The role of emotions in higher education is recently recognised as significant for quality teaching and students’ learning (Mendzheritskaya & Hansen, 2019). Emotions affect the learning climate and outcomes, attendance rates and the quality of classroom relationships and interplays. However, emotions are often overlooked in tertiary education. On the contrary, in primary education they have received significant attention and in Adult Education they have been recognized as an important driving learning force (Tennant, 2019). Nonetheless, emotions and often negative emotions, prevail in higher education and concern the relationships that develop within the classroom setting where transference and countertransference are also present. Emotions, concern both, university teachers and students. This paper suggests that group dynamics can be employed to alleviate negative emotions and support sharing of knowledge and experience in a facilitating environment. Furthermore, reducing dropout rates is another challenge. However, the question remains to what extent this is possible to happen in large audiences and classrooms where facilities for group learning are not provided in most higher education institutions in Greece.

Although the scientific community, particularly academic publishing, claims to be gender-neutral and based on meritocracy, it mirrors other parts of modern society, wherein residual gender imbalances and implicit and explicit gender biases are reproduced. In this report, we address gender imbalances (in particular, the overrepresentation of men) in the editorial workforce of academic journals as barriers to women's promotion and career progression in addiction science. We also consider potential gender-related elements and biases in the peer-review and editorial decision-making processes, which may result in women's lower publication rates, thereby creating another gender-related barrier to women's promotion, career progression and academic recognition. Establishing a more balanced gender representation in addiction publishing will require the adoption of the SAGER guidelines and the development of Gender Equality Plans for addiction specialty journals. Finally, although our focus concerns gender, the organisational mechanisms identified here also affect other types of heterogeneity and intersectional thinking.

Περίληψη: Η φτώχεια και ο κοινωνικός αποκλεισμούς έχουν απασχολήσει αρκετές δεκαε- τίες την επιστημονική κοινότητα, η οποία έχει δώσει ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στη διερεύνηση των παραγόντων και συνθηκών που οδηγούν ορισμένες πληθυσμιακές ομάδες στο κοινωνικό περιθώριο. Η ευαλωτότητα συχνά ορίζεται ως ο βαθμός στον οποίο ένας πληθυσμός, ένα άτομο ή ένας οργανισμός αδυνατεί να έχει προσδοκίες, να αντιμετωπίσει, να αντισταθεί και να ανακάμψει από τις επιπτώσεις μιας καταστροφής. Ωστόσο, η ευαλωτότητα δεν είναι μόνο αποτέλεσμα καταστροφών. Αφορά κυρίως τις κοινωνικοοικονομικές συνθήκες που δημιουργούν το υπόβαθρο για την ανάπτυξη της φτώχειας και της αποστέρησης. Η παρούσα εργασία, εστιάζει στη διερεύνηση του φαινομένου, σύμφωνα με τα νέα δεδομένα και τους σύγχρονους ευρωπαϊκούς δείκτες που αναδεικνύουν τους κινδύνους της φτώχειας και του κοινωνικού αποκλεισμού για σημαντική μερίδα του πληθυσμού. Επιπλέον, διερευνά το ρόλο της Δια βίου μάθησης και της Συμβουλευτικής στην ενδυνάμωση των ατόμων και των ομάδων που βιώνουν τη φτώχεια και τον αποκλεισμό που γεννούν οι δομικές ανισότητες.

Workplace mobbing, bullying and sexual harassment are not new phenomena. There were always there. Nonetheless, the recent few years more studies have highlighted their significance for the well-being of the employees and the workplace. First and foremost, it is apparent to clarify the differences between mobbing, bullying and sexual harassment. In the first part of this paper, we are going to focus on workplace mobbing and bullying and in the second part on sexual harassment. The term workplace bullying is usually encountered more often than mobbing. The differences between the two, mainly represent the differences between two schools of thought: a) the British School, where the term workplace bullying prevails and b) the Scandinavian countries and Germany, where the term mobbing is more commonly used. Workplace bullying includes mobbing, that is the moral and emotional violation of another person, but it also expands to include the physical and sexual violation that derives from abuse of power. Workplace bullying refers to direct repeated aggressive behavior towards a person. This behavior results in the victim suffering psychological, physical, financial and/or sexual harassment. Mobbing is a more passive aggressive form of moral and emotional harassment that offends the dignity of an individual and may cause him/her emotional damage. Mobbing, or else, moral, and emotional harassment, has several consequences for the person exposed to this experience but furthermore for the workplace as well.