitudes in the success of any educational or linguistic policy (Lewis, E. Glyn. 1981. Bilingualism and bilingual education. Oxford, UK: Pergamon.) – a topic of special relevance in contexts with considerable migratory influxes, such as Catalonia, which aims to achieve social cohesiveness in a framework of interculturalism and multilingualism. The various initiatives implemented for this purpose include the heritage language maintenance programs, such as the “Romanian Language, Culture, and Civilization” (RLCC) program. The results showed that the young Romanians had the most favourable attitudes towards Spanish, followed closely by Romanian, and lastly Catalan, which was the least valued language. Furthermore, these attitudinal patterns were not determined by RLCC attendance. The insights provided by the in-depth interviews indicated various components and meanings associated with the attitudes towards the three languages. Namely, attitudes towards Spanish were primed by its international status and ease of learning, while attitudes towards Catalan were build on its integrative value and social status. Although esteemed for its emotional and symbolic bonds, Romanian seemed to be on a path towards invisibilization. Finally, the educational and social implications of these findings are discussed, emphasising the importance of involving and working with both the autochthonous and the Romanian immigrant population.

The Ambiguity of Return Migration: Prolonged Crisis and Uncertainty in the Life Strategies of Young Romanian and Latvian Returnees

AbstractDrawing on qualitative research, this study endeavours to identify the determinants of return migration of young Romanians and Latvians in light of the most recent global economic crisis (GEC). The decision‐making patterns of young returnees are examined by three main research questions. How do macro‐events, such as the GEC, interfere with individual biographies creating specific return experiences? What can we say about the “crisis returnees”, their migration motivations and re‐adaptation in the origin country? What are the main challenges of young adults facing life strategies in such uncertain periods? Data are drawn from 51 in‐depth interviews with Romanian and Latvian young adults, carried out in late 2015 and early 2016. Findings show that return migration is associated with economic conditions, family life, feelings of homesickness, and re‐adaptation experiences. Our results also confirm that youth transitions and migration have become more diversified and complex in the context of the economic crisis.

The inclusion process of young Romanians in Catalonia (Spain): the relationship between participating in classes of L1, self-identification, and life-satisfaction

ABSTRACTWe analyse the influence of attending or not attending classes of the language of origin in self-identification and in life-satisfaction. In addition, we analyse how these elements are related to the perception of integration of young immigrants of Romanian origin in a multilingual and multicultural context like that of Catalonia (Spain). We present a mixed method study. A total of 131 young people of Romanian origin (74 females and 57 males), aged between 12 and 18 years completed a questionnaire. We also carried out 34 in-depth semi-structured interviews. Both quantitative and qualitative results prove that attending or not RLCC courses does not have a significant influence on self-identifications. Results coincide in that young people self-identify more with their ethnical group of origin; however, a tendency towards hybridisation is revealed as the length of stay increases. Diversely, those who present more self-identification with Catalonia and less with their origin, felt more comfortable in the receiving country. Expectations perceived from these young people point mainly towards the need to assimilate and abandon who they are in order to feel more at ease, an element that may encompass stressful psychological factors, resulting in discomfort and conflict.

Young Romanians’ Transition from School to Work in a Path Dependence Context

For the past 25 years, Romania crossed a contradictory evolution between the social–educational and economic aspects. From the inflexible educational system of the totalitarian regime, when all graduates from different levels of education immediately received a job (to avoid unemployment—a phenomenon that the communist authorities did not tolerate), there was a transition to an educational system marked by frequent structural and methodological changes and by an increasing gap between the educational offer and the real necessities of the labor market. In this context, the aim of this paper was to analyzes, in the light of the sociology of education, the difficulties met by the new generations that enter the labor market after following a previously established educational model, often intended to be changed according to European sociological principles, but with deeply rooted mentalities and structure, actually difficult to alter. The ability to adapt to the new socio-economic context and to adjust educational programs to the new labor market requirements, in a strong correlation with the European policies, is constantly taken into account by interpreting the results in the spirit of the sociology of education and sustainable development.

Acceptability and diffusion of luxury Anglicisms in present-day Romanian

AbstractIn the context of the current heated debate surrounding the pervasive influence of the English language and Anglo-American culture on other languages, as well as the widespread purist attitude towards some contact-induced language change phenomena, both abroad and in Romania, our article discusses the situation of English lexical borrowings in present-day Romanian, focusing on the perception and processing of the so-calledluxury Anglicisms(Sections 2and3) by young Romanian native speakers, in an attempt to see whether such an analysis can help clarify their acceptability and diffusion across our target population. We propose an alternative cognitive, psycholinguistic approach to the study of contact-induced lexical borrowings, aiming to show that there is no difference in the young Romanian native speakers’ processing of sentences containing luxury Anglicisms and their established Romanian counterparts. Such findings may support our claim that the acceptability and diffusion of such Anglicisms are pervasive across our target population, even if the official position generally condemns such uses, considering them gratuitous and a burden in communication, even making it unintelligible sometimes.Our analysis starts from the observation that most (but not all) Romanian academics, whether linguists or not, tend to embrace a purist attitude, while on the other hand young Romanians accept such Anglicisms and tend to use them extensively. In fact, such uses are not limited to young people, who have been the subjects of our research, but are the ‘norm’ in daily conversations and elsewhere across the general population (Stoichițoiu Ichim 2006). Thus, there seems to be a gap between the actual acceptability and diffusion of luxury Anglicisms among Romanians and the ‘official’ recommendations. Based on the results of a sensicality task, meant to show how 188 Romanians, aged 18–22, process and perceive sentences with or without luxury Anglicisms (seeSection 6), we will try to show that luxury Anglicisms are accepted and, by recurrent use, diffused among the Romanian community. For a more accurate picture of their diffusion, the findings will be further correlated with data fromCoRoLa, the only official corpus ofpresent-day Romanian (beginning 1989) made available under the auspices of the Romanian Academy, as well as a corpus currently in the making, and the Internet (seeSection 7).Besides showing that luxury Anglicisms cannot really be blamed for burdening or impairing processing, and thus communication, and explaining why such uses should not be censured or disapproved, we hope that our study of acceptability and diffusion will demonstrate that we are dealing with a complex, multi-layered phenomenon that can be better understood by going beyond a diachronic and synchronic analysis of particular words and a frequency count, and should incorporate more experimental data.Last but not least, we suggest that, on the practical side, such experimental studies as the one described here could be used as an additional criterion for the lexicographic inclusion of lexical borrowings.

Young Romanians: Entrepreneurs in their Home Country?

As outward migration and brain drain reach record numbers in Romania, we explore the pull factors that might contribute to a reversal. This paper presents the findings of the first large scale survey on the entrepreneurial intentions of the Romanian Diaspora. We have specifically targeted the category of graduates and young professionals as having the highest flexibility to relocate. The findings of our survey show a large inclination to start a business venture in the home country (79%). The main field in which the young Romanian Diaspora would be interested to develop an entrepreneurial project is IT&C (35.67%). We compare those findings with those from a domestic survey targeting the same age group, and find little differences in preferences, suggesting that country of residence is not a significant differentiating factor in the decision to start a business. The main perceived impediment for entrepreneurship in Romania is still excessive bureaucracy (76.03%). The reverse migration patterns are important for any developing economy in the world, as the case of Romania shows, where the return of the 200,000 Romanians (5%) could (gradually) contribute on the medium term with more than 11.5 billion euro to the country’s GDP.

Everyday Cosmopolitanism in Representations of Europe among Young Romanians in Britain

The article presents an analysis of everyday cosmopolitanism in constructions of Europe among young Romanian nationals living in Britain. Adopting a social representations approach, cosmopolitanism is understood as a cultural symbolic resource that is part of everyday knowledge. Through a discursively oriented analysis of focus group data, we explore the ways in which notions of cosmopolitanism intersect with images of Europeanness in the accounts of participants. We show that, for our participants, representations of Europe are anchored in an Orientalist schema of West-vs.-East, whereby the West is seen as epitomising European values of modernity and progress, while the East is seen as backward and traditional. Our findings further show that representations of cosmopolitanism reinforce this East/West dichotomy, within a discourse of ‘Occidental cosmopolitanism’. The article concludes with a critical discussion of the diverse and complex ideological foundations of these constructions of European cosmopolitanism and their implications.