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This paper seeks to extend discussion on teachers' leadership within International Baccalaureate schools in Poland. Background for the discussions on leadership in Polish context of education is the term Homo Sovieticus [in English: Soviet Man], a notion associated with sarcastic and critical reference to an average conformist person living in the Soviet Union or in other countries of the Eastern Bloc in Europe, a spineless person who lacks any "bottom up" initiative. In the paper, it is claimed that teachers' limited leadership in a centrally steered system of teacher training in Poland, demonstrates features of leadership developed according to the Homo Sovieticus model of the citizen. Strong emphasis onto leadership within international culture do not let Homo Sovieticus features and behaviors to develop. In this understanding, international schools with strong emphasis on leadership in Polish post-soviet educational landscape creates path of evolution from stereotypical perception of teachers as passive "Homo Sovieticus" to leader within school curriculum.

This paper analyses the Solidarity movement narratives, focusing on church representatives, religious issues, and symbols in the Polish history textbooks for upper secondary schools between 1991 and 2018. The analysed textbooks prove to reinforce Poland's national and religious identities, with John Paul II and the priest Popieluszko being the primary national heroes of the Solidarity movement. The Catholic Church is presented as a protector of national values during the Solidarity period. The study also reveals the gradual reduction and simplification of the textbooks' content. This tendency is a trigger for the polarisation of the historical discourse, posing a weapon for secular policies to misuse the ideological and symbolic roles of the Church in reproducing the Pole-Catholic pattern in history textbooks.

This paper aims to explore transformative learning processes of parents involved in informal, parent-established democratic schools, which are novel educational initiatives in Poland. The author argues that the distinctive educational ideology and the practice of such schools expose parents to new understandings of education, the child and the parent, which prompts their transformative learning. Drawing on the conceptual framework of transformative learning and practice-based learning theories, the author analyses interviews with parents to identify the trajectory of parental learning, the scope of their transformation and the factors that enhance or hinder it. Primarily concerning the respondents' personal identities and part-identities as parents, the transformation entails changes in their value systems, definitions of a good life, perceptions of the child and parenting practices. While its potential to instigate broader social change currently appears limited, parental transformative learning exemplifies significant emancipatory biographical praxis.

The beginning of the 21st century is marked by systemic, economic and social transformations in Poland and Russia, that significantly affected the education system, including the education for persons with special needs. This paper is an attempt to present synthetically the changes relating to persons with disabilities. The current state of the education for children and youth with special needs will be considered due to the new education system, legal regulations, the school population, type of disability of pupils and the kinds of schools they attend. Compulsory education, which includes the level of primary and lower secondary schools, will be subject to a separate analysis. The article presents significant systemic changes in Polish and Russian education and the state development strategy in the sphere of social policy towards persons with disabilities. The new documents are analyzed that have led to important changes in policy direction with serious consequences in terms of the structure and curriculum of inclusive education in both countries. The paper introduces a review of the changes in policy direction with serious consequences in terms of the structure and curriculum of education for persons with special needs. A key objective of the paper will be to examine the new approaches to education of disabled persons in Russia and Poland and the subsequent changes in it.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate if foreign-born academics employed in Poland and Slovakia have a sense of being marginalised in the global world of knowledge production, and, if so, what are the basic indicators of this marginalisation. The paper is based on 100 qualitative in-depth interviews conducted in Poland and 40 interviews conducted in Slovakia. All interviewees agreed that Poland and Slovakia were peripheries but they conceptualised their peripheral status in many distinctive ways. The paper discusses six indicators of peripheral status of Eastern Europe academic systems, referred to as 'status periphery', 'career periphery', 'workplace periphery', 'mental periphery', 'language periphery', and 'relational periphery'. The discussion focusses on how these two exemplary post-communist European peripheries differ from other academic peripheries.

The twofold aim of this paper is to describe the specificity of education in Poland and to explore the potential and the limitations of the concept of cultural codes for investigating this specificity. With reference to Max Weber's methodology of ideal types, and following the inquires of Sowa (2011), Leder (2014) and Hryniewicz (2015), as well as with reference to contemporary research on education in Poland, I distinguish three types of cultural codes: the folwark, the totalitarian and the modernisation code. The analysis using the concept of cultural codes consists of reinterpreting the existing empirical data on education in Poland. Its potential lies, therefore, in providing a framework for gathering and understanding diverse phenomena, analysed separately in many dispersed studies. The argument conducted in the paper leads to the conclusion of the exhaustion of educational imaginary in Poland. However, the concept of cultural codes is found to be useful in the work leading towards rejuvenation of this imaginary.

The relationships between creativity and tourism are commonly discussed. The article, rooted in the experience of post-soviet countries, presents an experiment carried out within the course "Creativity in tourism" at the University of Lódz, Poland. The objective was to perform two psychometric tests to verify the level of students' creativity: Test of Creative Imagination and "Creative "versus" Imitative Attitude Scale Test". The aim was to answer the research question: may the introduction of the element(s) of creative pedagogy impact creativity of students. The main objective of this paper is to prove the necessity of taking similar actions and including methods and tools from the creative pedagogy framework in teaching processes at the academic level. The students achieved a high increase of fluent thinking. The high rate of the course given by the students may encourage looking for new solutions within the scope of stimulating creativity. The experiment thus constitutes an example of the introduction of a subject satisfying the needs of a dynamic job market and tourism into the academic teaching program.

This paper considers the impact of geopolitical factors, and in particular the collapse of Communism and EU accession, on language education policy and practice in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). CEE is understood here as referring to the former soviet-controlled, eastern bloc counties of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. A particular focus is placed in this paper on the teaching of English and Russian as foreign languages in Hungary and the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The paper begins by reviewing current thinking in the field of language education policy and practice. It then provides an overview of developments in language education policy and practice in CEE more generally before focussing on two case-studies of language education policy and practice in Hungary and the former GDR. Implications both for language education policy and practice in CEE and for the nature of research in this field are discussed.

This paper focuses on a generational change taking place in the Polish academic profession: a change in behaviors and attitudes between two groups of academics. One was socialized to academia under the communist regime (1945-1989) and the other entered the profession in the post-1989 transition period. Academics of all age groups are beginning to learn how tough the competition for research funding is, but young academics ("academics under 40"), being the target of recent policy initiatives, need to learn faster. Current reforms present a clear preferred image for a new generation of Polish academics: highly motivated, embedded in international research networks, publishing mostly internationally, and heavily involved in the competition for academic recognition and research funding. In the long run, without such a radical approach, any international competition between young Polish academics (with a low research orientation and high teaching hours) and their young Western European colleagues (with a high research orientation and low teaching hours) seems inconceivable, as our data on the average academic productivity clearly demonstrate. The quantitative background of this paper comes from 3704 returned questionnaires and the qualitative background from 60 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The paper takes a European comparative approach and contrasts Poland with 10 Western European countries (using 17,211 returned questionnaires).

This paper examines the usefulness of the new social movements (NSMs) paradigm in the changing context of East European post-communist societies and their agricultural systems and rural communities. Starting with statements formulated in Western sociology in the context of Western democratic societies about NSMs as a protest against modernity, the paper analyses the role of such movements in the still modernizing Eastern European reality. The first part of the paper briefly examines some basic elements of the NSMs paradigm in European and American social science. The goal of this section is not only to identify the basic characteristics of NSMs, but also to identify the typical frames used by them. The second part of the paper focuses on the presence of NSMs in the communist era. Drawing on the idea of NSMs as indicators of a "post-materialist shift" as well as of "anti-establishment" and "pro-participatory democracy", the paper examines the frames of democratic opposition in Eastern Europe before 1989. The final part of the paper considers several selected examples from Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to explore the role of NSMs in the process of shaping new ruralities during the post-communist transformation.

This analysis focuses on changes in higher education governance in Poland and Romania in the post-communist era. The author applies a theoretical framework based on institutional isomorphism and historical institutionalism and maps the policy trajectories of both systems on the basis of three governance ideal-types. The public higher education systems of both countries initially took a markedly different reform path after 1989. Polish higher education by and large returned to its historical model of "academic self-rule" and has resisted pressures for stronger marketization, even during the Bologna Process, while Romania has been characterized by an early and strong isomorphic orientation towards higher education models primarily of Anglo-American inspiration. The main argument of the paper is that--after a period of marked divergence--both systems are visibly "re-converging" towards a new hybrid governance model. The new governance model aims to (re-)embed the research mission of universities to foster homegrown research and innovations. These new hybrid constellations enable both countries to simultaneously deal with global pressures for change and liberate themselves from economic dependence on the West, while not throwing historical institutions entirely overboard.

This paper focuses on the dynamics that animate the situation of women inside academia and the social world of science. Based on a long-term ethnographic study we chose specific cases (scientists educated in Poland) to illustrate the complexity of the career-making process in the 21st century. In this country, in a social and professional environment that has belonged to the European Union for 12 years, we observed several particularities. In order to demonstrate the process of "reverse dynamic of equality construction" we adapted a "longue durée" perspective. Our article shows how so-called "democratization" dynamics (after the political changes of 1989) influenced the professional trajectories of women in Poland. The data suggest a progressive deterioration of the situation for Polish female scientists--a process that is ignored by the majority of Polish scholars.

For many years internationalization has not been a strong point of geographical education in post-socialist countries, including Poland. Therefore, all attempts at intensifying it are a real challenge and good practices deserve dissemination. This paper seeks to present the organizational and programme assumptions of a new field of postgraduate study called "Cultural industries in the development policies of cities and regions," (Project supported by the European Social Fund under the Human Capital Operational Programme in the years 2013-2015 (Priority IV: Tertiary Education and Science, Measure 4.3: Enhancing the didactic potential of universities in areas of key importance for the Europe 2020 Strategy. UDA-POKL.04.03.00--00-152/12-00).) developed by the staff of the Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (Poland) as a didactic innovation, based on a modular system of education offering wide internationalization possibilities. The analysis focuses on experiences connected with this process. They include classes prepared in cooperation with visiting professors and practitioners from eight universities and European institutions as well as week-long practical placements in Brussels, arranged thanks to a network of experts and institutions specifically established for this purpose. The results obtained help to formulate conclusions and recommendations for higher schools interested in adopting this kind of good practices connected with the development of geographical education.

The aim of the paper is to analyse the relation between educational struggles and citizenship education in contemporary Poland. It adopts the critical pedagogy perspective and broadly defines the concept of educational struggle as struggling over the content of education, as social tensions in the field of education, as well as the students' and teachers' capacity to perform educational change. Critical discourse analysis of the current grammar and secondary curricula in conducted. It is assumed that struggling, as a transformative and critical activity, plays important role in terms of citizenship education. In the case of Poland, two tendencies are distinguished--struggle as exercising the right for education, and struggle over the content of history. Moreover, the authors analyse representations of struggle in formal education, and explore the issue in the context of Polish cultural tradition, especially related to historical education.

In this paper, I am interested in exploring citizenship regimes as they emerge from the interplay of neoliberal and neoconservative developments in contemporary Europe. I am particularly interested in the connections between different types of contemporary precarity and citizenship imaginaries as they transpire at the historical nexus of a transition between state socialism and neoliberalism. I will use Poland as an example of a post-transition neoliberal economy, where the new political leadership took up criticism of precarity, making it an important public idiom through which the interplay of predatory neoliberalism and national neo-conservatism can be viewed. I will address implications of these trends for education.

Lemko identity in Poland is contested in a number of contexts, including social, linguistic and political domains, among others. The members of this minority have to learn to negotiate multiple identities, not only from an in-group perspective but also in interactions with the majority community in Poland. This paper examines how the Lemkos attempt to do this, with varying degrees of success, and the tensions which arise as a result. In particular, a Lemko identity is examined from the perspective of ideologies of language in order to draw out the major themes which are apparent in this re-emergent minority.

While intergenerational similarities and differences are of key importance for tracking social change, relatively little is known about the transmission of values regarding parenting in Poland. Therefore, this paper explores the process of intergenerational transfer, focusing specifically on the transmission of parenting as a value. From a methodological perspective, the article is based on a combined dataset from two projects completed with a multi-perspective approach. The ensuing qualitative thematic analysis offers intergenerational comparisons of dyadic interviews with pairs consisting of 51 young adults and one parent of each (n=102). As a result, three patterns - straightforward transmission, lagging transfer, and broken intergenerational value-normative connectivity in regard to parenting as a value - are discussed. Ultimately, the paper contributes a better understanding of the public and private aspects within long-term socialisation effects, explored here as residing at the intersection of changing values and intergenerational contexts of family life in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at studying the dynamics of inequalities in access to higher education (HE) both in a historical and a comparative perspective. It uses Bulgaria as a case study and places it among five other countries such as Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The adopted approach differentiates between equity in HE and inequalities in access to HE, and stresses the qualitative side of inequalities. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey (2006-2010), complemented by data from EUROSTUDENT III (2007). It is argued that, despite the expansion of HE before and especially after 1989, Bulgaria is among the countries where inequality in access to HE caused by socio-economic disadvantages is most salient. In general, our findings lend support to the effectively maintained inequalities hypothesis. The capability approach is applied in the analysis of these changes inasmuch as it provides a social justice framework for conceptualizing and evaluating inequalities, including taking into account their qualitative side.

The article presents the main research focus on Generation X in Poland, on the problem of this generation's (un)adjustment and (non)capitalization of the potential and circumstances related to the collapse of socialism and the onset of the country's system transformation process. In countries such as Poland this problem becomes of particular significance because the life of Generation X became integrally interwoven with the radical political, social and economic changes. The primary objective of this paper is to present selected conditions of a start of the working lives of the Polish Generation X and the significance thereof for a successful entry into the adult life by this generation. An attempted analysis covered homogeneity vs. diversity of behaviors typical of this generation. The paper comprised studying the subject literature, the desk research method, descriptive statistics method and the collective case study method. Reference was made to the reports and data bases collected by Eurostat and by Poland and the USA, including by the bureaus for statistics in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines long-term changes in the persistence of overeducation among individual workers, focusing on the relationship between the rate of those changes and the general economic situation. All analyses are based on data from the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) conducted throughout the post-communist transition period, 1988-2008. The results suggest that being in a job with too low educational requirements is stable through time and raises the probability of experiencing the same situation five years later. The incidence of overeducation increased in the studied period, most rapidly during recession. The youngest cohorts, workers aged 26-35 in 2008, faced a higher risk of persistent overqualification than other cohorts. These findings are consistent with Thurow's job competition theory, as well as Sattinger's job assignment model. (Contains 6 tables.)

This paper discusses the relations between economic development, family income, and happiness in post-communist Poland from the point of view of Inglehart's theory of modernization. The happiness is understood as satisfaction with income and life, and as psychological well-being. The analysis of survey data yields the conclusion that economic development reduces the strength of the relations between income and satisfaction as well as between income and psychological well-being. These findings may be explained by changes in the value system from collectivist/materialist to individualist/post-materialist, even when these values are not directly measured. The analyzed data are from a series of representative surveys conducted in Poland during a period of political and economic transformation (i.e., between 1989 and 2008). Official statistical data on Polish economic development during the same period are used as a background for survey results. The relations between income and happiness change in Poland in a way consistent with Inglehart's modernization theory. (Contains 11 figures, 4 tables, and 5 footnotes.)

This paper investigates the question of how schools cope with the cultural change in the form of the increasingly common migration experience of a student and which of the strategies used determine the educational success of a migrant student. The focus is on school intercultural practices. The paper presents the result of qualitative research conducted in 2013-2019, which aimed to show the perspective of a Polish middle school student and her parent who, emigrating to the USA and re-emigrating to Poland, gained a comparative scale of inclusion practices applied in relation to a migrant student as well as awareness of the strategies which contributed to her mastery of the second language and a lasting attitude of favorableness towards the language and its culture. In order to include the sociolinguistic context, which is of particular significance for the problem investigated, the case study was expanded by an observation and partially structured interviews. The case report cited emphasizes the impact of specific inclusion practices which are worth attention (and possibly dissemination) as those that evoke positive emotions in the student, reduce the level of anxiety and stress, and focus on boosting the student's self-confidence - as a result, they support educational success in achieving (acquired) bilingualism - and a lasting attitude towards the second language and the culture to which it gives access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish strategies of coping with COVID-19 pandemic adopted by the clients of social assistance from the perspective of social workers. The qualitative research among Polish social workers and family assistants was conducted from September to November 2021. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with social work professionals, groups of social assistance clients' behaviours were identified and classified into the theoretical models of reactions to social change by Merton and Giddens. The following types of behaviour have been selected and categorized into four groups of reactions when dealing with social workers in a pandemic situation: coolheaded calculation, defiance, confusion, and adaptation. At the same time, reactions to the situation of social change were categorized into one of the strategies of active or passive behaviour: innovation, contestation, retreat, and acceptance. In addition, we discussed the impact of clients' coping strategies on social workers and established three attitudes of the surveyed social workers: adapting to the pandemic situation and customer behaviour, assuming the role of an emotional buffer and informant, and expecting support from superiors and coworkers. Knowing the behaviour of social assistance clients in a challenging situation makes it possible to adopt tailor-made measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participatory budget is an innovative tool for public policymaking, which is characterized by the particpation of residents of territorial administrative units. In the paper, authors focus on the evaluation of the participatory budget within the Visegrad Group, which is linked by specific ties due to the special development of this geopolitical area after the political and social changes in the late 1980s. Identifying the specifics of participatory budgeting in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia is set as the main goal of the article, specifically evaluating the pilot project model, analysing the legislative framework, which regulates participatory budgeting, and extending this tool at the local level in terms of current statistics. As for the pilot projects, the authors identified differences in the following indicators: initiator of its implementation; participation of citizens and their position and powers in project design; participation in the decision-making on projects in terms of voting; whether a direct physical vote or online form was used. In addition, the authors evaluate the legal framework of the selected states in terms of presence of the primary or secondary regulation. Finally, the quantitative development of participatory budgets is monitored, while the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is also reflected in the paper. Based on the data from other states of the Visegrad Group, in the final chapter the authors present optimization proposals, which they consider applicable in Slovakia. The authors identified at least three possible ways of amending the current Slovak legislation in order to improve the implementation of the participatory budget. The paper specifies the shortcomings in the form of low citizen participation in the drafting phase and in the voting process. The paper also identifies the same bottom-up implementation process in all V4 member countries. Poland is the only V4 country that has enshrined primary legislation on participatory budgets in its legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many changes to social behaviours in Europe. One of its major consequences was the temporary closure of borders, which was introduced as a measure to prevent the uncontrolled pandemic spreading and involved internal Schengen borders. This has had a major impact in the way in which cross-border cooperation has been conducted in Europe, including the Czech-Polish borderland, as it dramatically restrained all flows across borders. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of the pandemic on five roles of cross-border cooperation: 1) as a multi-level governance form; 2) as a regional development tool; 3) as a para-diplomacy form; 4) as a post-conflict reconciliation tool; and 5) as Europe-building. We argue that the impacts of the pandemic complicated regional development and the Europe-building role of cross-border cooperation in the Czech-Polish borderland. The article envisages re-bordering processes also in the Czech-Polish borderland, but with important exceptions in the regions with a high level of cross-border integration, mainly in the Euroregion Těšínské Slezsko/Śląsk Cieszyński. The paper also calls for the elaboration of the guidelines for possible repeated (Schengen) border closures and proposes modifications of the INTERREG microprojects schemes, to keep them attractive also in times of expected cuts in public finances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considers the process of democratizing teacher education in Poland, focusing on the long-term effects of the country's totalitarian history on individuals' ability to take responsibility for their own and others' actions. Describes recent projects aimed at enlarging knowledge about democracy and the training skills necessary for social communication based on democratic values. (AC)

Reviews literacy and challenges in women's education during Poland's social transformation, women's participation in the transition, the role of women's organizations in encouraging workforce participation, and educational activities of women's organizations. (SK)

Presents (1) characteristics of the totalitarian educational system in Poland which influence the current educational situation; (2) expectations for institutions connected with early childhood education in the new democratic political and social situations in Poland; and (3) an image of early childhood settings as institutions supporting parent involvement in their children's growth processes. (Author/BB)

Discusses the fall of communism in eastern Europe. Applies Latin America models to eastern Europe. Suggests that revolutions are shaped by the systems against which they are directed. Concludes that the problems of eastern Europe are not caused by the system so much as by geography. Argues that poor capitalism may lie in the future for eastern Europe. (DK)

This paper presents the preliminary results of the 'Pandemic Diaries' research project, carried out by a 5-member team of Polish researchers under a form of open diary writing competition. Its aim was to gather a possibly widest body of personal accounts of the coronavirus pandemic experiences. Within it, 403 entries were submitted, providing a detailed insight into the daily practices, emotional and material difficulties of all age, gender and education-based groups of the Polish society. The paper presents initial observations on the dataset and the most often expressed notions that arise, including a widespread exacerbation of mental health issues as well as the process of defining the period of pandemic through references to collective memory and patriotic milieus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the generational experiences of young adults are believed to have an enduring impact on their attitudes throughout the life course, it remains unclear whether periods of stability versus different types of radical social change lead to substantive generational differences. In this paper, we examine attitudes toward meritocracy of four generations in Poland whose young adulthood was spent in (a) the "Little Stabilization" period of the 1960s and early 1970s; (b) the economic and political crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s; (c) the turbulence of the political and economic transformation of the 1990s; and (d) the relative stability of the first decade of the 21st century after Poland's accession to the European Union. Our data come from surveys dating back to 1988, before the regime change in Poland, and until 2020. The results show changing attitudes toward the value of education, innate abilities, talent, and hard work in Poland. There is a generational effect on perceived meritocracy. The generation of people born in 1956–1959, who entered adult life during the deep crisis of the socialist state, expresses the greatest distrust in meritocracy. Findings suggest that the experience of spending one's youth and young adulthood in a relatively stable political and economic system, either socialist or capitalist, has a positive influence on meritocratic attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Large housing estates (LHE) account for nearly half of the housing stock in the cities of Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The ageing of the housing stock and change in the social composition of the communities may lead to serious changes in the development of estates and pose serious challenges to the regeneration of block housing estates. This paper presents initiatives undertaken towards the regeneration of LHE in large Polish cities. A detailed description of the rehabilitation of LHE is presented using the example of Kraków, which is a city that has a large share of multi-dwelling buildings and a long history of improving the quality of life in LHE. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current state of Polish LHE in the context of ongoing urban regeneration activities. The authors present an overview of regeneration measures pursued within LHE, analysing the changes that have taken place as a result of regeneration efforts. Using the example of Kraków, they also demonstrate how large cities manage the regeneration of LHE. The authors argue that the way housing estates will develop depends largely on how the regeneration will be conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]