Polish Sociology Research Articles

Looking at Arts Institutions, Communities, and Space: Reflections and Research from the Field of Art Sociology

In this introduction to the journal issue, the editors characterize the individual scholarly articles included in the volume. They also briefly recall their research interests in the field of art. The texts in the volume deal with three intertwining dimensions: cultural and art institutions, communities (artistic and aesthetic), and space. Most of the authors presented their research at the academic conference ‘Esthetic Communities and Artistic Institutions’ (2023), organized by the Art Sociology Section of the Polish Sociological Association. Polish contemporary sociology of art is mainly empirical sociology. Qualitative research in the field of art sociology in Poland has been used since the 1960s. Initially, they had been treated as experimental, gradually transforming into an increasingly common approach. Sociologists most often used various types of qualitative analyses of materials as well as interviews. Researchers still often use these techniques today, but one can also see the use of other methods, e.g., as part of the art-based research approach (this methodological orientation was used in one of the articles).

Słomiany zapłon i diament wspólnego działania. Recenzja książki Społeczeństwo łatwopalne. Praktyki pomagania uchodźcom wojennym z Ukrainy w 2022 roku w Polsce; Katarzyna Kalinowska, Paweł Kuczyński, Izabella Bukraba-Rylska, Katarzyna Krakowska, Marta Sałkowska. Warszawa: Collegium Civitas

The reviewed book received the Zygmunt Bauman Prize awarded by the Polish Sociological Association in the first edition of the competition in 2024.

Pedagogiczne konteksty humanistyki Floriana Znanieckiego w najnowszej interpretacji Lecha Witkowskiego – wnioski dla Ukrainy

The article substantiates the pedagogical aspects of the humanities as presented by the Polish scholar Florian Znaniecki, through the prism of current concerns of Ukrainian science, using the materials from Lech Witkowski’s extensive book Uroszczenia i transaktualność w humanistyce. Florian Znaniecki: dziedzictwo idei i jego pęknięcia [False claims and transactuality in the Humanities. Florian Znaniecki: the legacy of ideas and its ruptures.] Analysing Znaniecki’s contradictory viewpoints regarding the role of pedagogy in the system of humanistic knowledge, Witkowski convincingly emphasizes the “pedagogy” or pedagogical orientation of Znaniecki’s scientific work and identifies the actual tasks for modern pedagogy, based on the contradictions of modern cultural life or the democratic ideal. The author of the article attempts to place these emphases (Is pedagogy a humanistic or a social science?) and to reevaluate fundamental notions in the field of methodology through the prism of Ukrainian humanities. Witkowski also identifies contemporary objectives for modern pedagogy, drawing from the discrepancies observed in current cultural dynamics or the democratic paradigm. The author emphasizes the challenges of modern humanities in the context of the formation of democratic values, fostering national identity, promoting civic engagement, and media culture to counteract the information war, interdisciplinary approach, complementarity, and social orientation in the post-humanist paradigm. The article analyses some critical aspects of Znaniecki’s views in the latest interpretation of Witkowski, who convincingly goes beyond the traditional receptions of the Polish sociologist’s pedagogical discourses. The article highlights the topical issues of academic (dis)integrity, according to L. Witkowski’s book, in which Znaniecki’s theoretical concept of conjugated duality, irrationality, and bureaucratization of science gains significant prominence.

“I Had No Childhood”: A Trauma History of Deported Ukrainians from Western Boykivshchyna

Abstract The article is devoted to the trauma history of Ukrainians from Western Boykivshchyna, part of the Boykivshchyna ethnographical region situated in modern Ukraine. Operation Vistula (1947–1950) was the forced resettlement of more than 150,000 Ukrainians and mixed Polish-Ukrainian families from the territory of Rzeszów, Lublin and Kraków provinces (Voivodeships) to the western and northern territories of Poland, leading to radical changes within this regional group. The article deals with the difficult experience of the resettlers not only in the context of psychological, but also cultural, trauma. According to the theory of Polish sociologist Piotr Sztompka, three main phases of cultural trauma induced by resettlement have been highlighted and are outlined as strategies to cope with trauma: contemporary resettlers’ preservation of native culture, religion and family tradition, and sharing memories of the past.

Civilizačně nekompetentní? Kultura české společnosti 90. let v paměti západních expatriantů

The so-called Velvet Revolution started a new “transformation” period of Czech history. There seemed to be a general agreement that the main goal was the “return to Europe”, assimilation to the West after more than 40 years of different historical development. That was not only a political and economic, but also a cultural and civilizational process. Theories about postsocialist societies with distorted values tried to explain why the westernizing process was taking longer than expected. This article confronts the theory of Polish sociologist Piotr Sztompka with oral history interviews conducted with Western expatriates who came to Czechoslovakia in early 1990s. Although daily interaction with Czech society brought them many disenchantments, the narrators generally perceived those simply as cultural differences, not as signs of civilizational incompetence. Some of the differences even led them to settle down in the Czech Republic. The most prominent social phenomena which the narrators classify altogether negatively are xenophobia and racism which in their view still prevail in Czech society, albeit less pronounced.

Polish Sociology in a Mirror

Polish Sociology in a Mirror

The Memoirs of Peasants, or the First Polish Folk Epic

In the 1930s, Ludwik Krzywicki, one of the founding fathers of Polish sociology and a continuator of scientific research based on the biographical method, led to the organization of three groundbreaking memoir competitions. These were competitions for memoirs aimed at the unemployed, emigrants and peasants. The last one, announced in 1933, was so popular among the peasant communities that it was decided to publish the memoirs in two volumes in 1935 and 1936. A year after the publication, the jury of the editorial office of Wiadomości Literackie decided to recognize it as a book of the year. This article aims to analyze the memoirs published in the collection as examples of the first emancipation statement of the peasant class made on such a large scale. Memoirs of Peasants are the only testimonials written down from the heart of the peasant class experience by the generation born in the second half of the 19th century, who often remembered the times of serfdom, years of partitions, fought on the fronts of World War I and suffered from the economic collapse of the Great Depression. The article demonstrates that the popularity of this competition contributed to the development of the phenomenon of Polish competition memoirs, which are estimated today at as many as 1500 organized competitions and about a million submitted memoirs.

As the twig is/was bent? Managers (founders) of political science and educating its students in Polan

Polish political science is accused of not being as global as Polish sociology, or of not taking the scientific method and scientific theory very seriously. In contrast to the three basic social sciences (psychology, economics and sociology), political science is more limited to description and humanistic interpretation. One may ask why Polish political science, as it results from the above accusations, deviates slightly from the positivist pattern. The hypothesis suggests that this may be related to the education of the founders, the first managers of political science (directors of institutes, representatives of political science in the Central Commission of Scientific Degree). As it turns out, they were mostly lawyers, and to some extent historians. Graduates of basic social sciences were rare. Political science also lacks (considering textbooks) influential methodologists. As a consequence, there are fewer social methodological subjects in political science studies than in the other aforementioned fields of study.

ОРЕНБУРГСКИЕ КАЗАКИ КАК ЖИТЕЛИ УЕЗДНОГО ГОРОДА (ПО МАТЕРИАЛАМ ГОРОДОВОЙ ОБЫВАТЕЛЬСКОЙ КНИГИ ЧЕЛЯБИНСКА ЗА 1861 ГОД)

The article is devoted to the social characteristics of the class group of Orenburg Cossacks who lived in the middle of the 19th century in Chelyabinsk, a county town of the Orenburg province. Using the City Philistine Book for 1861 and a number of other sources, data on the Cossack population of Chelyabinsk (about 5% of the urban population), the social status of homeowners (10% of the total number of homeowners), their marital status, real estate and business activities, etc. were identified, systematized and analyzed. Based on the studied facts, using the concept of “social development” of the Polish sociologist Piotr Sztompka, the article contains a thesis about the specifics and significant social changes in the life of the Cossack citizens of the county town. In the city, unlike the countryside, the Cossacks lived in small families. A significant percentage of Cossack women acted as homeowners and economic actors. Many male Cossacks, in their free time from service or in retirement, in addition to agricultural activities, were actively engaged in trade, crafts, maintenance of inns and drinking houses. At the same time, the Cossack townspeople were, as it were, simultaneously in two social communities with their own networks of interactions. On the one hand, they were representatives of the Cossack military class with its traditional attitudes and rules. On the other hand, they lived in the space of the town, where other rules and more active economic and social life existed. Often, conflicts arose between the Cossacks and the city authorities over economic activities and the payment of various taxes.

Teorijsko kontrolisanje „užasa nekontrolisanog“: upotreba Baumanovog repertoara za razumevanje društvene nesigurnosti i strahova u aktuelnom pandemijskom kontekstu

One of the most important parts of Bauman's (Zygmunt Bauman) general theory about the late modern, i.e. fluid society is the attitude of people towards different sources of fear and insecurity, which in the modern context are more perfidious, different and global, but by no means weaker compared to pre-modern times. The main goal of this paper is to present the most important parts of Bauman's theory that can serve us as a theoretical, but at the same time general contextual framework in which we place and investigate the sociological and psychological consequences of the pandemic caused by the covid19 virus. The first part of the paper is an introduction to Bauman's theoretical assumptions with an emphasis on the analysis of the "Titanic Syndrome". In the second part of the paper, we will argue why exactly that segment of the legacy of the Polish sociologist is valid for understanding the pandemic situation, and why Bauman's theory should not be bypassed when it comes to choosing a theoretical framework for studying contemporary challenges in the field of health culture.

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ ОБРАЗА МИГРАНТА В СМИ РОСТОВСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ: ИНТЕГРАЦИОННЫЙ ПОТЕНЦИАЛ

Objective of the study is to diagnose the basic components of the image of a migrant formed in the mass media, as well as to determine the de­pendence of the tonality of news reports about migrants on events taking place in society. The methodological basis of the research. The research paper uses the theory of social identity of the Polish sociologist Henri Taschfel. Special attention in the study is also paid to the analysis of the integrated threat theory proposed by Wal­ter G. Stefan and Cookie White Stefan. The pa­per uses a comparative approach through which the private problems of the CIS countries were analyzed, which were the motives, causes and catalysts of migration to Russia. The research method is content analysis of news reports about events related to migrants and migration policy posted on the websites of the main information portals of the Rostov region. Research results. Conclusions are drawn about the determinism of migration based on a specific historical and political event - the collapse of the USSR. Based on a broad theoretical block and comparative analysis, attention was focused on the Russian case, within which own trends and characteristics of the representation of the migrant image were highlighted. This scientific study combines a sociological, demographic and legal approach in considering the problem of the representation of the migrant image in the media of the Rostov region. The presented social facts are considered in isolation from the legal system of the Russian Federation, taking into account demographic characteristics and trends. Based on the available data, the dynamics of the number of mentions of migration, labor migration, and low-skilled labor is recorded. The main characteristics of migrants as objects of positive and negative news reports are highlighted, as well as the main characteristics of their behavior presented in the content of the main electronic information resources of the Rostov region.   Prospects of the study. The applied results of the work (the results of content analysis) can be used in the development of recommendations and preventive measures to prevent and prevent negative consequences when constructing the image of a migrant in the media. This will contribute to the localization of the processes of social distancing and disintegrating socio­cultural risks in relation to migrants and the host community. &nbsp

Debate on the academic status of social work. Announcement from the scientific seminar of the Social Work Section of the Polish Sociological Association

The reflection on the academic status of social work presented in the article is the result of a discussion during a scientific seminar organized on the initiative of the Board of the Social Work Section of the Polish Sociological Association. In June 2022, in the Gułtów Palace and Park Complex, property of the Adama Mickiewicz University in Poznań, during a two-day meeting, academics and experts from all over Poland discussed the current status and challenges that are important for social work in the context of its professionalization and academic potential. As part of the seminar, five debates were held, each consisting of a substantive introduction and discussion. The authors of this report presented their opinions, conclusions, and recommendations. The participants agreed that such discussions should be a cyclical event because they integrate around important issues having consequences not only for the development of social work but also for effectively dealing with critical social problems.

Gospodarstwo, spoidło o podścielisko społeczne jako oryginalne i częściowo zapomniane pojęcia polskiej socjologii. Twórcze dziedzictwo czy epistemologiczne archaizmy poznawcze?

This paper is rooted in the subject of the Polish language of sociology (a variety of academic sociolect), which is constantly evolving and „providing” new concepts and terms, thus striving to adequately describe the existing social reality. It should be emphasized that great progress in this field was made especially by the first scientists who introduced the new social science into thePolish world of science in the second half of the nineteenth and the turn of the twentieth century. The progenitors and pioneers of Polish sociology, in the persons of Józef Supiñski, Ludwik Krzywicki and Zygmunt Balicki, actually introduced the expression of the social farm, social strand and social bond in academic jargon. Nowadays they are somewhat forgotten and unused, both in theoretical and empirical terms. The aim of the article is to recall these notions, to emphasize their importance as authentic, derived from 19th-century Polish expressions adapted to the sociological imagination of the time, but also to reflect on their contemporary reception. These issues are presented in the context of discourse analysis, the cognitive categorization process and the determinants of epistemology as a kind of meta-science.

EDUCATION IN LIQUID SOCIETY

This article analyzes, from the perspective of the great Polish sociologist and philosopher, Zigmunt Bauman, Education in contemporary Society, which features characteristics of a liquid society. In order to address the challenges faced by teachers and how such liquidity influences the school environment, the theme of education in liquid society was chosen because it manifests itself as a current and innovative theme for contemporary reflection on teaching practice. Methodologically based on a qualitative and interpretive research approach, the study focused the analysis on reflections on studies of the aforementioned theorist, and on socio-emotional macrocompetencies.

KS. WŁADYSŁAW PIWOWARSKI (1929–2001) – WSPÓŁTWÓRCA POLSKIEJ SOCJOLOGII RELIGII

Fr. prof. Władysław Piwowarski is known in Poland and abroad primarily as a sociologist of religion. His sociological works are an important component (one would like to say – classic) of the Polish sociology of religion, they have determined and still determine its development. Most of them closed a certain stage in the development of the sociology of religion in Poland and opened a new one. Today it would be difficult to imagine a thorough study of religiosity without taking into account the sociological achievements of Fr. prof. Piwowarski. In this study, we will only focus on selected aspects of his concept of the sociology of religion (sociology of religion as a sociological subdiscipline), religiosity as a subject of sociological research, methodological problems of the sociology of religion). We ignore his scientific achievements in the fields of sociology of morality, social philosophy, Catholic social science and pastoral theology.

From Pilgrim to Local The Problem of Unity in Postmodern Philosophy

In this article, the author outlines the problem of unity from the perspective of postmodern philosophy. Basically, unity of the human being is one of the most important problems of philosophy. Ancient philosophers identified human being as identical with citizenship. Man as a citizen of Athens was able to prove his citizenship of Athens by pointing to his ownership of family tombs and fireplace. Medieval philosophy continued the ancient idea but added one new aspect, hope. A medieval man was a citizen of the empire, but at the same time he or she was a citizen of Kingdom of Heaven. He or she was a pilgrim who travelled to God. Modern philosophy develops unity in an absolutely different way of thinking. First, what we have to know is that unity is a problem. Second, if we would like to solve this problem, it is absolutely necessary to use a new terminology. In this article I emphasize like to highlight the phenomenon of identity through an analysis that the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman did in the past three decades. He divided a modern man into two categories. First, Bauman characterized a modern man as a global, very rich and well educated and can invest capital in all countries of the world. The second type is a local. He is a type of modern man who is not necessarily poor, but who is bound to only one place where he resides. The problem of the locals is that they cannot freely travel and invest in their own capital. Locals live in one place, they have not enough power to influence local politics, economy, infrastructure, religions. Globals are able to influence the local community by means of politics, economy, social structures, and religion. Zygmunt Bauman describes the identity of modern man as a tension between locals and globals.

Political hegemony and the intellectual production in the world semi-periphery (Contribution to modern sociology of the school of Prof. Tomasz Zarycki)

In the conditions of military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the future of Ukrainian sociology largely depends on the ability to be included in the world processes of the development of science. The openness of the sociological community of Ukraine to prospective development trends in world sociology is necessary. The most favorable conditions for the emergence of stable dialogical relations exist in the relations between the Ukrainian and Polish sociological communities, which is due to the significant common past of our peoples, in many respects common problems and possible common perspectives. In modern Polish sociology, one of the most open to dialogue is the Warsaw sociological school of Prof. Tomasz Zarycki. Research of its participants, and first of all Prof. T. Zarycki, cover a wide range of problems: from changes in the social space of Poland to the peculiarities of the reformation of the ruling class and the production of political knowledge. A special feature of the school is the intense search for an adequate methodology for the study of modern society. This methodological search led to the synthesis of the ideas of Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-system analysis and Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, which made it possible to cover the macro-, meso- and micro-levels of social life in a single perspective. The peculiarities of the transformation of the society of state socialism into the society of liberal capitalism in modern Poland are largely determined by the fact that the basis of the political class here was formed from representatives of the intelligentsia. This explains the insignificant weight of the bourgeoisie in the political life of the country, the absence of such a phenomenon as the oligarchy. At the same time, in global conditions, the Polish intelligentsia found itself in a difficult situation, because the country remained on the semi-periphery of the world capitalist system. This leads to the fact that the production of knowledge about society takes place in hierarchical relations, where the rules are set by the countries of the world center.

“Zbor imaat graǵanite”: The First Sociological Study, the Polish Sociological Expert Aid to Macedonia in the Mid-1960s and the Post-Earthquake History of Interethnic Relations in Skopje

On the early morning of 26 July 1963, a calamitous earthquake struck the Macedonian capital of Skopje, taking the lives of 1,070 people and destroying more than two-thirds of the urban fabric. The politically non-aligned Yugoslav government immediately issued a call for help for the earthquake-torn city, which was picked up by more than eighty states across the globe, as well as the United Nations and other international organizations. The domestic authorities, in turn, sought to reimagine post-disaster Skopje as a “City of Solidarity,” a symbol of the trans-bloc cooperation, and an “Open City” – one open to domestic and intra-federal migrations and the epitome of the trans-Yugoslav state-building slogan of “brotherhood and unity.” However, the mounting interethnic tensions in the 1980s, the Yugoslav dissolution, and the 2001 insurgency dramatically shifted the public optics over the post-earthquake urban reconstruction and demographic politics – a narrative which found a particular stronghold in the memory politics of post-2001 Macedonia.construct their own interpretations of the social change. The present paper discusses one overlooked episode from the post-earthquake reconstruction of Skopje: from December 1964 to April 1965, the first ever large-scale sociological survey was conducted among Skopjans as part of the Polish expert aid and the preparations for the UN-sponsored Skopje Urban Project. Although the published study contained an exclusive portrayal of the economic and demographic features of the local households and revealed some of the major interethnic issues in the city, it never received proper treatment by the authorities and – up to the Yugoslav dissolution – in the scholarship. Thus, in order to present the major outcomes of this cross-national endeavor, I reconstruct the prehistory, the fieldwork and the immediate results of the survey by triangulating a set of archival materials, semi-structured interviews with its Polish and Macedonian conveners, and secondary literature on Skopje’s urban reconstruction. Finally, I argue that the survey – its realization, results and aftermath – can be read as a key to a better understanding of the post-earthquake history of Skopje and the interethnic relations in the city.

Historical Sociology in Poland: Transformations of the Uses of the Past

The development of Polish institutional sociology since the 1920s reflects the combined effects of domestic political and cultural factors, along with international interdependencies. Historical sociology shares in the vicissitudes of the whole discipline. Although historical sociology was only weakly institutionalized before 1989, some of the best sociological studies produced in Poland under socialism display the keen use of historical imagination, inspired both by the pre-1939 domestic tradition and by Marxist theory. This article examines the path of historical sociology in Poland after 1989 and the connection between the sociological uses of history and the experience of post-communist transformation. We posit that the social transformation experience and how it was addressed by social science directly translate into the use of history in Polish sociology after 1989. We argue that the role of historical sociology in Poland since the end of the 1990s was a function of the potential of the past as a symbolic resource in the growing interdependence between Poland and Western Europe. However, the post-1989 research agendas of historical sociology were forged according to the mode of responsiveness to political agendas predating 1989. An overview of the development of Polish historical sociology demonstrates that the ahistorical transitological thinking after 1989 has been challenged by critical agendas in historical sociology, but it was, in the first place, a reaction to the increased potential of the past as a symbolic resource in political debates. Thus, the rationale for the passage to the third wave of historical sociology was primarily political.

In the Circle of The Sociology of Education of Florian Znaniecki

Summary The aim of this article is to recall the theory of the sociology of education created almost a century ago by the classic of Polish sociology, Florian Znaniecki, in order to show the topicality of his concept in the face of the symptoms of the crisis of the educational system. The article presents the biographical context and scientific achievements of the creator of the sociology of education. The relations between the disciplines of educational sociology, general sociology and pedagogy were explained. The goals and components of the upbringing process and the system of sociology of upbringing by Florian Znaniecki were outlined. Attention was also paid to the educational environment defined by Florian Znaniecki and the upbringing process was characterized as a preparation for fulfilling the social roles. The theses postulated by the creator of the sociology of education were related to the contemporary educational environment.