· Kultura i Edukacja 2008, No. 5 (69) ISSN 1230-266X CONTENTS Leader

Quarterly 2008, No. 5 (69)

Redakcja kwartalnika „Kultura i Edukacja”, ul. Lubicka 44, 87-100 Toruń, tel. 056 660 81 60, 664 22 35, 664 22 36 w. 25, e-mail: [email protected]

Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek • 87-100 Toruń, ul. Lubicka 44, tel./fax 056/648 50 70, 66 42 235 Internet: http://www.marszalek.com.pl, e-mail: [email protected] Drukarnia nr 2 • ul. Warszawska 52, 87-148 Łysomice, tel. 056 659 98 96

VOLUME REVIEWERprof. dr hab. Roman Bäcker, prof. dr hab. Roman Leppert, prof. dr hab. Ryszard Wiśniewski,

prof. dr hab. Grażyna Krzyminiewska

ACADEMIC COUNCILCzesław Banach, Anna Bugalska, Iwona Centka, Kazimierz Denek, Wielisława Furmanek, Wła-dysław Grygolec, Jerzy Hauziński, Stanisław Kawula, Kazimierz Krzysztofek, Stefan Kwiat kowski, Zbigniew Lachowicz, Tadeusz Lewowicki, Czesław Łapicz, Adam Marszałek, Maria Mendel, Czesław Mojsiewicz, Longin Pastusiak, Jarosław Piątek, Renata Podgórzańska, Maciej Sekunda, Bronisław Siemieniecki, Konrad W. Studnicki-Gizbert, Stanisław Widerszpil, Tadeusz Zawadzak, Marcin Żółtak

EDITORSRyszard Borowicz – redaktor naczelny

Krystyna Szafraniec, Włodzimierz Tyburski

SECRETARIESJoanna Marszałek-Kawa, Arkadiusz Karwacki, Justyna Brylewska

TRANSLATIONAdam Ćwikła

TECHNICAL EDITINGIwona Banasiak

PROOFREADINGAleksandra Alfut

Tytuł dofinansowany przez Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyszego[A periodical financed by the Minister of Science and Higher Education]

© Copyright by Adam Marszałek Publishing House

Toruń 2008

ISSN 1230-266X

Institutional subscription can be ordered in the sections of Kolporter S.A. throughout Poland.Information at infoline number 0801-205-555 or on website

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Kultura i Edukacja 2008, No. 5 (69) ISSN 1230-266X

C O N T E N T S

Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

ARTICLES–STUDIES

S T A N I S Ł A W K A W U L ADiscourse on Pedagogy and Family Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

A D A M D U B I KGaston Bachelard’s Th eory of ‘Cognitive Obstacles’ in Th e Contex

of the Question on Conditioning of the Scientifi c Knowledge Development . . . 24

M A R T A K A R WA C K ASocial Marketing in Service of Business and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

A G A T A K A P L O NPsychoanalysis in the Writings of Jürgen Habermas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

J A N C Z E C H O W S K IFunctions of Didactic Children’s and Youth Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

COMMUNICATES–REPORTS

S T A N I S Ł A W B U R D Z I E JDispute on Evolution in the American School : On the Social Causes of

Antievolutionism in the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

A N N A B R O S C HText Communication and the Alienation Phenomena among

Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

J O A N N A G Ł U S Z E KTh e Socializing Specifi city of a Working-Class Family in the Perspective of a

Question on Social Promotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

SPECIAL COMMUNICATES

M A G D A L E N A B E R G M A N NConfl ict and Civil Society: 7th Congress of the European Sociological

Association, 3–6 September 2007, Glasgow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

E WA N A R K I E W I C Z N I E D B A L E C13th All-Poland Sociological Congress of Polish Sociological Association

13–15 September 2007, Zielona Góra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

T E R E S A H E J N I C K A B E Z W I Ń S K AReport from the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Congress, 17–19 September 2007,

Lublin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

REVIEWS–REPORTS

Aleksandra Zienko (rev.): Jadwiga Królikowska, Socjologia dobroczynności [Th e Sociology of Charity. An Outline of Poverty and Aid Issues against the Background of English Experiences] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Jadwiga Królikowska: A Comment on the Review of the Book "Th e Sociology of Charity" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Piotr Skuza (rev.): Jerzy Dudała, Fani-Chuligani. Rzecz o polskich kibolach. Studium socjologiczne [Fans-Hooligans: On Polish ‘Kibole’: A Sociological Study] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Joanna Maria Piechowiak (rev.): Zygmunt Bauman, Praca, konsumpcjonizm i nowi ubodzy [Work, Consumerism, and the Underclass] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Contents 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174


LEADER

Another English language issue of the Culture and Education (Kultura i Edukacja) quarterly comprises texts we published in 2007. Th e Editorial was guided by a few principles while making their choices. Special emphasis was placed on refl ecting the key thematic range of the journal. Th e Culture and Education signboard as-sumes potential wide problem fi eld, although, on the other hand, it is clearly lim-ited in practice. In the discipline sense, major roles are played by sociology and pedagogy, but there is also some room for philosophy, culture studies, philology, political science, and others. Th roughout the past 16 years of the quarterly’s pres-ence in the market, one may observe a shift of stresses in view of content-related refl ection space of the Authors contributing to its columns, yet it has always been the multidiscipline approach which has marked its identity. Our concern for high quality of content implies multistage selection and reviewing, thus forcing us to eliminate some texts. Th erefore, it has been even a greater dilemma to make a choice of works for this issue, already published in Polish.

Th is issue has preserved a periodical’s formal structure of regular sections, namely the STUDIES-ARTICLES, followed by the RESEARCH RELATIONS-REPORTS. Some time ago, the SPECIAL NEWS section was added, devoted to relevant events in the fi eld of social science and humanities. And so, in the 3/2007 issue a few texts portraying the course of the Pedagogical Convention appeared, its idea and organization, introductory lecture, general report, and then, relations of selected groups and sections. A similar approach was applied in the 4th issue of 2007, which presents the Sociological Congress throughout six articles, in total. Each issue of the quarterly is closed by the REVIEWS-WRITE-UPS section, where also polemics are published, being so rare in contemporary social science and humanities. We hope you will fi nd this issue worth reading.


ARTICLES–STUDIES

S t a n i s ł a w K a w u l a

DISCOURSE ON PEDAGOGY AND FAMILY EDUCATION

1. Introduction

At the beginning of the XXI century a young man does have a choice as for the frame of the progress of his adult life. Among all the potential possibilities and valuable for one’s life issues, young people the most oft en choose the marriage-family form which shapes their future. It occurs that the form sets the aim in the lives and defi nes the place and prestige in modern society. 74,6% of the tested youth associates their future with a family, and accepts a marriage as a basic form of self-fulfi lment1. However, the fourth part of the tested youth considers a partner relationship as the aim of their existence, which shows the far-fetched individu-alization of Polish youth in the given matter. It seems to mean that nowadays ‘in a new social hierarchy even the old forms of marriage and procreation should be chosen and lived at one’s own risk’ – as it is said by Grażyna Mikołajczyk-Lerman2. It occurs, on these grounds, that the young generation becomes responsible for their failure or success of their marriage-family lives shapes, as well as for the partner relationship/cohabitation3.

It is proved by empirically acquired data, from the beginning of the XXI cen-tury, that generally the youth has a positive attitude towards marriage institution

1 T. Biernat, Społeczno-pedagogiczne uwarunkowania światopoglądu młodzieży w okresie trans-formacji, Toruń 2006, p. 270.

2 G. Mikołajczyk-Lerman, Mężowie i żony. Realizacja ról małżeńskich w rodzinach wielkomiej-skich, Łodź 2006, p. 20

3 A. Kwak, Rodzina w dobie przemian. Małżeństwo i kohabitacja, Warsaw 2006.

7Discourse on Pedagogy and Family Education

and family, especially school-attending and studying young people (the age group 18–24), who have mainly noticed positive aspects of family life, not the diffi culties associated with it. In the declarations of present generation of young people one can still notice the romantic model of a marriage and family. Young people think that the decision to get married depends mainly on them. Th e tested young people still believe that getting married and having family, apart from such values as love, success in professional life, is something they are aiming at (the autotelic good). One can say that the most essential motives leading to getting married and having family are: the need to create one’s own home and family (having children), the need to show and experience love, life stabilization, and the need to have a partner and a friend. However, one should also pay attention to the fact that the material issues, which may be the reason for reaching the appropriate life standard, and the need to be safe do not play a vital role as for the motives concerning the causes for getting married by the young Polish people are concerned4. Taking into consid-eration all the above mentioned deductions of an optimistic nature we can cer-tainly feel safe as for the future of the marriage-family life in Poland – which may seem to be opposite to the pessimistic demographic and economic forecast5.

However, the main subject of the discourse on the contemporary family is thinking whether the everlasting form of social life has become a compulsory phenomenon at present, a phenomenon which results from inalienability of such factors as: culture, society, psychic relations and processes and biological elements of a human being? If one considers the conditionings as being necessary for the family creation then, at the same time, the presence of the phenomenon does not guarantee the durability of the family existence and its functioning in a unique and non-changed shape. A family as a human creation, undoubtedly vital and essential for a human being’s life – his or her real dimension – is analyzed and estimated as far as the testing character and ontological truthfulness is concerned. A family in the postmodernists’ understanding undergoes meta-narration. Piotr Magier be-lieves that in the mentioned point of view one should not try to explain the fam-ily phenomena in the objective categories6. Th e searching trend leads to the conclu-sions that the family phenomenon as a result of the social and cultural changes is going to undergo changes in the aspect of its function and structure, which con-

4 M. Bodnar, Małżeństwo i rodzina w planach życiowych młodzieży, the UWM master’s thesis, Olsztyn 2004, p. 109.

5 M. Sokólski, Płodność i rodzina w okresie transformacji [in:] Współczesne społeczeństwo polskie – dynamika zmian, J. Wasilewski (Re.), Warsaw 2006, p. 124

6 P. Magier, Rodzina w czasach ponowoczesnych. Próba analizy [in:] Współczesna rodzina polska – jej stan i perspektywy, H. Cudak, H. Marzec (ed.), v. 1, Mysłowice 2005, pp. 33–34.

8 Stanisław Kawula

sequently may lead even to questioning the necessity of its existence. On these grounds the family shapes are going to be formed by subjective relations with culture and are going to depend on the subjective needs, beliefs or the state of the human mind. Franciszek Adamski believes that the need of family existence, the inter-family relations, children-possession, performed functions etc. “become de-pended on the will of people forming a family”7. No other outside subjects are entitled to the integration in family life – among them are ideologies, philosophy or belief trends. Trying to infl uence their durability and the relation character is equal with the privacy and human freedom infringement. In the opinion of post-modernists giving freedom to a human being, one in deciding of a life character (e.g. habits, morality, or family life forms) is a manifestation of a trust in a human being, his responsibility, understanding, freedom and the natural need for common good8. It is defi nitely a positive aspect of the creation of alternative forms of mar-riage-family life nowadays; they do give a choice to every individual, a choice of several forms – also in the course of their lives. However, as long as the majority of people is born in a family, they undergo the initial socialization process in dif-ferent stages of life. On these grounds, it is said that a human being is a family creature (homo familiens). In the period of historical development humanity has created diff erent forms of marriage and family life which give us a sense of safety, sometimes less sometimes more, appreciation and belonging (emotional bonds). One may say that there has been no better and profi table form of social and indi-vidual life. Th e lack of family makes us lonely, alienated, and feel social and eco-nomical degradation, etc. Th is is why the value of a family is placed as the fi rst, second or third among all the other existence values9. Th eologians add that a fam-ily is a gift which cannot be replaced, whereas psychologists consider the group as inalienable in the psychophysical and social development of a human being (es-pecially in the early childhood period). However, nowadays one can notice some changes of the family basic function, its structure, shapes and internal relations, which one should think about.

In the present era, also in the period of turbulent changes in the way of human living, varied terms of a global, regional and local character, the family of the be-ginning of the XXI century undergoes changes, ones which are not oft en positive

7 F. Adamski, Rodzina. Wymiar społeczno-kulturowy, Kraków 2002, p. 52.8 Z. Bauman, Dwa szkice o moralności ponowoczesnej, Kraków 1994, p. 739 H. Cudak, Od rodziny pochodzenia do rodziny prokreacji, Łowicz 1999; L. Kocik, Wzory mał-

żeństwa i rodziny: od jednorodności do współczesnych skrajności, Kraków 2002; K. Slany, Alternatyw-ne formy życia małżeńsko-rodzinnego w ponowoczesnym świecie, Kraków 2002.


for its members. One deducts about the crisis and break, about the place where the husband and wife and their children experience life gehenna and private Golgotha. Th is is why we hear in the daylight – hidden in the past – facts of violence, an abuse of diff erent kind, psychological harassment, and event sexual children abuse, incest acts and infanticide10. Th e gift at the beginning of marriage life, full of love, be-comes aft er some time earthly hell. Does it have to be like that? It is for sure only a marginal model of a marriage and family life, however it does develop. At the same time one should notice that the crisis refers to family based on monogamous relations, as well as on partner, group and polygamous ones. Children who do not know their fathers, who live in a child’s houses and other care institutions, who live the street prove it. An average Polish man spends only 15 minutes on conversation with his family per day, and only fi ve times a year American grandchildren contact directly with their grandparents11.

A long-term researcher of a Polish family, Professor Zbigniew Tyszka, at the end of the XX century had quite an optimistic opinion on the family condition in the Polish political system transformations. He seemed to think that for a part of a family conditions have deteriorated as far as economic, cultural, psychosocial and procreative factors are concerned; families generate new social pathologies – es-pecially painful as for children because of the defective primary socialization and the later life. Th e author guesses such a family vision in the contemporary era: “One can say that a family of our times is like a ship in the reach of a storm but in spite of that it manages to fl oat – with a broken mast and water in its deepest depth. And nobody is one hundred percent sure that the ship will reach the port”12. Th e success of the next generations and family continuity becomes for an educator an aim, one can even say the port.

2. Socialization and family upbringing

What is so peculiar in a family environment that in spite of the existing confl icts and derivative infl uences one can fi nd also several positive features?

10 K. Marzec-Holka, Dzieciobójstwo. Przestępstwo uprzywilejowane czy zbrodnia?, Bydgoszcz 2004, p. 46.

11 J.J. Mc Whirter, T. Benedict, A.M. Mc Whirter, E.H. Mc Whirter, Zagrożona młodzież, War-saw 2005, p. 71.

12 Z. Tyszka, Kryzys rodziny współczesnej? Zagrożenia, szansa przetrwania [in:] Psychospołeczne uwarunkowania zjawisk dewiacyjnych wśród młodzieży w okresie transformacji ustrojowej, H. Machel, K. Wszeborowski (ed.), Gdańsk 1999, p. 184.

10 Stanisław Kawula

Judith Harris in her known book Geny czy wychowanie 13 reminds a vital ele-ment of a family life, one which makes equal the genotype of children and parents and their life environment. Th e combination of the two elements occurs in the case of a common twin environment up brought in their own family. We can say then that this is the principle of synergy of factors, their co-making in the socialization of children and parents. On these grounds one must agree, at that point, with the theory of convergence.

Th e conditions of socialization and upbringing in peer group do not undergo the mechanisms. According to J. Harris among peers there exists a widespread mosaic of gene qualities and genotype lottery, as well as the diversity of family life conditions. Francis Fukuyama says that, presently, we only know two ways of sep-arations, in scientifi c researches, of inborn causes of concrete behaviours from culture conditioned causes. One of them is behavioural genetics, the second one is intercultural anthropology14, and also non-related people testing (adopted brother and sisters), people who were brought up in the same families. “ If the common environment of given family and the model of upbringing have such a large infl u-ence, then such people should show a larger feature similarity than the chosen non-related people”15. However, the author of a book on “the end of a man” has questions, ones which are not explained by the convergence theory. Firstly – each parent who has brought up more than one child knows from the experience that between siblings there are several individual diff erences as for their behaviours, diff erences which cannot be explained by either the process of family upbringing or environment infl uence. A part of the answer one can fi nd in a monograph en-titled Rodzeństwo16. Secondly – the people’s behaviour is much more diff erentiated than animals’ behaviour because we are far more social, cultural and studying be-ings, beings that study the behaviour, directly and indirectly, on the basis of the legal rights, social norms, tradition and other infl uences rooted in the environment and not in the genetics17. Th irdly – the main problem is defi ning what the term ‘other environment’ means. In many environmental cases where the people, who are brought up, live – twins, have several similar qualities owing to the selective choice made by two of them, especially when they are uniovular. Th e given fact makes it impossible to diff er common genetic and environmental factors for the

13 J. Harris, Geny czy wychowanie, Gdańsk 2000, p. 10.14 F. Fukuyama, Koniec człowieka. Konsekwencja rewolucji biotechnologicznej, Kraków 2004,

pp. 37–38.15 Ibidem, p.3816 H. Kosten, Rodzeństwo, Warszawa 1997.17 Ibidem, p. 39


twins. Fourthly – an essential factor of life environment, which may not be noticed by a geneticist, is a mother’s womb which has got a strong infl uence on how, in her genotype, the phenotype develops in a concrete human being. Th e same foetus in a womb of a diff erent mother may develop in a totally diff erent way if the mother is malnourished, smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, takes drugs or suff ers from the HIV virus or AIDS disease.

It seems that a familogist should take into account all the highlighted doubts and dilemmas if they want to describe the contemporary family value as a life environment and education environment. Diff erent detailed sciences provide us with more exact arguments concerning the necessity of a family in the contempo-rary people’s lives. However, at the same time everyday life provides us with exam-ples that make us say a few sentences like: “With the family it is better to be with only in a photo”, and in an everyday life, a family may become a nightmare or tor-ments for its members. Th at is why my ‘mosaic’ or ‘hybridism’ of the contemporary forms does take into consideration grave and sometimes indefi nable issues, which are the expressions of the existing individual or group risk and of the existing crisis (temporary or durable18).

Empirical analyzes of European families always stress the transformations var-iant in the dissonance aspect because monogamous families (so-called non-sepa-rable) experience, at a great expense, the transformations which lead to the struc-tural and functional crisis. However, they take care of the family strengthening and giving spontaneous or planned help. A German sociologist and social educator, Winfvied Noak, characterizes it in four aspects: psychological guidance, family therapy and mediations, social and pedagogical support and joining the family in the social and local society19. Th ese are the directions of the families’ support, families which suff er from a crisis and are at risk, and which function on the level of social and pedagogical effi ciency (so-called a family in a norm).

3. In the direction of family pedagogy

Research and informative issues on the contemporary family subject have become an inseparable component of several congresses, symposium and scientifi c semi-nars in the international and local scale. It seems to fascinate, repeatedly, by its

18 S. Kawula, Mozaikowość rodziny. Szkic do portretu współczesnych form rodzinno-małżeńskich, Olsztyn 2003, pp. 64–66.

19 W. Nocka, Sozialpadagogik. Ein Lehrbuch, Lambertu, Freiburg im Breslau 2001.


subject immensity of the interdisciplinary character and more and more perfect scientifi c technique20. However, the matter and family phenomenon is not simple, as well as directive, to interpret in the social practice context. In several areas the theory and practice are divergent. Th e subject of scientifi c researches, that is the family, has clear multidisciplinary colouring. Th e evolutionary changing basic so-cial life unit, and at the same time, a unit which is durable and non-susceptible to rapid changes, is accompanied by scientifi c refl ections of diff erent nature such as: legal, economical, biological, cultural, theological, ethnographic, philosophical, demographic, urban, psychological, social and pedagogical, as well as criminal, deviant and pathological (aberrative). Academic literature, and other ones of the individual and family-logical areas, is, at the beginning of the XXI century, enor-mous. Th is is where the new study direction comes from – the family studies at the theological departments of universities, which occurs to be a serious misunder-standing. However, at KUL in Lublin the Chair of the Family Pedagogy and the Family Science Institute was founded, which one should notice with great re-spect.

What should be done for its practical benefi t? Firstly, the present family shape and contemporary family situation in the global scale (the world and its regions) – because of the characteristic geographic environment or the social and cultural one, as well as the civilized one, contains several common features which are uni-fi ed; on the other hand, one can notice many signals suggesting the diff erentiation of family types, models, and life styles, personality formations in the structural dissimilarity and their functioning. In spite of the peculiarity, one which is eco-nomical, historical and cultural, as well as the religious one etc. ‘gamology’ or ‘fa-milistics’ or ‘familology’ were thought several times to be created at some interna-tional assemblies, ones which are the multidisciplinary discipline which tests, taking into account many aspects (theory and practice), contemporary families or partner relationships. On these grounds we fi nd the “mosaism” of the subject, a subject which is the main issue of the methodological refl ections over the rela-tionships, and family and marriage forms, or their surrogates in the contemporary century. Owing to the facts one fi nds it necessary to identify among other peda-gogical studies the family pedagogy. Th e basis of its identifi cation is the institution criteria21, similarly as we act in the case of school pedagogy, child’s home, or even army or scout pedagogy. One should add also the community aspect when analyz-

20 T. Tyszka, System metodologiczny poznańskiej szkoły socjologicznych badań nad rodziną, Po-znań 1997, pp. 23–32

21 S. Kawula, Pedagogika a kompleks i system nauk o wychowaniu, “Ruch Pedagogiczny” 2000, No. 3–4, p. 27.


ing contemporary relationships, and family and marriage forms in diff erent cul-tural circles22.

However the basic sense of family pedagogy should be found in the analysis of phenomena and processes of variable nature which do happen in a family, ones of which repercussions have or may potentially have the educational aspect (pro-tective, cultural, social, moral, and generally educational). Th is is why one cannot treat the content and pedagogical refl ections on the family, only as the handbook function or the ideological one. However the detailed tips, rules, directives as for the behaviour in the family have and may have also the normative dimension in the family pedagogy. Th ey may express the needed family life standards and be-haviour models which may be of praxeological character, or even methodological one23.

Th is is the family pedagogy that allows – especially to parents – to understand family incidents or psychosocial mechanisms, and to seek for and be able to infl u-ence them according to one’s taken model. In the given directive one can fi nd the central thought of social pedagogy, to get to know the given phenomena, and at the same time to change it ( the rule: to test and change). Th e term gemology seems to be rarely used in the empirical researches on the contemporary marriage and family; in Greek: gameo – means ‘getting married’; obviously it occurs in several forms, for example: polygamy, bigamy, kidnapping, secretiveness (cryptogamy), polyandry and monogamy. In the mentioned context one can say about gamology. One of its segments is the family and marriage pedagogy and the accompanying refl ection24. Th e family pedagogy diff ers from e.g. simplifi ed moralistics or ideol-ogy (also the religious one) in the fact that, opposite to other levels of individual refl ection, or the social one, it expresses the subject of its researches in the onto-logical, structural, functional aspects, as well as the axiological and normative ones (also taking into account the deviancy and pathology area and the successful bi-ography as well). Th e results of the scientifi c fi ndings of family educators – that is establishing the relationship (also the causative type), correctness, and the princi-ples, methods, instructive directives – refer to the acting practice, but also they consider the family as a test, temporary and prospective one. Th e challenges are becoming a part of the family, and the most important indicator, and the empirical meter of its functioning and specifi ed dangers. Th ese are also benefi cial and non-

22 F. Adamski, op.cit., pp. 16–20; A. Kwak, op.cit.23 J. Carlton, D. Dinkmeyer, Szczęśliwe małżeństwo. Szczerość, otwartość, zaangażowanie,

Gdańsk 2005.24 A. W. Janke, Rodzina w badaniach pedagogicznych [in:] Encyklopedia pedagogiczna XXI wieku,

T. Pilch (ed.), v. V, Warsaw 2006.


benefi cial tendencies of transformations, ones which are noticeable during the human era, transformations that result mainly from the key historical issues25.

When referring to small social groups – besides the descriptive relations – one can diff erentiate, according to J. Kmity, two kinds of science ‘involvement’ in prac-tical aims achievement (prakseological). Th e fi rst type can be described as instru-mental involvement. It refers to the means indications, means to achieve the aims, and also – in some way – to provide technical and psychological possibilities of their achievement, and is concentrated on technological and psychical effi ciency enlargement (the aim – the means). Th e social and humanistic fi elds are character-ized mainly by axiological involvement which can be expressed by displaying so-cial, and at the same time, personality (individual) aims, aims which deserve to be achieved. Humanistic studies seem to join to wide social practice also by their functions of the world-views character (“world-views valorisation”) and educa-tional character. Th e appropriate scope of axiological involvement happens to be the motive of the active action of researcher and its proper practical direction. Th e main condition of the studies or sub-discipline placement is the accomplishment of the cognition tasks, theory creation, one which allows one to describe and ex-plain the phenomena, that is the subject of search of the given discipline26. It con-tains, in the case of a family or marriage, some axiological references and peda-gogical marks and educational eff ects as for children, it gives them some shape according to so-called theory of generation connections27.

4. From education to the contemporary family pedagogy

Th e family pedagogy includes in its specifi city already mentioned research sur-faces and tasks. What about the dynamically changing subject of scientifi c inves-tigation called the nowadays? What kind of qualities should the contemporary pedagogy, or even family education, have?

Th e picture of family life, especially in Europe and North America has signifi -cantly changed as far as the structure and performed functions are concerned. Quantitative analysis of the appearing various family confi gurations diff er, to a great extent, from the monogamous marriage and the nuclear family that derives

25 K. Jakubiak, Współdziałanie rodziny i szkoły w pedagogice II Rzeczypospolitej, Bydgoszcz 1997.

26 J. Piekarski, Międzypokoleniowa transmisja wartości w środowisku rodzinnym małego miasta, Łódź 1992, pp. 8–11.

27 M. Plopa, Psychologia rodziny. Teoria i badanie, Elbląg 2005.


from it. Other so-called alternative forms of marriage and family life are numerous. Are they dominated by various forms (mosaic ones) or hybrid ones (incoher-ent)?

According to A. Kwak “irrespective of the relationship form, the family as basic social relationship lasts as long as it responds to the widely accepted human needs28. It takes place both in the inside-generation relationships and the intergeneration ones. Th is is the reason of the alternative life forms creation in practice. How, in such a situation, can one keep the cognitive distance in relation to the new forms of marriage and family life? What is their constitutive quality, timeless one, and what is – maybe – the temporary phenomenon? Each democratic and open soci-ety does not propagate presently in public so-called marriage and family alternative relationships but shows some tolerance toward them.

In this sense, family educator should express all the forms and functioning, mainly because of its modern function for the everyday practice and the education expressed in a prospective way. In this point of view constitutive feature of the pedagogical analysis of a family and various alternative forms is the principle of co-perpetration and co-participation in the creation, benefi cial for oneself and other people, personal relations in various relationships. In each educational proc-ess, also in the family education, one can fi nd some marks of public pedagogy, individual or group one (trans-subjective). Only in exceptional life situations or the institutional ones, the educational training is result of the scientifi c one (for example: complimentary schools, monasteries). We say then that pedagogy is one of the studies on a man, one which has its own methodological peculiarities29. Whereas as for education one can talk about it when specifi c educational actions become a kind of connection of a wisdom thought with a practical one. In most of family environments we encounter only the simple situational education, one which is accompanied by a personal refl ection based on one’s own experience (successes or failures) or – rarely – common education, which is a synthesis of thoughts of life co-participants who are close to one another30. Taking into account all the aspects, one can characterize contemporary family education. However in pedagogy one can fi nd the thought and refl ection of the third dimension, that is: scientifi c thinking and discursive one. In the given dimension one can hardly talk about the family pedagogy which should include the above criteria. In spite of that

28 A. Kwak, Alternatywne formy życia rodzinnego – ciągłość i zamiana [in:] Rodzina polska u progu XXI w., H. Cudak (ed.), Łowicz 1997, p. 139

29 S. Kawula, Pedagogika a kompleks i system nauk o wychowaniu…30 A. Pałucki, Personalizm dla pedagogiki zdrowia, “Szkice Humanistyczne” 2003, v. III, No. 1 and

2, p. 107


the discourse in this area does take place. Th ere various elaborations, detailed and general ones, including several aspects of the contemporary family life but not leading to the knowledge synthesis in the matter. On these grounds my outline happens to be a trial in the description of a family pedagogy integral model, and not only of various educations that one meets in concrete types of families, profes-sional, territorial or religious environments etc.

Zbigniew Kwieciński criticizing the contemporary scientifi c pedagogy (also the academic one) supports various types of education. “If the main thinking and writing trend concerning education is not called a scientifi c pedagogy then it may be only the education, which is a unique and durable collection of educational practices, one which may be reconstructed by refl ective men of practice, partici-pants of the practices, willing to talk and write about them, defi ning the algorithms of the stable behaviours and their little innovations, not violating their essence. Th e source of the continuation of some education dominated pattern cannot be its written or told reconstructions because they are secondary as for the practice”31.

Th e desideratum of the family education construction can be met only by the refl ective parents and also the scientists-parents, who are experienced as for the number of family and marriage roles (from the childhood to siblings, from the mother-father roles to being grandparents). On these ground the fi rst textbook on Family pedagogy (1997) of the authors: J. Brągiel, S. Kawula and A. Janke, was cre-ated. However the criteria cannot be met by ‘the theoretical educators’ or clergy-men (without children).

5. The integral model of the family pedagogy

Let’s concentrate on the essential aspects as far as the family functioning, social and educational functions and also other function aspects are concerned. Th ese are mainly family life spheres within the framework of one’s own system of inter-human relations. It is a principle and requirement of family examination from both the micro and macro-social position. Various constellations of the spheres let us get to know the real processes and educational family conditions, as well as their subjective and objective shape. Th e categories can be treated as complex variables in the empirical pedagogical researches on the concrete family or some family types. Th ese are above all:

31 Z. Kwieciński, Między patosem a dekadencją. Studia i szkice socjopedagogiczne, Wrocław 2007, p. 109.


1. Th e intention and content of educational interaction. Th eir range can be very wide, but the most important are: life standards and models as well as the requirements which regulate family members behaviours (everyday ones and in a long perspective) and, above all, the life quality (of children and other family members). In various family and outside family groups and environments the elements may be explained to a diff erent extent, planned and executed (temporarily or for a long time);

2. Th e social, real role, positions and relations confi guration (in the family group relation where one fi nds 2–3 or even 4 generations);

3. Th e family structure and the fi nancial, social and cultural conditions where the family members live or meet with – also the support forms;

4. Personal parents features ( alternately the grandparents and other family members), infl uencing the relations with children (for example, willingness to help, responsibility);

5. Th e power and relation confi gurations, as well as the attitudes towards one another of the family members according to the exchange and attachment theory;

6. Methods and family life organization, e.g. punishments and prizes, persua-sion and coping means;

7. Personal children characteristics constitute an essential element of a family life as a value, family members lives planning, aspects of personality devel-opment of child life quality;

8. Process and educational activities helping e.g. the family’s identifi cation and identity, values inheritance, equalizing the attitudes towards one another etc.

9. Th e eff ects of the family education process, the ones which are the deliberate infl uence results and those which are created spontaneously and impul-sively (for example, a positive self-evaluation – the aspiration level, life plans). Nowadays one can hear more oft en about the common good and self-fulfi llment in the family life, states which are benefi cial for the family members.

When characterizing the most vital spheres and pedagogical research categories concerning the family education, one should, at the end of the elaborations, show the main sense of the family pedagogy. Its subjects are – in the wide aspect – various kinds of connections between the already separated variable. Th e main aim of the sub-discipline is getting to know the mutual relations – because of its prac-tical and interfering functions associated with the optimal forms creation of fam-ily factors towards all family members. Family educators are mainly interested


(absorbed) in some kinds of educational and socializing mechanisms, ones which the initiative and eff ect creating ring are conscious, intentional and creative human activities in the life environment. It is at the same time the characteristic quality of the pedagogical researches on the contemporary family. Th e family pedagogy can and should evaluate the eff ects of its diagnostic researches and, at least, suggest the educational intentions toward the analyzed family cases or its types. However, it does not mean the ignorance of other areas and social mechanisms important for family life (among them the impulsive processes, risk factors and family risk). What it really means is the integral, system analysis and the holistic summary of the ef-fects, and the activities and pedagogical, psychological or therapeutic interference form planning32.

As for the families at risk, or the ones which are ineffi cient or at danger, as far as the basic functions’ (caring, rehabilitational and educational, cultural, material, mental, protecting) fulfi lment is concerned, one fi nds that it is really vital to sup-port it or replace by some pro-family institutions. Institutions which support the family functioning, completing its basic tasks (especially the protective and edu-cational ones towards children) and also various forms of the family replacement (“when the natural family lets down”), should constitute a complementarily com-pleting system of social support. I call the state “the kindness spiral”33. Th e full substantial shape of it one fi nds in a group elaboration on contemporary problems that a Polish family encounters at the beginning of XXI century34. Similar charac-teristics were performed earlier by the group of a priest and professor of KUL in Lublin, Józef Wilk, in a group work entitled W służbie dziecka, v. III, Lublin 2003. Other elaborations concerning the role of other institutions which support the contemporary Polish family one can fi nd in a biography. Th ere is a great number of social diagnoses on the contemporary family functioning or disfunctioning. Some of our families let us down, become ineffi cient and require the outside sup-port or even replacement in the name of children’s good.

Non-governmental family support forms in Poland and social companies of various scope (e.g. Red Cross, Caritas Poland) play nowadays really vital roles. Th e social companies activities in relation to the family and so-called non-governmen-tal forms is generally based on:

32 D.R. Crane, Podstawy terapii rodziny, Gdańsk 2004, pp. 85–99.33 S. Kawula, Człowiek w relacjach socjopedagogicznych. Szkice o współczesnym wychowaniu,

Toruń 2004, pp. 61–62.34 Współczesna rodzina polska – jej stan i perspektywy, H. Cudak, H. Marzec (ed.), v 1–2, Mysło-

wice 2005.


– initializing and organizing various forms of protective activities associated with the teenager and child’s health protection and meeting the basic bio-logical needs (crisis interference centres);

– helping family as for material, pedagogical and psychological aspects (fam-ily support centres);

– social service support, ones which give help to a family in its functioning (social help centres);

– local society activating as far as the protective and educational tasks by social companies are concerned (generally non-governmental and voluntary).

A properly functioning family and the childhood of children being brought up in it should be a very vital area of research for the social pedagogy. A family should be a source of child’s development and happy childhood35. Th e eff ect of the devel-opmental chances negligence in childhood one can notice in adult life. A family can be compared to some lens with a concentration of macro and micro-social problems – “the good ones and the bad ones”. A lot of educators treat the family education as a refl ection and research subject. Andrzej Janke (2006) highlights the need of our thinking moving in the direction of a man and family36. Such an at-titude proves the homocentric and family-like, as well as research attitude, charac-teristic also for social pedagogy and, especially, the family pedagogy; it is not left in the area of everyday pedagogy, one which is understood in a popular way (in-dividual or trans-subjective).

Anna Brzezińska, analyzing the previous socializing and educational strategies in a family, or in other words, the naturalistic attitude (punishment-prize system), proves the relevance of so-called way in the family relations (parents-children). It is a good leadership formula. One can notice it in variable life situations in a fam-ily, and it can become a conscious intention of family education. Th e author tries to prove the relations in such a way:

“Parents infl uence their children by their behaviour towards each other, by the family day’s schedule. On these ground children know that they should say ‘good morning’, that they should not hit in the head, and that they must conform to some norms. If there are no rules at home then the home becomes a home at risk. And I do not call it pathology but I mention a situation where people do not stick to the schedule: eat whenever they wish, go for holidays at diff erent year seasons. Th e child does not have to be the fi rst day at school and the last one. Parents think in

35 J. Carlton, D. Dinkmeyer, op.cit., pp 83–8436 A. W. Janke, op.cit.


their categories, not the social ones. In the home without rules a child must guess the parent’s mood when he or she comes back home from work; moreover, the child must adapt to it. In the parent’s opinion the child may seem to be naughty because he or she does not guess the parent’s mood properly”. If parents keep the principle of a good leadership towards a child then they say: “I know my child’s identity and I respect it. I try to protect the social principles but I do not want to break them. I do no tell them what to do and I do not want them to guess what I am thinking about. Th e educational dilemma is based on the rule: do not destroy the individuality and be only a good man”37. One may make a mistake but they must talk about it. Generally children want to know (presently) a lot about the reasons of our behaviour or the aim of our requests.

However, Zbigniew Kwieciński quotes an opinion which seems to be of a com-mon sense and accurate, an opinion of A. Silbermann on an education role in a contemporary family. “Th e family education – as he says – is not based on the refl ective and systematic answering to a question how to bring up my child, but on everyday care in the contemporary contexts by impulse controlled mother or fa-ther […]. Th e natural impulses come down to two rules of acting: (1) parental behaviour – conditioned by what actually dominates in the society – they place themselves between stiff ness (severity) as for the accepted norms and tolerance when breaking them, and (2) they do orientate as for the ability shaping, one that enables us to choose between the competition (one’s own benefi t) and cooperation with others”38

Th e two indicated surfaces, (psychological and sociological) educational and socializing, of family functioning complete each other and are positive contexts and references to other areas of contemporary education – especially children and teenagers.

6. The conclusion

In the marriage and family dictionary one can fi nd the term “the family pedagogy” but there is no the pedagogy of a family term. Th e term “family pedagogy” is de-scribed: “as a family education, is a close look at the education in a family with

37 A. Brzezińska, Podpory najwyższej jakości. Wywiad, “Pomocnik Psychologiczny” 2007, No. 21, p. 37.

38 Z. Kwieciński, op.cit., p. 108.


a use of accurate methods in pedagogy”39. It seems that an obvious logical tautol-ogy endeavour is enough in the matter. Even when referring to the family mo-nogamy it occurs to be too much general expression, mainly formal and not sub-stantial. Should it be enough for the educational regulations of the family function? What is the expression of: “accurate methods?” In the case of most families one can notice rather impulsive socializing and educational processes and not taking use of the pedagogical knowledge. Th e challenge and task of contemporary times seem to be more and more completed parents’ “pedagogization”, mainly of the young ones or even fi ancées, and the creation of “parental schools” (candidates: children, youths). Th e main point is to shape, within pedagogical culture, various subjects (components) in such a shape that they could accomplish the idea of educating society in the real conditions. It occurs to be possible if we try to achieve, in practice, triple subject model - the model of the family pedagogy, one that ac-cepts parents, school and students’ rights and responsibilities as the education ef-fects. It is possible when accepting the principles of synergy and syntony in the educational infl uence on the main objects of the educational process, which always includes the psychosocial and cultural contexts40. We call the situation a peda-gogical principle of complementarity (dividing and merging) of aims, means and forms of human personality shaping in various spheres of their lives. In one word, the family pedagogy has got a main feature, one which is called bio-social and cultural adequacy of basic subjects (the ontological aspect), and the adequacy within the pedagogical infl uence forms (praxeological aspect). On these grounds one fi nds its describing and explaining, and at the same time, moderate character and contemporary challenges, referring to the variability of forms (alternativity) of the contemporary marriage and family life in the contemporary world, but at the same time promoting monogamous family model in Poland. Th is is why one encounters a need of school education in the matter – saying more precisely its reactivation in the form of a popular formula “preparation to family life” or creat-ing new forms of education parallel in Polish society (among others, in public television, publishing houses, all-Polish radio, parishes and registry offi ces). Aft er that the family pedagogy assumptions are going to take a real shape, and stop being a collection of wishful postulates.

39 Słownik małżeństwa i rodziny, bp E. Gozdowski (ed.), Warsaw-Łomianki 1999, p. 238.40 A.W. Janke, op.cit., pp.356–363


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Kultura i Edukacja 2008, No. 5 (69) ISSN 1230–266X

A d a m D u b i k

GASTON BACHELARD’S THEORY OF ‘COGNITIVE OBSTACLES’ IN THE CONTEX OF THE QUESTION ON CONDITIONING OF THE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT

To begin with a historical fi nding: the term ‘cognitive obstacle’, introduced by a French philosopher Gaston Bachelard to the pioneer interpretations of quantum physics, became relocated by Georges Canguilhem, his student, onto the episte-mology foundation of biological sciences, whereas by Althusser onto the basis of the assumptions of Marxist philosophy1. However, it was Bergson who took the advantage out of the term ‘material obstacle’ so as to highlight the creative charac-ter of life urge breaking the resistance of inert matter2. I have an impression that in spite of the diff erent theoretical contexts, which the term obstacle was assigned to, it does display some essential common feature, that is, it fulfi ls the dynamic and diff erentiating function, and at the same time, it makes the situations’ description more complicated, situations to which they were referred to, as it will be possible for us to convince ourselves3.

1 Compare D. Lecourt, Bachelard o ule jour et la nuit. Un essai du materialisme dialectique, Paris 1974, p. 13

2 Bergson tended to use terms such as ‘skipping’ the obstacle, ‘going it round’ or ‘passing ’ it interchangeably in order to highlight the fact that the life urge is taking newer and newer forms in the deprived of any theology of the evolution movement of the new life forms shaping; compare idem, Ewolucja twórcza, translation: F. Znaniecki, Warsaw 1957, pp. 95–96, 240.

3 In a diff erent place I have tried to show that the inspiriting character of the obstacle interaction in action includes also, and even above, all the situations connected with human self-realization in the culture, compare A. Dubik, Filozofi a i opór, Toruń 2003, pp. 31–122.

25Gaston Bachelard’s Theory of ‘Cognitive Obstacles’

However, if we asked – without going into details of Bachelard’s epistemology – what an obstacle is as it is, one could say with a huge probability that, aft er think-ing it over, it is nothing (in the meaning which philosophy gives to the word ‘to be’). However, we are not always prone to remember that the Ontic nothing, which displays itself only in the act as a kind of a diffi culty or restriction, fulfi ls also the theoretical cognition and axiological function. We know also that obstacles tend to appear crosswise, as for our actions, making the way to our aims longer and more complicated, sometimes even making it impossible, but at the same time they make our aims more valuable, as valuable as they would not be if they could be easily reached without any eff ort, as if somebody cast a magic spell on them4. It is also widely known, that the positive aspect of usually negatively valued restrictions in actions, is basically expressed in the fact that the eff ort connected with their overcoming lies at the basis of all innovative enterprises, owing to which we have the chance to look ex post at bothering us problems from the new point of view, with the new aspect. It is especially visible when writing the article: we have got some introductory aim, which in the time of reaching it in practice encounters some diffi culties to solve. Th e solution to the diffi culties is usually bothersome and time absorbing, but let us fi nd new directions of searching which we cannot realize at once. If it were not for the diffi culties, our action would stop being creative and get a monotonous character and become a routine activity.

It is not a task of mine to dispute on Bachelard’s science philosophy which has already had sectional expressions in several outlines, articles and reviews which have been revealed in aft er-war Poland5. However, it is necessary for me to make some reference to it before I start to present his concept of cognitive obstacles.

Science, thinking, an obstacle, a mistake, breaking – the terms set up the gen-eral climate or aura of Bachelard’s theory-cognition refl ection, one grown on the fascination of superb discovery of ‘unknown world’ (monde inconnu) of micro-physics, discoveries performed in the fi rst decades of last century (quanting,

4 As G. Simmel says the value of something which is not easily reached, is not ready but it is gradually growing owing to the size of essential sacrifi ce and resignation from everything which is not on our way; compare idem, Filozofi a pieniadza, translation A. Przyłębski, Poznań 1997, p. 45 and n.

5 One of the fi rst articles on Bachelard’s philosophy released in Poland in the period aft er the II WW is published in “Myśl Filozofi czna” outline by Stefan Amsterdamski entitled Uwagi o racjonal-izmie by G. Bachelard (1956). Some fi ndings on Bachelard one can also fi nd in Bronisław Baczka’s essay Współczesna fi lozofi a francuska w encyklopedii (“Studia Filozofi czne” 1958) released two years later. At the turn of the 60s and 70s of the last century one can notice growing interest in the phi-losophy of the French thinker, one fi nds new outlines by Romuald Łoziński, Henryk Chudak, Jan Błoński, Lech Witkowski, Jerzy Krakowski, Barbara Skarga, Maciej Kociuba, Jerzy Kaczmarek and the latest by Damian Leszczyński.

26 Adam Dubik

relativity)6. Th e fact that the aspect arises from something new in the scientifi c cognition started to seize the thoughts of Paris intellectuals to such an extent that it took them half a century of intensive studying, and it proves the intention of creating modern – directed antifundamentaly and antipositively – epistemology that can meet the requirements of ‘the new scientifi c spirit’7; epistemology appear-ing from a double opposition: the opposition against traditional vision of thinking based on some over-time ability, and the opposition against restrictions of tradi-tional empiricism and rationalism. Th is is where the Bachelard’s lack of trust comes from, trust in any ‘philosophy of philosophers’, who by referring to specifi c ways of cognition – in a kind of eidetic look inside or mystical intuition – try to impose their system vision of the world as the only valid8. Th is is where his famous idea of ‘cutting’ (coupure) or ‘rupture’ (rupture) of mature science with popular cognition and prescientifi c cognition comes from, an idea asking for validity of cognitive refl ection on truthful claims, one developed outside the borders of ‘scientifi c city’ (cite). Th is is also the root of rationalism ‘placement’ requirement according to separate type of Sciences, such a rationalism questioning the traditional version of rationalism that refers to reality in general. Th is is also where the dispersion of any system philosophical constructions come from, constructions for the benefi t of varied pluralistic interpretations of individual theories, concepts, and even scien-tifi c terms.

Aft er the points that makes Bachelard’s epistemology more familiar to us, I would like to ask a question so that I could go further: How to make an ordinary reader be interested in the new microphysics’ discoveries and indicate them some-thing which they have never seen visually? One can interest the reader by skilful confrontation (according to the rule similarities and diff erences) of the new and the unknown with what is known and checked and one without any eff ort and control can think about it. Looking closely at the matter, we can see that Bachelard was aware of the diffi culty of microphenomena description, not suited to our mac-roscopic environment. Even in his fi rst doctor study he admitted without any mis-understandings that the phenomena ‘rape’ our suppositions, that they seem to be

6 I leave the key question in the study by Dominique Lecourt, whether the intention was fi -nally realized, compare idem, Bachelard ou le jour et la nuit…, p. 56.

7 Compare, G. Bachelard, La Formation de l’esprit scientifi que. Contribution a une psychanalyse de la connaissance objective, Paris 1969, p. 7. In Polish translation the study, where the concept of cognitive studies was presented in the most detailed way, was released entitled Kształtowanie sie umysłu naukowego. Przyczynek do psychoanalizy wiedzy obiektywnej (translation, D. Leszczyński, Gdańsk 2002).

8 ‘W Fizyce nie ma drogi królewskiej, drogi fi lozofi cznej’; comp. G. Bachelard, Etudes, Paris 1970, p. 58.


shown by ‘basic resistance’ that they off er to our thinking9. Contrary to Emil Mey-erson, a supporter of the continuity of intellectual achievements, Bachelard tried to prove that understanding a microparticle as a similarity of ‘a little body’ makes the understanding more complicated rather than easier. Starting with the ‘tops’ of scientifi c knowledge rather than with the initial beginnings, he seemed to highlight – and this is very essential – the continually renewed cognition eff ort, one that is going upstream towards the solidifi ed obviousness, of which the model exempli-fi cation is the colloquial language suited to the world of objects, made spacious, a matter to which Bergson, appreciated by him, paid attention to. However, it was even Blaise Pascal, which should be recalled by us, who possessed keen conscious-ness of unfi nished worlds hidden in an atom, who claimed that ‘instead of experi-encing the very clean concepts of the matter we try to colour them by our charac-teristics’10 Three centuries later Bachelard goes further, much further, by promoting the concept of ‘colour-deprivation’ of the natural vision of the world and giving it the only colour, the central one, in his epistemology. Distrustful to-wards the tradition that shows ready solutions, our philosopher emphasizes the need and necessity of ‘redefi ning’ and ‘improving’ the concepts that refer to the sphere of something which besides the coupling of the axiom physical theory and experimental technology, seems to be simply ‘unimaginable’. What it vital, some-body who would, by chance, walk into a physical laboratory and ask a physician a question on what a temperature measuring thermometer for atomic nucleus11 looks like, obviously would be laughed at. Such a person would not be aware that going deep into the microworld physicians must be pleased with indirect conse-quences of searched phenomena, something of a kind of cracks of Geigner’s meter or a dark fi xed spot on a photographic plate12.

We are approaching the clou of the problem. Th e very characteristic feature, not so much of the cognitive obstacle but of wider perspective associated with the postulate of its breaking or conquering, is that it lets us free from the routine we got used to in our everyday lives. Bachelard greatly highlighted the fact that near-ly everything opposes the discoveries of contemporary for him physics: from very trivial metaphors of everyday language through the conditioning of biological and social character of ‘personifi ed ’object to the layers of acquired knowledge, layers that hide varied habits that we believe are natural only because we very oft en take

9 Comp. G. Bachelard, Assai Sue la connaissance approchee, Paris 1981, p. 249, 284.10 Compare B. Pascal, Mysli, translation T. Żeleński, Warsaw 1972, p. 56, 60.11 Compare Bachelard, Materialisme rationnel, Paris 1980, pp. 136–137, 215–216.12 Compare F. Capra, Tao fi zyki.W poszukiwaniu podobieństw miedzy fi zyką współczesną a misty-

cyzmem Wschodu, translation P. Macura, Kraków 1994, p. 62.

28 Adam Dubik

advantage out of them13. Bitter refl ections were made by him in his fi rst doctor thesis Essais sur la connaissance approchee dated 1928. As he was trying to prove, a kind of an intellectual conversion connected with thinking against fi xed habits is essential if we want to initiate the contact with so far only growing scientifi c thought (dans son etat naisant14), a thought that is being shaped on the border of knowledge and lack of it, a thought that has not managed yet to become a scheme and got stuck in a picture. It was not a secret to Bachelard that, similarly, like the scientifi c cognition, which never starts with the zero start point, the human mind does not resemble, to any extent, Locke’s blank card with virgin mark made by a sense experience. In the modern theory-cognitive optics the mind is always bur-dened with the past of the idea which it should try to conquer in order to initiate the contact with the atomic world or the subatomic one which is outside the sen-sual perception. So now we can think why Bechelard could say in a virtually para-doxical spirit that at that level knowledge, which is shaped by contemporary quan-tum physics, ‘the mind will act against itself ’, trying to overcome everything that seems to be an obstacle to its development15.

Although Bachelard was fi ghting with being attributed the ambitions of pre-senting some systematic and exhaustive classifi cation of factors that slower the procedure of cognitive processes, he distinguished and described in La Farmation a few kinds of cognitive obstacles that suit ‘daily’ (conscious) as well as ‘night’ (non-conscious) colours of our coexistence with the world. He pointed out at that point that they seem to have polymorphic and self-renewed character. Being the reason of cognitive mistakes they ‘fl oat’, as Skarga suggests, not only from the outside, from complication and evanescence of observed phenomena or from the weakness of senses and human mind; they have become also an integral element of cognitive act, the obstacles rise in his mind on the grounds of the necessity because under-standing the world is a light which brightens only a very part of a shadow16.

And this is how, shortly speaking, the cognitive obstacles according to Bache-lard are presented17: Th e philosopher fi nds that thinking about popular opinions

13 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, p. 20.14 Compare G. Bachelard, Essai sur la connaissance approchee, p. 2515 Compare G. Bachelard, Le Rationalisme appliqué, Paris 1970, p. 15.16 Compare B. Skarga, Bachelard – kowal słów [in:] Archiwum Historii i Mysli Społecznej, v. 30,

Warsaw 1984, p. 212.17 Polish commentators seem to ignore this part of Bachelard’s considerations. Th e only excep-

tion is the full of meaning article by Barbara Skarga who is certainly sure that before Bachelard there was nobody ‘who treated the numerous aberrations with such a seriousness, aberrations which did not seem to be like that for contemporary writers. Th ey say more about human mind, a human being work than the theories which we are more prone to believe to be true’. Although Skarga highlights


(‘social’ opinions’ as Nietzsche used to say) as a burden is one of the most essential cognitive restrictions, what is more, the same thing happens in the case of the surplus of erudition or excess of form over the meaning characterizing the spe-cifi c feature of XVII and XVIII century thesis by perpetual researchers18. Discuss-ing the literature of the mentioned age, Bachelard tries to prove that the thought of the researchers was concentrated on easier concepts which, in spite of being extraordinary, were the subject to several lively social discussions and entertain-ments. Far from the accounts and theorems, striking the contemporary reader with its triviality and thought’s prosaism of the researches, the literature seemed to be deep in the darkness of empiric cognition, unable to correct itself and it did pass the borders of the vision of the natural world where one lives in, moves and acts. Bachelard collides the situation with the requirements of contemporary science in order to prove that the latter one characterized by educated scientifi c society and technical knowledge, became a diffi cult and demanding one when comparing to its adepts of long education period; there is nothing obvious in it, everything is theory rooted, ‘technically produced’, ‘constructed’19. In general, one can say that the intuition of those researchers did not use to reach the aim simply because they referred to problems incorrectly presented, and that the two factors: popular opin-ions and solving scientifi c problems must have got separated in the period of sci-entifi c development.

Another Bachelard’s cognitive obstacle is the surface analogies and general unreasonable opinions like: ‘all human beings are mortal’ or ‘all bodies fall down’. As he says, the general opinions did play a positive role in the development of sci-ence, however presently they limit the development by creating the impression of understanding, they suppress questions, do not motivate to thorough theory refl ec-tion. Presently, the scientist is not interested in the general truths transferred from century to century and from generation to generation. No respected physician is going to defend the Aristotle’s thesis that light bodies, smoke and fi re trying to reach their natural kingdom rise up, whereas heavy bodies in the natural way are

the most representative cognitive diffi culties for the French philosopher’s attitude, ones which ac-company the human mind as its shadow or negative; at the same time she limits it to one or two-sentenced characteristics, which may make one feel insuffi ciency, compare B. Skarga, Bache lard – kowal słów, p. 217.

18 Th e thing is that Bachelard does not call the name of Nietzsche in La Formation , the two of them seem to share the same opinion that the so-called ‘public opinion’ is nothing more than the sum of mind laziness of individual citizens because the fact that everybody has the same opinion means that nobody has an opinion. Compare J. Ortega y Gasset, Dehumanizacja sztuki i inne eseje, translation P. Niklewicz, Warsaw 1980, p. 36.

19 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, p. 19 and n.

30 Adam Dubik

trying to fi nd the ground, however he or she can say repeating Newton that all bodies in vacuum fall down with the same speed.

Another diff erent factor which blocks the cognition is too extensive unifi cations such as the unity of the Creators act, the unity of the Nature’s plan or the logical unity; the fi rst ones are associated with the religious beliefs, beliefs which were not the distinguished subject of Bachelard’s interest, the latter ones became the subjects of a separate chapter of the book Le Rattionalisme applique 20. Obviously he would agree without a second thought with W. James’s opinion that such magical words–spells as God, the Nature or History provide, at small expanses, a key to solve the mystery of the world to those who need such explanations: people of that kind leave the connection with the experience and the rational discussion consider a useless talking21. Such a monistic perspective is strange to Bachelard, who paid attention to the activity of the dialectic ‘diff erentiation’ of the reality, reality con-tinually susceptible to complement and not to its ‘reduction’ to the vital features as Emil A. Meyerson, the creator of the concept of the rationalizing in the way of ‘identifying’, his main theory adversary in France. However, this is a separate con-cept, so I just want to mention it22.

Th e next obstacle for Bachelard is the criterion of utility, if too restrictively ap-plied as the universal explanatory rule because for pragmatism-oriented minds only the utility is understandable, only the utility explains something. As an eff ect, everything which is out of useful applications submitted to the unity of the aim and means, everything which cannot be practically applied is left in the sphere of non-existence as something irrational, not worth any interest. Th e history of the scientifi c discoveries proves however that several of the discoveries were made owing to unselfi sh cognitive passion of younger, as far as the age is concerned, researchers.

Th e requirements of exactness and precision became an obstacle as well, re-quirements applied where they are useless, as it is in the case of temperature meas-urement of the environment to the twelft h point aft er the comma. It is good to know what can be left out. Th e number size is never automatically objective; each century has its own precision scale accepted by the method of measurement and the speed of the experimental equipment23. What is the thing that can diff er the

20 Compare G. Bachelard, Le rationalisme applique, Paris 1970, pp. 82–101.21 Compare W. James, Pragmatyzm. Nowe imię paru starych stylów myślenia, translation

M. Szczubiałka, Warsaw 1998, p.71.22 In the given concept compare A. Dubik, Tożsamosc i opór. Główne kategorie epistemologii

Emila Meyersona, Toruń 1995, pp 157–174.23 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, pp. 278–285.


precision scale from the diff erences that are between typical weight scales and modern mass stethoscope – Bachelard is wondering.

But the obstacles have also got the didactic aspect, not appreciated by Polish commentators, who present the work of the French thinker taking into account one of two of his philosophic refl ection (very rarely both of them): epistemological and esthetical. However we know that Bachelard was inspirited not only by the nature sciences but also by several years of being a secondary school teacher, later on the academic professor’s experience; he admitted that he feels more of an edu-cator than a philosopher24. And the French commentators highlighted the fact that by his modern version of pedagogy of a ‘new look’, of which the outline one can fi nd in his articles, he overtook his century25. Although this is not a good place to reconstruct Bachelard’s opinions on this matter, I do want to mention a few factors so as to show what his opinion was on the restrictions in the process of educa-tion.

Th e key to understand Bachelard’s pedagogy, one that keeps in distance to standard educational problems is, a word that seems to be harmless, that is an objection (contre). Th e pedagogy, one that has the roots in the opposition to eve-rything that limits the cognition need, opposes consequently all the school teach-ing forms of textbook knowledge, forms of typically ‘theory school’ in education, petrifi ed forms of thinking and intellectual laziness. One can notice the objection on several levels, e.g.: in connection with pointing at the danger associated with locating the trust (naïve one and non-critical) in the sphere of so-called our ‘deep beliefs’, or too much extensive fascination of mind experience picturing which makes it more diffi cult for the student to obtain the access to new abstractive ideas. In the same way as the education develops itself through breaking fi rst illu-sions the teacher should mitigate the students’ lively interests in the real picture of the world. Bachelard is also worried about manifestations of erudite knowledge multiplying only for the simple reason that is knowledge accepted by some uni-versity competitions, which leads to some kind of intellectual narcissism26. Th e society seems to complete the process of human mind and imagination closing owing to the infl uence of metaphysics of popular language, collective imagination and distinguished social training. We can see – as he wrote – how the imagination

24 Compare G. Bachelard, Le rationalisme applique, p.1225 Compare G. Jean, Bachelard, l’enfance et la pedagogie, Paris 1983, p. 22.26 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, p. 64, 21; G. Jean, Bachelard,

l’enfance et la pedagogie, pp. 192–197.

32 Adam Dubik

develops at a little child, and at the same time we never check how it dies at an adult’s mind27.

At that point one can see a wider digression. Th e youth and childhood motif, referred to the scientifi c culture, one fi nds in the works of several other philoso-phers and contemporary epistemologists; e.g. Jaspers referred to children’s witty questions, where he found the manifestation of the self-contained need of ‘philos-ophy-making’; Kuhn tried to prove that the most essential discoveries have been made by the youth because our minds when aging seem to prefer the knowledge that have been acquired and leave out everything that is contrary to it; Feyerabend criticised the ‘professional educators’ for not introducing new methods of learn-ing28. I am deeply convinced that Bachelard goes further because not only does he protect the concept on the limited utility of even the most checked methods of education, but also he tries to convince us that we can revive the state of intelligent youth – without any danger of fooling our mind or mistaking the virginity with naivety. As he says it is enough to, like students do, admit that we do make mistakes and make an eff ort to correct it; as it is said the one who thinks he or she never makes mistakes always does it. Nothing is more strange to Bachelard than the power of infallible authority of teachers who being afraid of a failure fool the young people minds by depriving them of innovative imagination which, by some chance, they still have. Th at is the reason for requesting the teachers not to teach with the use of only theory information but try to make students take the advantage out of their imagination and creation, e.g. by studying the history of scientifi c discoveries. Making relative the traditional opposition the one who teaches and the one who is taught (in the category of empathy and changing the society rooted roles), Bachelard was depicting the picture of children playing, children who aft er ‘star-ring’ as generals do not have any problems to change into being soldiers29. Th e place of one-way relation, in the strengthening power of educational optics, going along the popular axis: from the omnipotent Professor to the ignorant student, takes the attitude of open dialog, giving right to the student to preserve intellec-tual autonomy30. However the relation of master and student seems to be some-thing more than a typical psychological fact; it is, as Gil writes, the leading norm

27 Compare G. Bachelard, Poetyka marzenia, translation L. Borgowski, Gdańsk 1998, p. 9.28 Compare K. Jaspers, Wprowadzenie do fi lozofi i, tramslation A. Wołkowicz, Wrocław 1995,

pp. 6–7; T.S. Kuhn, Struktura rewolucji naukowej, translation S. Amsterdamski, Warsaw 1968, pp. 22––23, 166–167; P.K. Feyerabend, Przeciw metodzie, translation S. Wiertlewski, Wrocław 1996, p.163.

29 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, pp. 310, 315–319.30 Compare G. Bachelard, Le Rationalisme applique, p. 76.


of culture development31. In general, Bachelard supports the progressive version of pedagogy, one that includes the aspect of mistake existence, constructive role of scientifi c abstraction and the strategy of dialog between the master and the stu-dent, a dialog which is not limited.

And now come to the point of ‘substantial obstacle’ derived from the same nature of mind anchored in physical and aff ective organization of a subject, one that makes experiments (let me use the word repeating Merleau-Ponty ‘having the physicality’). Undoubtedly, Bachelard made a great eff ort presenting several indi-vidual historical examples which prove that the subscientifi c thought, rooted in the life urge, easily referred to the inside of the assigned objects. To make it more detailed, it is about the impression of substantial depth, an impression associated with the natural conviction – several diff erent forms – that something which is the most valuable is hidden under several layers and reaches the very inside of the point, and what is more, actually is the inside. In alchemists opinions any protec-tion is less valuable than sheltered matter, whereas they thought valuable every-thing which had to be found with a use of a special key, taken out from the inside to outside like diamonds from the mines32. Although the word ‘inside’ may explain a lot of, as Bachelard writes, in the scientifi c studies it makes the delusion of un-derstanding, one which is similar to popular Molier’s maxim saying that opium makes us fall asleep because is has a power to make one fall asleep33. Bachelard, exposing the barrenness of the oft en verbal explanations displaying everything which is hidden, explanations that say more about the dominating need of alche-mist mind’s possession than about his studies, makes an eff ort to reach the bio-logical conditions of cognition34. Th is is the reason why he refers to the central concepts of Freud’s psychoanalysis: the term of unconsciousness, instinct, suppres-sion. Th e coupling of epistemological studies with the psychoanalyzes concept, even in the period before the Second World War, was appreciated by the French commentators35. It should be added that although in Bachelard’s opinion the con-temporary science has something to do with the whole series of rationally pro-grammed and technically created ‘surstantiation’ or ‘exstantiation’ (he uses the

31 Compare D. Gill, Bachelard et la culture scientifi que, Paris 1993, p. 61.32 Compare G. Bachelard, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, p. 15833 Ibidem, p. 130–13134 I leave out the point of the infl uence of Freud’s thoughts on epistemological studies by the

author of La Formation. I only mention in the strong eff ort of alchemists to change lead into gold, an eff ort accompanied by long and monotonous work, he does fi nd delusive traces of libido interac-tion; compare idem, Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego, chapter Libido and objective knowledge.

35 As Dominique Lecourt highlighted, ‘Bachelard eut l’audace, en 1938, d’introduire la psy-chanalyse dans lepis-temologie’; compare idem, Bachelard ou le jour et la nuit…, p.121.

34 Adam Dubik

terms interchangeably), it would be a mistake to think that the natural human tendency for substantializing of the phenomenon dies with the development of positive knowledge; it does interact in the form of identifi ed obstacle, as in the case of the myth on hidden treasure that lights only hearts of scientists, no longer their minds36.

And now we come to another obstacle, one that is generated by the picturesque-ness of a direct experience; an obstacle of thought, felt and heard. However, at that point a digression seems to be indispensable. As Władysław Tatarkiewicz wrote, the natural world picture of objects full of colours, smells, shapes and voices is for us ‘natural’ only because we experience it in everyday life, reaching it does not force us to make a great eff ort. One must think deeply to realize that the features of the objects that surround us are culturally, psychologically and biologically condi-tioned, and that they depend on our mind, emotional states, the structure of the sense organ and even age and sex37. As an analogy one can say that fi nding, hidden under the apparent simplicity of an object, complicated theoretical and experimen-tal beings in the kind of phones, received according to the new way of existence, the science create a new picture of the world, quite diff erent from the natural one. Bachelard, inspired by the discoveries of microphysics, tried to prove, as anyone before him, that the suitable feature of the scientifi c thought is keeping the distance from the experienced world; contradiction and its colour-depravation, instead of taking the advantage out of it. And now owing to the power of going the way of negation (dialectical one), one fi nds that in the epistemology which interests us, the contemporary studies arenot a continuation of the past studies, in the same way as the scientifi c experiment is not a continuation of ordinary observation; between the two levels of cognition occurs a kind of an epistemological ‘breaking’. However, to make it possible, a solid scientifi c base had to be created, one that is based on checked methods and research techniques, modern universities, labora-tories, libraries and publishing houses. To make it short, it was essential to create a specialized ‘scientifi c city’ within a ‘social city’. To revise: in the discussed aspect the popular cognition is not an innocent one since it is unable to explain what we can-not prevent from looking at; it becomes an obstacle in the science, a science which is created by breaking with the popular cognition and by its criticism.

Among several examples of the scientifi c criticism presented by Bachelard in his literary work, two of them seem to be especially signifi cant. Th e fi rst one refers

36 Compare G. Bachelard, Filozofi a, która mówi nie. Esej o fi lozofi i nowego ducha w nauce, translation J. Budzyk, Gdańsk 2000, pp. 81, 175–180.

37 Compare W. Tatarkiewicz, Droga do fi lozofi i i inne rozprawy fi lozofi czne [in:] Pisma zebrane, v. I, Warsaw 1971, p.13 and n.


to the revolutionary discoveries by Nicolaus Copernicus (notabene the patron of the University in Toruń, a place where the author of the written words works), who was not convinced to the certifi cation of our sensual feelings, and on these grounds negated centuries-long thesis on the immobility of the Earth. Th e consequences of the discoveries were disastrous for theology, but inspiriting for the astrological researches. One can also encounter an opinion that verifying the heliocentrical theory required the reference to a totally diff erent picture of the world, where a human being and their cognitive abilities are seen in a new way38. Th e second example of the scientifi c criticism, one that has been mentioned above, is deter-mined by an intrigued Bachelard’s question, one of them which was an inspiration on the grounds of the essential achievements of the contemporary philosophy of the science: ‘What an immobile photon is?’39. Making harm to our intuitions, the photon lost the static features of a being, features which were traditionally imposed on the word being by philosophy, a being identifi ed with something that lasts and is preserved in time. For a contemporary physician the photon is an energy beam, deprived of the rest mass described in precise calculations, so it is something which is not understandable for most people. In the optics the atom’s idea by Demokrytes, and the atom’s idea as the smallest material particle, is nothing more than a kind of an epistemological ‘term-obstacle’40. We are willing to think the concept of an atom as understandable only because it refers to concrete qualities of the objects world, qualities associated with one another in a space-time way and casually41, in the same way as we understand the interaction between atoms only because we reduce them to the picture of billiard balls crashing. However acting like that makes us a victim of unconscious associations; we depict a picture being convinced that we explain something, but at the same time we push the scientifi c knowledge into the sphere of non-existence. In Bachelard’s opinion if we make a kind of se-mantic vibration than we can benefi t much more saying that the photon is a kind of an energetic ‘object-movement’ which is situated in the ‘sphere of infl uence’ or, even better,: that it is a ‘sum of criticism’ of which the initial picture was subjected’42. Taking the advantage out of language ambiguity, logical tension and neologisms purposely, the ‘word-smith’ (the term comes from Barbara Skarga) behaves as if

38 Compare P.K. Feyerabend, Przeciw metodzie, p. 117.39 Compare G. Bachelard, Epistemologie. Tertes choisis par Dominique Lecourt, Paris 1974,

p.60.40 Ibidem, p. 5941 Compare W. Tatarkiewicz, Droga do fi lozofi i i inne rozprawy fi lozofi czne, p.13 and n42 Compare G. Bachelard, Epistemologe…, pp. 52,60; Filozofi a, która mówi nie. Esej o fi lozofi i

nowego ducha w nauce, translation J. Budzyk, Gdańsk 200, p. 144.

36 Adam Dubik

he or she wanted to include in his or her speeches ferments working on diff eren-tiation, thesis-making of language meanings43. We could continue the presentation of cognitive obstacles, develop the mentioned aspects or introduce new ones. How-ever I am going to stop at that point in order to take care of the question announced in the second part of the outline: What is, in Bachelard’s opinion, the main factor of the scientifi c progress? What is it that makes, in spite of the tradition domi-nated by the direct cognition and the awkwardness of the popular language, the scientifi c mind able to break radically with its past and widen its control over the spheres that so far have been able to avoid jurisdiction? Th ere are some proved rights which let us think that for the author of La Formation such a factor was the abstractive mathematical formula. To make it more detailed, it is about the im-agination of the scientist shaped by the mathematics and promoted to the rank of the only invariability in the scientifi c cognition (I have been discussing it in a dif-ferent point44). In Bachelard’s epistemology we can notice a very original concept of ‘terms improvement’45 during the development of scientifi c knowledge, how-ever not on the ground of the rigorist exactness of the logical deduction, which could lead to barren formalism but because of the specifi cation of scientist’s mind functioning, a scientist actively engaged in the scientifi c training. Th e inner dy-namics of the concept is described by the tension between the pictures and the following them mathematical relations, that is: between the terms entangled in the layer of picturesqueness, the terms that benefi t owing to the science which is being eliminated (however not completely) by the restrictions of mathematical network of relations. Bachelard tries to prove, even in L’Essai, that ‘even in the most exact minds just the inside of the term is dominated by pictures. Setting free the forms from the layer of initial matter, the layer which was left 46 by an accident seems to be a never-ending task. And because the bare human imagination depicts the real-ity in an imperfect and falsifi ed way (although sometimes it seems to be a sophis-ticated poetic form), the fi rst cognition occurs to be the falsifi ed cognition which needs correcting . And, respectively, the imagination, the mathematical education underwent, supports the development of the scientifi c knowledge, and what is more, it is an essential condition of the development; but for it the mind would be

43 It would be the same attitude as Feyerabend’s opinion that when we try to interpret new scientifi c discoveries we are forced to call for known speech models which do not include them but which must be used in an inappropriate way, deprive of the shape, give it a new form in order to suit them to new situations. Compare P.K. Feyerabend, Przeciw metodzie, p. 26.

44 Compare A. Dubik, Tożsamośc i opór…, pp. 168–174.45 Compare G. Bachelard, essa sur la connaissance approche, p. 17 and n.46 Ibidem, p. 23


ruled all the time by the same rules and aprioristic categories. Th e mathematical formulas, ones that are ‘administrated’ by a great potential of rationality, are for Bachelard ‘ the source of all precise metaphors’47 – metaphors that have something to do with Kant’s ‘imaginativeness’, the principle that revives and introduces the mind’s power into action48.

So as to depict the discontinuity of the development of subscientifi c cognition into scientifi c cognition and the relations between the picture knowledge and the knowledge dominated by the mathematics, I would like to refer below to two ex-amples, especially well-known to Bachelard, examples of the history of the scien-tifi c cognition. Th e fi rst of them is associated with the initial interpretations of the electricity phenomena, the second one with evolution of the term ‘mass’ in the years’ time.

Firstly the phenomenon of electricity was interpreted according to a simple rule: you think what you can see. One could see in electricity a kind of glutinous fl uid according to the rule of analogy of pieces of dust stuck to the walls of an electrifi ed dish. In the period aft er the discovery of the Leyden jar, the electricity was a subject of lively social conversations and exciting entertainments such as experiencing the shock caused by the fl ow of the electric spark through a ring crested by people keeping hands of one another or toast making in electrifi ed glasses. What is more people believed that it did have a positive infl uence on the diseases such as infertility and impotence. Th e examples are not the only ones in La Formation, there are many more of them and they seem to be very educational because they prove that, in a very easy way, new scientifi c discoveries yield to the rationalizations, ones that mistake, referring to the everyday sphere of life. Th e situation seems to change rapidly at the moment of moving from the sphere to the sphere of abstract thinking; treating the electricity as a part of the mathematical network of rules limiting the scope of its inappropriate appliance, and at the same time, it occurred to exclude from the sphere of physical science the outside people without any special preparations. Finally one has to remind that the measure of the operational skills of scientifi c terms is, as for Bachelard, the power of violating, reshaping their initial meanings – in the case this is electricity as a glutinous fl uid for the sake of Ohm’s abstract right. One should add here that the deductions of our philosopher concerning conceptualization and reconceptualization of scien-tifi c terms were much earlier before the known Kuhn’s thesis on the non-propor-

47 Ibidem, p. 54.48 Compare B. Skarga, Przyszłośc i interpretacje. Z warsztatu historyka fi lozofi i, Warsaw 1987,

p. 131.

38 Adam Dubik

tionality of the scientifi c achievements placed in the opposite ‘paradigm’. One could make claims to Richard Rorty based on the fact that he credited the honour of breaking the (neo) positivistic doctrine to the author of Struktura rewolucji nau-kowej too quickly, a doctrine associated with the ‘non-changeability of meaning rule’49.

Th e most spectacular example of the scientifi c terms’ meaning transformation and the sign of progress one fi nds in the pieces of Bachelard’s work La Philosophie du non (1940), the meanings concerning the evolution of the word’s meaning ‘mass’50. As one can fi nd out, initially the mass was identifi ed with a concrete spa-cious quality according to the simple rule: the bigger the better. However the fi rst cognition, as all the fi rst cognitions, included a mistake, one which needed cor-recting. Together with fi nding out the disproportion between the quality and the body’s mass it turned out that it is not always the rule that the bigger something is the more valuable it is and what really matters is the intensity. At that stage of cognition, one that was patronized by the realistic philosophy, the term of mass stayed still as a term-obstacle and the subject of variable vaporizations. Th e situa-tion did not change with the coming of the positivistic era which was associated with the use of body scales. Th e fi rst biggest cognitive turning point happen to start, according to Bachelard, with the beginning of Newton’s mechanics which questioned the realistic conviction on a very simple character of the mass term, introducing it to the corpus of ‘notional body’ (corps de notions) consisted of three notional ‘atoms’ which defi ned one another. In that way the mass (m) was reduced to the quotient of the force (F) and acceleration (a), which enabled one to charac-terize each of the notions on the base of the two that were left (F=m/a). Th e next cognitive turning point happen to start with the discovery of the mechanics of Dirac who applied the term of ‘negative mass’, a term which was completely non-assimilated on the popular cognition ground.

One can notice that the development of physical sciences is being accomplished together with the transformation of the picturesque sense of notions which lose its direct understanding but at the same time gain some precision. Th e process of the development is set by the change of phases from the prescientifi c realism through positivism and classical rationalism up to peculiar ‘overrationalism’ (a term of Bachelard); and on the highest phase, one that corresponds to ‘a new scientifi c spirit’, the scientifi c mind started to multiply even the most daring questions like:

49 Compare R. Rorty, Filozofi a a zwierciadło natury, translation M. Szczubiałka, Warsaw 1994, pp.240–245, 288–296.

50 In the Polish language study the book’s title is Filozofi a, która mówi nie (translation J. Budzyk, Gdańsk 2000).


Why the mass should not be negative? Maybe at that point one could defi ne some convergence with the thesis of Jean Piaget that says that the development of cogni-tion is accomplished during the way of several cognitive ‘decentrations’ defi ned, in the historical context by the movement from the Aristotle’s geocentrism to New-ton’s physics and then to the theory of relativity by Einstein, whereas in the indi-vidual context by setting free from the partiality of one’s own point of view51.

In that way the concept of the terms of scientifi c cognition development in Bachelard’s philosophy seems to be presented in a very general outline. Approach-ing the end of the considerations, one can give up to the temptation of defi ning a few general notes. One can say that the innovation of the epistemological attitude of the La Formation author could be characterized, on the one hand, by the origi-nal concept of obstacles which oppose the scientifi c cognition development and direct its process, and on the other hand, questioning on the possibilities of the scientifi c existence of a subject, its way of existence in the physics consciousness. Moving the concept from the ontological level to the theory condition one (wid-ened by the frame of the didactic and psychological considerations), Bachelard tries to prove that the objectivity of the scientifi c cognition subject is not equal to the elimination of the cognition subject, and what is more, quite contrary requires taking into consideration, as he was writing, ‘the psychology of depsychologization’. Proceeding through several next approximations, the science constructs a kind of an ‘overobject’ (surobjet) by means of ‘theory-experiment’ character, means which need a large rational potential collection. What really matters in Bachelard’s epis-temology is not a static picture of an object in itself (identifi ed in philosophy with the whole of the quality values of which some are promoted as the initial values, whereas other ones as changeable accessories)’ but it is the psychological ‘reality eff ect’ that is created by the ‘oversubject’ in the scientist consciousness, a scientist that is involved in the process of scientifi c training. Finally the ‘overobject’ seems to appear in the scientist consciousness as a new structure of meanings, as a sense wreathed each time by the picturesqueness layer; Bachelard seemed to highlight, as we have mentioned, the continually renewed cognition eff ort in spite of the domination of the sensual pictures. A double role of the human imagination in the scientifi c cognition corresponds with the expression, one that is negative and pos-itive, as one could be convinced by observing the fi rst rationalizations of the elec-tricity phenomena and the term ‘mass’. Th e unusually essential issue, which occurs

51 For example, in connection with the change from the ‘egocentric’ language to ‘socialized’ one in the development of the child’s intelligence; compare J. Piaget, Mądrość i złudzenia fi lozofi i, trans-lation M. Mikłasz, Warsaw 1967, p. 149; idem, Mowa i myślenie u dziecka, translation J. Kołudzka, Warsaw 1992, p. 39 and n.

40 Adam Dubik

to be a platform between the epistemological and aesthetic current of the French philosopher’s refl ection, can be expressed, in other words, that the bare imagination is powerless and dangerous. It is powerless because it seems not to feel any im-pulses to eff ective work if it is not directed by the mathematical abstraction; it is dangerous because it happens to be willing, because of the lack of the mathemati-cal coordination, to the creation of the speculative visions. George Canguilhem has formulated it in an excellent way by commenting on the thought of his master, saying that there is a source of dreams and illusions in the human inside, a renew-able source of which presence makes the mind contradict and improve. However, in spite of the fact that all the mistakes result from the non-educated imagination, it is the imagination, as for Bachelard, that is the expression of ‘overhumanity; but for it, one would not be a human being neither in the science nor in the poetry52.


Amsterdamski S., Uwagi o racjonalizmie G. Bachelarda, “Myśl Filozofi czna” 1956.Bachelard G., Essai Sue la connaissance approchee, Paris 1981.Bachelard G., Etudes, Prais 1970.Bachelard G., Filozofi a, która mówi nie. Esej do fi lozofi i nowego ducha w nauce, translation

J. Budzyk, Gdańsk 2000.Bachelard G., Kształtowanie się umysłu naukowego. Przyczynek do analizy wiedzy obiektywnej, translation D. Leszczyński, Gdańsk 2002.Bachelard G., La Formation de l’esprit ecientifi que. Contribution a une psychanalyse de la

connaissance objective, Paris 1969.Bachelard G., Le Rationalisme appliqué, Paris 1970.Bachelard G., Materialisme rationnel, Paris 1980.Bachelard G., Poetyka marzenia, translation L. Borgowski, Gdańsk 1998.Baczek B., Współczesna fi lozofi a francuska w encyklopedii, “Studia Filozofi czne” 1958.Capra F., Tao fi zyki. W poszukiwaniu podobieństw miedzy fi zyką współczesną a mistycyz-

mem Wschodu, translation P. Macura, Kraków 1994.Conguilhem G., O epistemologicznym konwencjonalizmie, aft erword [in:] G. Bachelard,

Filozofi a która mówi nie, Gdańsk 2000.Dubik A., Filozofi a i opór, Toruń 2003.

52 Compare G. Conguilhem, O epistologicznym konwencjonalizmie, aft erword [in:] G. Bachelard, Filozofi a, która mówi nie, p. 162


Dubik A., Tożsamośc i opór. Główne kategorie epistemologii Emila Meyersona, Toruń 1995.Feyerabend P.K., Przeciw metodzie, translation S. Wiertlewski, Wrocław 1996.Gil D., Bachelard et la culture scientifi que, Paris 1993.James W., Pragmatyzm. Nowe imię paru starych stylów myślenia, translation M. Szczu-

białka, Warsaw 1998.Jaspers K., Wprowadzenie do fi lozofi i, translation A. Wołkowicz, Wrocław 1995.Jean G., Bachelard, l’enfance et la pedagogie, Paris 1993.Kuhn T.S., Struktura rewolucji naukowej, translation S. Amsterdamski, Warsaw 1968.Lecourt D., Bachelard o ule jour et la nuit. Un essai du materialisme dialectique, ed. B. Grasset,

Paris 1974.Lecourt D., Ewolucja twórcza, translation F. Znaniecki, Warsaw 1957.Ortega y Basset J., Dehumanizacja sztuki i inne eseje, translation P. Niklewicz, Warsaw

1980.Pascal B., Myśli, translation T. Żeleński, Warsaw 1972.Piaget J., Mądrość i złudzenia fi lozofi i, translation M. Wikłasz, Warsaw 1967.Piaget J., Mowa i myślenie u dziecka, translation J. Kołudzka, Warsaw 1992.Rorty R., Filozofi a a zwierciadło natury, translation M. Szczubiałka, Warsaw 1994.Simmel G., Filozofi a pieniądza, translation A. Przyłębski, Poznań 1997.Skarga B., Bachelard – kowal słów [in:] Archiwum Historii Filozofi i i Myśli Społecznej,

v. 30, Warsaw 1984.Skarga B., Przyszłośc i interpretacje. Z warsztatu historyka fi lozofi i, Warsaw 1987.Tatarkiewicz W., Droga do fi lozofi i i inne rozprawy fi lozofi czne [in:] Pisma zebrane, v. I,

Warsaw 1971.


M a r t a K a r w a c k a

SOCIAL MARKETING IN SERVICE OF BUSINESS AND SOCIETY

‘Marketing is a trade lever’ – it is not any novum. It is not a secret that all the eff orts and actions of specialists associated with marketing in commercial companies target at making all the potential customers interested in concrete products and services, as well as cause them to purchase, which, subsequently, increases the sell-ing transactions and the companies profi ts. Since 1989 one has been able to notice a kind of a fi ght concerning the customers. Every day one can encounter, at least, a few commercials on the radio, TV and in the paper. Nearly in every shop host-esses try to convince us that e.g. X pudding or Y yoghurt are the only ones for us, and on these grounds we are going to be happy. All the competitions, promotions, little gift s are the elements so oft en attached to the products that we hardly notice them.

In the last few years we have had an opportunity to notice, in our social space, using marketing actions in order to promote not a commercial product but a be-haviour or an attitude. More and more oft en one encounters some companies promoting healthy lifestyle, tolerance, and drawing our attention to social sensu-ality. Widely taken pro-social enterprises accomplished according to the princi-ples and rules of commercial marketing, more and more oft en result in applause and positive reception in the society. We have had a chance to observe social marketing development for a few years, one which is the subject of the given ar-ticle. Th e term of social marketing has not been yet fully understood because according to Aleksandra Nowakowska and Jolanta Wąs – “[…] any accidental receiver can hear a dissonance between marketing associated with ruthless fi ght

43Social Marketing in Service of Business and Society

for a customer, and the word “social” identifi ed with unselfi shness, sacrifi ce and philanthropy”1.

Th eoreticians claim that the pro-social marketing direction is the next develop-ment phase in the fi eld . As Henryk Mruk tries to prove, marketing evolution started at the end of the XIX century, when its popularity gained so-called produc-tive orientation. What was characteristic then was “[…] the concentration on the organizational and technical production problems, the quality increase, the costs decrease, and the supply increase”2. As it turned out, in the fi rst half of the XX century some problems appeared concerning the sells of the manufactured prod-ucts, which made the market participants develop so-called sells orientation (the years 1930–1950). Th e sales supporting actions started to dominate, which were, in consequence, directed mainly at the advertisement. Additionally, one started to take care of the shopping comfort, which resulted in the customer time saving. Th e orientation minus, a minus which caused moving to the next phase – the orienta-tion on the customer, was “[…] one-sided concentration on the problem of the best product placement on the market with a lack of connection of the actions with the production and investing planning”3. An additional argument in favour of the new customer-oriented attitude was greater and greater products choice available owing to the appeared global market. Entrepreneurs were forced to get to know customers’ needs because it became necessary to describe a product allocation before its production. Th e last phase, as Henryk Mruk tries to distinguish, is the strategic action orientation. It was applied especially when it turned out that the condition of company’s proper functioning on the market is the long-term action and strategy planning. Th e given situation was a result of increasing competition and market diff erentiation, which was forced by earlier chances and market dan-gers identifi cation. As Henryk Mruk claims “[…] during the changing market conditions strategy marketing gains, to a greater extent, social orientation qualities, […] the given orientation is clearly associated with ecological problems’ infl uence, and with changing among the consumers life quality evaluation”4.

Corporation marketing which evaluated in the direction of pro-social activities and is more and more oft en applied by business is called cause related marketing (CRM). In fact, its introduction to the long-term company’s strategy results from the need of adaptation to the market needs. One has been able to notice the phe-

1 A. Nowakowska, J. Wąs, Marketing na społeczne plagi, “Marketing Serwis” No. of May 2000, p. 54.

2 H. Mruk and others, Podstawy Marketingu, Poznań 1996, p.8.3 Ibidem.4 Compare ibidem pp. 9–10.

44 Marta Karwacka

nomena in Poland not for a long time. In the article I wish to present the general idea of social marketing, its uses and diff erences and similarities as for commercial marketing, one which is the base of social marketing. I am going to make a short analysis of the fi eld, a fi eld which is worth being concentrated on because of the modern usage of the marketing theory. Taking into account the problems raised in social campaigns, one should highlight social marketing’s role in the attitudes shaping in society. It is easy to notice that social marketing is becoming a tool sup-porting the fi ght with social problems. In the fi rst part of the text I am going to present the process of social marketing development. Next I am going to character-ize social marketing subject identifying the problems the most oft en raised in so-cial campaigns. In the next part of the text I am going to concentrate on the de-scription of the similarities and diff erences between social marketing and the commercial one, and then I am going to characterize cause related marketing, that is social marketing applied by business.

1. The process of social marketing development

One has been able to hear about social marketing in Poland only a few years, when it started to appear as both a scientifi c refl ection fi eld and as practical action sphere. In both cases this is only the initial stadium of the fi eld development. In developed countries social marketing has been spread for many years. Th e coun-try which excels is undoubtedly the United States which are the strongest and resilient acting as well as the most experienced centre of social marketing in the world. It has been 36 years since the fi rst defi nition of social marketing appeared. Exactly in 1971 in a prestigious marketing newspaper “Journal of Marketing” the fi rst article on the systematization of social marketing by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman entitled Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change was published5. As Philip Kotler points out, the 80s of the XX century were character-ized by a large number of institutions which accepted and used the new term of social marketing. Th e institutions which contributed to the spread of the given term, among others: Th e World Bank, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Disease Prevention Centres6.

5 Compare Ph. Kotler, N. Roberto, N. Lee, Social Marketing. Improving the quality of Life, SAGE Publications, Th ousand Oaks, California 2002, p.9.

6 Compare ibidem.


In 1981 in “Journal of Marketing” there appeared Paul Bloom and William Novell’s article on the tenth anniversary of the fi eld, a fi eld which is the subject of the article. Four years later in 1985 there appeared also Richard Manoff ’s text con-centrating on social transmission planning and designing. Th e 90s are character-ized by a greater number of intensity as for social marketing promotion, at that time it starts to appear at American and European universities (e.g. in Scotland). 17 years ago, in 1990 at the University of South Florida the fi rst conference was held, a conference concerning social marketing. Parallel to cyclic scientifi c con-gresses, several publications on social marketing appeared not only in a special marketing newspapers but also in the papers like: “American Psychologist”, which proved the inter-disciplinary of the fi eld7.

Th e decline of the 90s. (1999) contributed to the creation of Th e Social Market-ing Institute in Washington D.C., whose founder was Alan Andreasen, the profes-sor of Georgetown University8. He claims that aft er 30 years social marketing stopped to be a controversial issue – nowadays it is a subject generally accepted, one which is in the sphere of several disputes9. In Poland the problems on social marketing are in the initial stadium of evolution, and maybe on these grounds social campaigns, especially those concerning ‘the taboo problems”, as for example AIDS, oft en cause controversy. Th e growing interest as for the subject of non-governmental organizations, governmental institutions, as well as commercial companies proves that soon social marketing may become one of the dynamically developing fi elds in Poland.

2. The subject of social marketing

Before I try to defi ne social marketing, I would like to discuss a subject of interest of people designing and fulfi lling the enterprise based on social marketing.

Social marketing the most oft en concerns pathology problems, social worries, various kinds of aberrations from the generally accepted social order. Organized social actions more and more oft en concern also environment protection, society health condition care, and encouragement to social involvement. However, there is no doubt that the majority of the actions are campaigns organized in order to

7 Compare ibidem.8 Ibidem.9 Compare A. Andreasen, Intersektor Transfer of Marketing Knowledge [@:] www.opoka.pl,

2002.

46 Marta Karwacka

oppose the concrete social problems a number of which has been increasing late-ly. When looking around one can notice various problems, such as for example, poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence concerning children and adults. Be-low I am going to number the most vital problems which are the subject of interest of social marketing in Poland:

– HIV/AIDS problems;– Cancer campaign problems;– Depression campaign problems;– Tolerance problems;– Drug addiction;– Alcoholism;– Nicotine addiction;– Violence concerning children;– Violence concerning the whole family;– Humanitarian aid;– Daring car driving problems;– Th e environment pollution problems.Th e above presented subject are the most oft en discussed in the political and

social discourse. Both the cause and eff ect of public discussions on the ways of social problems solving is the involvement of various non-governmental or-ganizations and public institutions in problems solving with the use of social marketing.

3. The definition outline of social marketing

Owing to the intensity and frequency of the actions concerning directly or indi-rectly social marketing, one may assume that taking example of the developed countries, social marketing, or rather its eff ects in the form of social campaigns, seem to be, durably, a part of “the Polish scenery”. Th e thesis I shall argument with numerous publications concerning the subject of social marketing10, occupying

10 Th e examples of publications concerning social marketing problems and, associated with it, business social responsibility are: the reports of Business Responsible Forum Responsible Business in Poland. 100 of appropriate examples; articles by M. Bogunia-Borowska, Koncepcja marketingu spo-łecznego, “Marketing i Rynek” 2002, No 2; M. Kwiatkowski, Reklama społeczna jako element tworzenia nowej więzi i nowej świadomości społecznej, the paper presented during the conference of the UŁ Institute of Sociology, 2000; A. Łaszyna, Firma społecznie sympatyczna, “Marketing w Praktyce” 2002; A. Nowakowska, J. Wąs, Marketing na społeczne plagi, “Marketing Serwis”, the May 2000 publica-tion.


myself with the fi eld at universities and company involvement in various types of social campaigns.

Before I quote the defi nitions proposed by the subject theoreticians, I would like to outline a very general notion picture. Generally, one can say that social marketing is an occupation based on the experience of the commercial equivalent, but it is to serve the common social good, help, or paying attention to concrete social problem.

Defi ning precisely the notion social marketing I am going to start with the fi rst defi nition presenting, one which appeared in the literature by the author Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. In 1971, as I have already mentioned, in a prestige marketing newspaper ‘Journal of Marketing’ in the scope of an article concerning social marketing the given notion was defi ned for the fi rst time. Th e mentioned scientists pointed out that the techniques and regulations of commercial marketing may be adopted to social operations. Th ey highlighted ‘[…] exposing the achieve-ments and experience formed by marketing, both of them can be applied and used in the process of social attitudes formation”11 Philip Kotler describes social market-ing as an operation based on the usage of marketing rules and techniques in order to infl uence the target group which, with free will, accepts, turns down or modifi es its behaviour. Th e infl uence and change may include individual people, specifi ed groups or the whole society12. Looking closely at the defi nition, one may notice that it consists of a few elements, which should be discussed at that point.

Above all, Philip Kotler points out the sale of behaviour, which in the case of social marketing becomes a product – “ […] similarly to the sector of commercial marketing, where one sales goods and service, in social marketing one sales change of behaviour”13 . He highlights four types of the sold product – behaviour:

– acceptance of the new attitude;– turning down the potential behaviour;– modifi cation of the present behaviour;– giving up the present behaviour14.In order to picture the promoted in social campaigns four types of behaviour I

am going to use the social campaigns accomplished in Polish reality. In face of environmental danger resulted from destructive human activity, we become the receivers of massages calling for paying attention to our personal infl uence on

11 M. Bogunia-Borowska, Koncepcja marketingu społecznego, op.cit., p. 9.12 Compare Ph. Kotler, N. Roberto, N. Lee, op.cit., p. 5.13 Ibidem.14 Ibidem.

48 Marta Karwacka

environment pollution. Th is is where campaigns like “Be an example segregate the waste” is coming from, a campaign which appeared in August 2006 in Warsaw, this is an example of a message promoting the fi rst of the presented types of behaviour. Th e new attitude to accept is the rubbish segregation. Th e campaign ‘Shallow im-agination is equal to disability” since 2001 in the holiday period calls for turning down the potential behaviour such as irresponsible water jumping. As for promot-ing modifi cation of the present behaviour, one can talk about it with campaigns that try to make women have a cytological check-up, as does the campaign “Choose living”15 or a very expressive campaign “fasten the seatbelt – always”16. Th e last type of the promoted type of behaviour – giving up the present behaviour – may be presented in the best way by the social messages that try to make smokers stop smoking. One of such a social action was in 2001 the campaign entitled “New Mil-lennium: I don’t smoke because I like doing so”17, in the campaign which a great number of public fi gures were involved in.

Th ere is no doubt that social marketing owes to commercial marketing, one which was discussed and also concentrated on in practice. When completing pro-fessionally planned social action it is necessary to “go through” analogical phases of commercial campaign construction. In order to sell a product in social market-ing, one should “behave” like being on goods and commercial services market. It is commonly used, similarly when creating a message directed at potential buyers, segmentation, that is “[…] the division of market to separate buyers groups, buyers of diff erent needs, features and behaviours, who can require various products or marketing instruments”18. In diff erent words – the population should be divided in such a way to enable “[…] the identifi cation of separate people groups who can in a similar way react to the social message”19.

Th e selection of a target group is also necessary, that is choosing one or a few segments that would interest us, which would allow us to avoid the construction of a message directed “to everybody”, a message which as a result would not reach anyone. In this case it is essential to check accurately and analyze a group which

15 Compare www..pkp.kielce.pl/images/kampania.htm, 2.05.2007. Th e social campaign “Chose living”.

16 Compare www.fotelik.info/pl/news/zapinaj_pasy,19.html, 2.05.2007 Fasten the seatbelt17 Compare www.zdrowie.med.pl/palenie/pal_09.html, 2.05.2007 New Millennium: I don’t

smoke because I like doing so.18 Ph. Kotler, G. Armstrong, J. Saunders, V. Wong, Marketing. Podręcznik Europejski, Warsaw

2002.19 Compare N.K. Weinreich, Hands-on Social Marketing. A Step by Step Guide, Th ousand Oaks,

California 1999, p. 52.


interests us so as to get to know the habits, beliefs, lifestyle and the expectations of the action receivers.

Applying the commercial methods of message building, it is also important to know what kind of distribution canals would be the best for the message prepara-tion. Th e given data lets us construct a more eff ective message, one which would reach and interest people who we want to make sensitive to the problem.

In social marketing it is common to use sets of actions and instruments, very oft en described in social marketing as 4P: product, price, place, promotion, ones which can be characterized like:

Product – In social marketing a product is a subject which is to be sold. In other words, it is a propagated behaviour and benefi ts that are associated with it. Similarly to commercial marketing a product should be precisely defi ned. What is also worth highlighting is the fact that a product can be of a material character – it happens with money collection for some noble aim e.g.” See blind children”20, or it can refer to some behaviour, which may be depicted by a campaign “STOP to all road pirates”21. Analogically to commercial campaigns, when we do not describe the action subject in a precise way it may result in misunderstanding of the mes-sage which in consequence leads to the failure of the campaign.

Th e price – the price in social marketing is described as behavioural and psy-chological costs. Behavioural costs are refl ected in an energy which one has to spend on the action promoted by the given campaign, e.g. the eff ort as for the rub-bish segregation. However the price corresponding with the psychological costs, one pays feeling a kind of a discomfort associated with the attitude change, e.g. the nicotine hunger22. Philip Kotler diff erentiates also diff erent costs division. Accord-ing to him, we are occupied with the money costs which are associated with con-crete goods or service that one has to purchase in order to adapt the promoted behaviour or attitude, together with non-money costs. Th e latter refers to the ‘spent’ time and eff ort, which are indispensable when getting used to the new at-titude23. One may say that the non-money costs agree with the above discussed psychological costs.

Place – means in social marketing enabling the possibility to accomplish a behaviour one is encouraged to by the campaign“. An example of an excellently

20 D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, Propaganda dobrych serc czyli rzecz o reklamie społecznej, Kraków 2002, p. 215.

21 www.stopwariatom.pl, 2.05.2007 Stop to all Road pirates.22 D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, op.cit., p.1423 Compare Ph. Kotler, N. Roberto, N. Lee, op.cit, p.217.

50 Marta Karwacka

prepared action as for the place is Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy. In the period of the action lasting in the whole Poland young people appear in all the public places (shops, cinemas, stations etc.) and collect money for the Orkiestra. One can also try a special telephone number and give some money. All the actions are to minimize the potential psychological and behavioural costs, and at the same time, make it easier to get involved in the action”24.

Promotion – promotion in social marketing is ruled by the same regulations as promotion in diff erent areas. Th is is the information transfer concerning given action, social campaign, that is informing society about the problem and the neces-sity to counter-act. For this aim one uses the same tools which function in com-mercial marketing25.

Social marketing, which results from the above characteristics, derives from commercial marketing, and has several common elements with it. However, it is worth remembering the factors which diff er them, factors which I am going to present later on.

4. The differences between social and commercial marketing

Generally speaking we can say that the two kinds of marketing are based on the same columns, but we cannot omit presenting the diff erences between them. Th e basic diff erence is, as Philip Kotler notices, the product type that we want to sell, because in the case of commercial marketing and the social one we shall discuss the products. Th e product in social marketing is going to be called the behaviour type, which has been mentioned in the earlier considerations. Th e next element that Philip Kotler talks about is the target of marketing actions. Th e factor is close-ly associated with the above mentioned ones. According to the aim principle of the greatest profi ts, commercial companies choose the target groups and market seg-ments which are considered to be the most “promising” in the sale context. In social marketing the choice is depended on the possibility of getting to the group that interests us and their readiness to make changes. Th e aim is not the profi t but mak-ing the social problem common in the receivers’ consciousness. Competition is an element that also diff erentiates two types of marketing operations. On the com-mercial area, competitive companies for the company that sells its products are the

24 D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, op.cit., p.1525 Compare Ph. Kotler, N. Roberto, N. Lee, op.cit., p. 264.


ones which propose to the consumers a similar off er or meet similar needs of the target market. Th e social equivalent of a marketing is characterized by the fact that the competition is described by the actual behaviour and attitudes of the target group, behaviour and attitudes that are to be changed by the organizers of a spe-cifi c campaign. It seems to be troublesome because the oft en preferred by the tar-get group behaviour (e.g. smoking) is accepted by it and in some way more com-fortable than the one that is propagated in the campaign. Moreover, Philip Kotler claims that taking into account the infl uence on the receiver, social marketing is a more complicated fi eld than the commercial one. It does not mean, however, that preparing a campaign that promotes a commercial product one does not have to prepare the next elements as precisely as when encouraging children and teenagers to avoid drugs. It is drawing attention to the fact that it is maybe easier to make a consumer buy goods X instead of goods Y, however, it is much more diffi cult to get to the receiver saying that the attitude that is promoted by us is better than the accepted one. Philip Kotler presents a few problems which may have an infl uence on the diffi culties when constructing pro-social campaign:

– encouraging to giving up addictions, e.g. giving up smoking;– change of the comfortable lifestyle, e.g. rubbish segregation;– introducing to one’s life some inconvenience, e.g. prophylaxis of check-ups,– encouraging to new habits, e.g. healthy eating,– free time management, e.g. voluntaries26.Undoubtedly great diffi culty seems to be such details compilation that the re-

ceiver decided, one who has got free will, to accept the proposed in the campaign behaviour with the consciousness that it requires some eff ort. In social marketing one cannot guarantee the direct and immediate receivers’ benefi ts as it is in the case of commercial marketing. It is typical that one has to wait for a long time to see the eff ects of the undertaken eff ort of the behaviour or attitude change, as it is impossible to forget at once about cigarettes, get used to the change of lifestyle, or learn to tolerate the events we have not so far.

As Philip Kotler claims, single persons, social groups and the whole society may become the benefi ciaries of social campaign. “Th e practitioners of social marketing infl uence people not with the aim to make the businessmen richer, but in order to make the target group as well as the whole society benefi cial”27.

26 Compare Ph. Kotler, N. Roberto, N. Lee, op.cit, p.1127 Compare N.K. Weinreich, What is Social Marketing?, www.social-marketing.com/whatis.

html, 2.11.2003

52 Marta Karwacka

Th ere is no doubt that social marketing is relatively a new phenomenon but one can notice that it attracts the attention of theoreticians of various science fi elds. Th e interdisciplinarity may be highlighted by the fact that its “[…] roots may be found in religion, politics, education, as well as in military strategy. Th e roots may be of various scientifi c fi elds, e.g. psychology, sociology, political sciences, com-munication theories and anthropology. Th e practical fundaments are: advertise-ment, public relation and market surveys”28. Professional and eff ective social cam-paign preparations require the coordination of several specialists representing various environments. Th e wide coordination seems to be very important because the success of the campaign depends on the professional campaign preparation. Taking into account the diffi cult and delicate problems undertaken by the creators of social campaigns we must remember that the lack of success is associated not only with lost time and money of the organizers but above all with the initiation of strong feelings of receivers.

5. Involved social marketing, that is how to fill in the gap between business and philanthropy

Th e pluses of social marketing have been noticed in business, one which more and more oft en is being involved in the process of preparation and fulfi lment of diff er-ent kinds of social campaigns. Th e above considerations on the similarities and diff erences between social and commercial marketing make one think about the space between the two areas. How to describe enterprise resembling in its form social marketing, but at the same time giving some benefi ts to commercial com-pany? How to realize the activities supporting the counteraction of social prob-lems, activities performed by the commercial campaign? Th e answer to the ques-tions is social marketing, one which is involved – cause related marketing, in the subject literature oft en described as CRM. Cause related marketing was formed on the basis of social marketing and is nothing more than the companies getting used to new conditions and consumers requirements. More and more oft en companies use social marketing in their strategies.

In the presumption of cause related marketing there is a place, not only for business, but also for diff erent subjects, which because of the activity profi le are

28 Compare www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/socialmarketing/social_marketing/whatis.html, 28.12.2004 What is social marketing?


replaceable in the preparations and fulfi lment of the social projects. Th e CRM idea is based on partnership cooperation of a commercial company and social organization. Th e defi nition presented by Dominika Maison and Norbert Mal-iszewski brings down the CRM to “[…] the performed by commercial companies activities using money, techniques and marketing strategies in order to support essential social issues, reinforcing, at the same time, the companies’ own business. Owing to such activities companies promote their image in connection with the issue they support, contributing the rise in money collection for a given aim, and benefi t through the company’s image improvement, highlighting the product’s peculiar consumers’ loyalty reinforcement, and contribution to the rise in their products’ sales”29. Th e obligatory rule is: win:win:win, which means that not only the described group or society benefi t from the activity. In the relation benefi ciary is also the non-governmental organization, one which fulfi ls its social program, collecting money for that aim, and the commercial company, which, as it was specifi ed in the defi nition, improves its image, oft en also the sales increase in the off ered goods or services, and also may be sure that the money is going to be disposed reasonably and professionally by the non-governmental organiza-tion“. Cause Related Marketing seems to be an ideal solution for all the parties, as it is bases on the rule: win:win, that is everybody gains: the companies, char-ity institutions, organizations; I am going to use here the triangular system of benefi ts exchange proposed by Dominika Maison and Norbert Maliszewski (see: picture 1)30.

Th e given relation shows clearly that the commercial company cannot be treat-ed as a presenter or philanthropy man. So far it is the way business supported social, cultural and sport enterprises. However, this kind of help was only one-off , and what is the most important, the company was in the position of the “better” or “stronger” one, whereas the non-governmental organizations aft er receiving the funds cut the contacts with a presenter, disposing the money on their own. As an eff ect, the company that wanted to make a good deed could only give money which were not always disposed properly by the management of the organization. It lead-ed to ineff ectiveness of the activities and one of the results was only a slight help to those in need. It turns out long term cooperation based on the partnership rule brings much better eff ects. Moreover, in the commercial sector one noticed that making good to people is very profi table. More and more conscious consumers

29 D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, op.cit., p.121.30 D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, op.cit., p. 121.

54 Marta Karwacka

start to expect social involvement from companies. As the surveys show, surveys performed in the developed countries, a vast majority of consumers decide to buy products on the grounds of the information on the company producing the prod-uct. Every day there are more and more consumers thinking that business should get involved in social problems solution, and they confi rm that such activities have a benefi cial infl uence on the company’s image31.

In Poland companies involved in social problems solving are seen in a diff erent way. As it turns out, Polish consumers when buying think mainly about the price, that is why they are less prone than their western neighbours to pay e.g. 50 groszys more in order to help people in need. Only 30% of Poles who were reached by information on a company’s activity decided to buy the company’s products or services32. Th e tendency grows together with consumers consciousness, which helps to run the companies based on social involvement.

In the media there are more and more social campaigns signed with the logo of both commercial companies and non-governmental organizations. In Poland a great success was brought on by the cooperation of Danone Polska with Polska Akcja Humanitarna as for the campaign “Share a meal”, owing to which one has

31 Compare M. Zawada, op.cit. p. 1432 Fundacja Komunikacji Społecznej, Raport a badania: Komunikowanie na rzecz CSR, 2003,

p. 11.

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION(Obtains the fi nancial means)

THE COMPANY (improves its image)

THE CUSTOMER (satisfaction based on the altruistic activity)

Picture 1. Th e triangular system of benefi ts exchange

Th e source: D. Maison, P. Wasilewski, op.cit., p. 121.


been fi ghting with the problem of malnutrition among children in Poland for several years. In spite of the fact that such activities do not solve all social problems, it is very important that such activities were not temporary. Only by long term involvement of a company in a social project does it gain social trust and respect. Th is is why the choice of proper social partner is so important. Sue Adkins high-lights that the Cause Related Marketing is a good interest both for the charity or-ganization and for the business. Th e parties decide on cooperation in order to obtain the intended results and to compensate for the invested means. When con-centrating on commercial companies one can notice the fact that the target can be obtained in two ways. Th e problem that should be considered is the time of obtain-ing the intended target. In sales promotion it is easier to obtain benefi ts than in the case of using CRM in order to build, in a strategic way, the image and brand33. In my opinion there is no need to divide the two forms of CRM. A Company fulfi lling the social program for several years may at the same time feel short time eff ects in the form of sales increase of its products, at the same time, taking care of the long term dimension, builds a positive image among the consumers.

6. The conclusion

Is there a place in Polish social space for social marketing? Taking into account the number of social problems, it seems that promoting positive attitudes and behav-iours by means of marketing activities is inevitable. In Poland one fi nds struggling with a great number of social problems and the used preventive methods not ef-fective. Th e diffi culties in their counteraction may result from the greater and greater number of people they are associated with, and the lack of fi nancial means to fi ght with it in the innovative way. Even now foundations and national institu-tions can see the pluses of social marketing and, support their actions with various kinds of social campaigns. Obviously, fulfi lling only the social actions will not re-sult in society recovery. To counteract the social problems in a relatively eff ective way, it is necessary to contact in a direct and parallel way the target group.

Undoubtedly, in order to maximize the eff ects of social enterprises it is neces-sary to posses fi nancial means which are in the possession of the organizers of social campaigns owing to business. By getting engaged in social projects, com-

33 Compare S. Adkins, Cause Related Marketing. Who Cares Wins. Elsevier Butterworth-Hein-emann, Oxford 2004, pp. 10, 12.

56 Marta Karwacka

mercial companies gain by building their image and, at the same time strengthen their position on the market.

In the given text I have tried to show what social marketing is and its “business variety” – Cause Related Marketing. Taking into account the force of commercial information transfer and a great amount of social problems, I think that it is vital to get interested in the connection of marketing experience with social actions, even for the simple reason to save one single person from an accident, or make one single child smile.

What is also worth mentioning is the fact that owing to social information not only single persons gain, but in the years perspective, also the whole society may benefi t from it. Th rough positive attitudes promotion, encouragement to help peo-ple in need with the help of fi nancial support or voluntary promotion all people may gain a lot. As it turns out, for a few last years there are more and more people and companies which voluntarily get engaged in various kinds of social enter-prises. It is clearly seen that volunteer work is becoming a more and more popular way of spending free time.

I am deeply convinced that social marketing may help to build society based on trust, cooperation, and clearly depicted common values. If we learn to share what we have got and become more sensitive to the harm of other people it will be easier to form a more unique society. It seems that social marketing is a perfect tool to popularize positive ideas – so why not to use it?


Adkins S., Cause Related Marketing. Who Cares Wins. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford 2004.

Bogunia-Borowska M., Koncepcja marketingu społecznego, “Marketing i Rynek” 2002.Forum Odpowiedzialnego Biznesu, Raport: Odpowiedzialny biznes w Polsce. 100 dobrych

przykładów, Warsaw 2003.Forum Odpowiedzialnego Biznesu, Raport: Odpowiedzialny biznes w Polsce. 100 dobrych

przykładów, Warsaw 2006.Forum Odpowiedzialnego Biznesu, Raport: Odpowiedzialny biznes w Polsce. 100 dobrych

przykładów, Warsaw 2007.Fundacja Komunikacji Społecznej, Raport z badania: Komunikowanie na rzecz CSR 2003.Kotler Ph. and others, Marketing. Podręcznik Europejski, Warsaw 2002.Kotler Ph., Roberto N., Lee N., Social Marketing. Improving the Quality of Life, SAGE Pub-

lications, Th ousand Oaks, California 2002.


Kwiatkowska M., Reklama społeczna jako element tworzenia nowej więzi i nowej świadomości społecznej, the project read out at the cyclic conference of the Sociologic Institute of UŁ 2002.

Łaszyn A., Firma społecznie sympatyczna, “Marketing w Praktyce” 2002.Maison D., Wasilewski P., Propaganda dobrych serc, czyli rzecz o reklamie społecznej,

Kraków 2002.Mruk H. and others, Podstawy Marketingu, Poznań 1996.Nowakowska A., Wąs J., Marketing na społeczne plagi, “Marketing Serwis” No. of May

2000.Weinreich N.K., Hands-on Social Marketing. A Step by Step Guide, Th ousand Oaks, Cali-

fornia 1999.Weinreich N.K., What is Social Marketing?, www.social-marketing.com/whatis.html,

02.11.2003.www.fotelik.info/pl/news/zapinaj_pasy,19.html 2.05.2007 Zapinaj pasy.www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/socialmarketing/social_marketing/whatis.html What is social

marketing?www.opoka.pl Andeasen, Alan. 2002. Intersektor Transfer of Marketing Knowledge.www.pkp.kielce.pl/images/kampania.htm Kampania społeczna “Wybierz życie”.www.stopwariatom.pl, 2.05.2007 Stop wariatom drogowym.www. zdrowie.med.pl/palenie/pal_09.html, 2.05.2007, Nowe Milenium: Nie palę, bo

lubię. Zawada M., Cause Related Marketing – biznes z duszą, “Marketing w Praktyce” 2001.


A g a t a K a p l o n

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE WRITINGS OF JÜRGEN HABERMAS

Psychoanalysis was merely a secondary theme in the works of Habermas. Freud is one of the untold number of names and authors analysed by Habermas and he is meaningfully mentioned only in four titles, namely in: Erkenntnis und Interesse (Knowledge and Human Interests1) – an article followed by a treatise with the same title2 in Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaft en, and then in Universalanspruch der Hermeneutik (Th e Universal Claim of Hermeneutics).3 Since the middle of the sev-enties, the thought of Freud has practically disappeared from the writings of Hab-ermas, except for possible marginal commentaries. Th e author himself says about the crisis of psychoanalysis:

Es schein allerdings so zu sein, daß die Psychoalytische Forschung nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern internterional in Stocken geraten ist, daß die intelligenten jungen Leute eher in andere Diszyplinen gehen. … Viele Diszyplinen haben ähnli-che Stagnationsphasen überlebt. Auch der Soziologie weht heute Wind ins Gesicht.

(It would appear that psychoanalytical research, not only in Germany, came to a standstill [i] and young intelligent people are more prone [towards] other disci-

1 J. Habermas, Interesy konstytuujące poznanie, „Colloquia Communia” 1985, 2/9, the article of Habermas with [this] title was published as Erkenntnis und Interesse [in:] J. Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als »Ideologie«, Frankfurt am Main 1971.

2 J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, Frankfurt am Main 1968.3 Idem, Unversalanspruch der Hermeneutik; J. Habermas, Kultur und Kritik. Verstreute Aufsätze,

Frankfurt am Main 1973, I would like to point out that in the below dissertation I will not focus on the issue of the Habermas-Gadamer dispute, in view of the necessity of capturing the very role of Freud’s metapsychology in the philosophy of Habermas.

59Psychoanalysis in the Writings of Jürgen Habermas

plines. Many disciplines underwent similar phases of stagnation. Also sociology has its hard time).4

However, it is psychoanalysis which may turn out to be some kind of a key to this complex theory. Maybe this modest commentary will facilitate the under-standing of that project, being based on directing attention to those themes which constitute its bases and defi ne it as a whole. Psychoanalysis really is an example showing this theory as a project which cannot be read in view of the theory of communicative action, deprived of the contexts of Habermas’ former works. Th e analysis of Habermas’ early works from the angle of psychoanalysis is rather a spe-cifi c and rare interpretation.

However, it is this view from which one may present an attempt of critical break-ing of a positivism barrier, as well as scientifi city norms connected with it, under-stood as obstacles in the progress of enlightenment, which represent constitutive themes of Habermas’ philosophy. Psychoanalysis may constitute a kind of a “win-dow” which allows for looking into this theory.5 Th is project, as a whole, is con-nected with expanding the borders of the term of rationality to such an extent in which the borders, opposing to the ones arbitrarily defi ned by the type of refl ection of scientifi c nature, correspond to the reality taking place in the world of social life (Lebenswelt), which consequently is to lead to combining theory and practice.

Another example of practising of this sort of philosophical refl ection is consti-tuted by treating of psychoanalysis as an equal partner in the fi eld of science. One of the most important reasons for such state is just the expanding of borders of the rationality term in relation to analytical-empirical sciences. Th is trend is extended in the Th eory of communicative action.6 Habermas assumes here the view of un-

4 J. Habermas, Ein Interview mit der »New Right Left « [in:] J. Habermas Kleine politische Schtiff -ten V. Die neue Unübersichtlichkeit, Frankfurt am Main 1985, p. 230,

5 Let me add that a characteristic moment in the very interpretation of psychoanalysis, which may be treated as characteristic for the so called Frankfurt school, is constituted by the fact of being interested only in the Freud writings but complete omission of the secondary literature. It is a type of interpretation exercised in Institut für Sozial Forschung. Habermas, who for the fi rst time met across Freudism in the Adorno seminaries, mentioned this problem himself. In the aft er-war period, psychoanalysis was not a popular theory in German universities, where it was not regarded as a seri-ous intellectual position, especially in philosophy; its scientifi c status has been controversial even until now. Cf. J. Habermas, Dialektik der Rationalisierung, J. Habermas Kleine politische Schrifft en, op.cit., p. 168,

6 Cf. J. Habermas, Teoria działania komunikacyjnego, t. I, Warszawa 1999, pp. 454–455,

60 Agata Kaplon

derstanding the term of communication referring to the sphere of colloquial lan-guage, accusing the solutions arisen within empiricism of one-sidedness.7

Th e size of Habermasian theory causes that, apart from the level of complexity which is carried by its multifaceted character and apart from the language of de-scription used by the author, it does not constitute an easy area of interpretation. Freudism constitutes a view which can facilitate diffi cult reading of those writings to a reader. Analysing later works of Habermas: since the middle of the seventies, his interests began to turn towards the area of social studies, connected with lin-guistic grounds of social studies. Th e themes related to the theory of language, which are also the centre of analyses referring to psychoanalysis, later began to replace the theory of knowledge (Erkenntnistheorie), important at the turn of the sixties and seventies.

Let me not close the question of the theory of knowledge being replaced with other theory of communication or it is moved to the layers of the theories later skipped and left with no interpretation open.8 However, the role of psychoanalysis is related mainly with the theory of knowledge and the role of refl ection in the theory of knowledge. It is crucial that the constructions present while describing psychoanalysis are important for that theory in general, whereas they fade away while forming subsequent layers. If, on those grounds, one would exclude the role of the theory of knowledge in the Habermas’ theories, they lose their continuity, which may be interpreted as a change of a paradigm.

My intention is to defend, fi rstly, a thesis that the whole of this theoretical struc-ture, independently on the centres of author’s interests which appeared in various periods, is subject to the issues of emancipation and enlightenment connected with developing of a public sphere, secondly, the belief that it should be interpreted from the angle of unity. Th ese terms are necessary for understanding crucial goals of this theory. One cannot forget that a reader deals also with rooting of the Habermas

7 Th e contemporary works of Habermas hugely focus around the criticism of positivism, which is also expressed later in the criticism of language philosophy formulated on its grounds. One of the arguments against the infl uences of scientism in the humanities is constituted by a monological structure of a language excluding the refl ection over the subject from the viewpoint of science, cf. J. Habermas Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., pp. 88–115, this issue is also developed in Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaft en, Habermas assumes that “social action constitutes itself in colloquial commu-nication” (ibidem p. 287), the sphere of colloquial language and communication action is displaced in analytical-empirical sciences so that it could return in a form of subject’s self-refl ection consti-tuted by psychoanalysis and other emancipative sciences.

8 Cf. Placidus, B. Haeider, Jügen Habermas und Dieter Henrich. Neue Perspektiven auf Identität und Wirklichkeit. München, Freiburg 1999, pp. 67–69,


theory in the German idealism; only in this view one may fully comprehend the terms he uses.9

Th e problem of psychoanalysis in the Habermas’ theory is defi nitely connected with the problem of the theory of communicative action, its emancipative role, while the very theory of communicative action and the term of refl ection may be interpreted in terms of two groups of problems, because of the theoretical con-struction connected with the theory of knowledge on the one hand, and practice, which has to result from that theory, crucial for shaping of the area of public sphere on the other hand.

Th ese are constantly the only possible angles for reading the whole of Haber-mas’ works, whereas, the same as in the case of psychoanalysis, they are the issues dealt with in the early period of his work. It should be added that omitting of the context connected with the critics of positivism and the critics of authority, result-ing in directing towards psychoanalysis as an example of the science meeting the emancipative intentions.10

It is a term of refl ection in which the subject undertakes the eff ort of critical interpretation referring to what is describable as an object and subject, and which consequently has to lead to self-refl ection. Refl ection, which is a dominium of philosophy, may be also realized in, including but not limited to, psychoanalysis, where it is present as therapeutic self-refl ection of a subject, however, it is the self-awareness of a subject developed on the grounds of philosophy which enables protection against objectifi cation.

Th e role of psychoanalysts and psychologists analyzing the Habermas project is to locate this project among many general interpretations of psychoanalysis, which naturally causes natural fl attening of the view, being the property of com-mentaries, which, do not account for what is most important, i.e. the role of the theory of knowledge or of the movement of critics, that it does not answer the question of the reasons for interpretation of psychoanalysis as a proper, meeting the requirements of emancipative science, method of therapy and, at the same time

9 In the period my research concerned, it refers mainly to the notion of refl ection. Habermas searches for the sources of refl ection philosophy and the analysis of subject in German idealism, as through them the notion of subject can be saved. Cf. Habermas Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., pp. 234–262,

10 B. Reimann (cf. B.W. Reiman, Der Gesellschaft sbezug der Psychoanalyse. Zur gesellschaft s- und wissenschaft stheoretischen Debatte in der Psychoanalyse, Darmstadt Wissenschaft liche Buchgesells-chaft 1991, 79–95) focuses on the fact of combining psychoanalysis with hermeneutics in modern interpretations, Reiman emphasizes that Freud himself was aware of the meaning of the moment connected with understanding of sense in psychoanalysis, whereas Habermas regards this moment as a specifi c philosophical attitude. However, the problem is based on fascination of positivism, which causes that refl ection may be appropriated by the language of subject’s description.

62 Agata Kaplon

the theory enabling restoring a subject back to the public sphere. In the literature of topic there is no question asked referring to the sources of recognition of psy-choanalysis as a theory realizing the demands of Habermas project.

Th e problem of psychoanalysis is connected with the term of interest which is construed by Habermas in the discussion with the German idealism taking place around the concept of mind. In the Kant construction (to which Habermas refers to as the point of departure), the mind has a right to the interest, whereas in the Hegelian philosophy, the mind is created around the term of interest. As a conse-quence, the interest becomes a factor governing the knowledge instead of being subject to knowledge. It is the theme Habermas based on his other studies at that time, mainly the studies of positivistic nature, called here as the analytical-empir-ical ones, the development of which is based on instrumental action.

Th ey are guided by an imperative of gaining control over the reality, manipulat-ing it, which in turn translates into the movement of appropriating of terms used also by hermeneutic sciences, including, fi rst of all, the term of knowledge.11

Th e division of sciences conditioned by the interest causes a strong distinguish-ing aiming at extracting what is specifi c for the liberal arts, and which cannot be replaced with a positivistic project, no matter how eff ective it would be. Habermas divides the sciences into those which are governed by instrumental actions, and those based on communicative action, i.e. historical-hermeneutical type of sci-ences. Th ose two types are accompanied by a type of science which constitutes around the emancipative interest.12

Th e inquiries devoted to psychoanalysis are placed in the background of the criticism of positivism, as well as the criticism of liberal sociology and herme-neutics, which results from the discussion with MacIntyre form the time of Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaft en13. Th e consequence of describing psychoanalysis as hermeneutics of the depth is the Habermas – Gadamer dispute, which, yet, will not be developed here.

One of the key terms around which the deliberations referring to psychoanaly-sis are carried on is the criticism, which is corresponded by the unity of knowledge and interest. Erkenntnis und Interesse is devoted to the criticism of the theory of science (Wissenschaft stheorie), which by appropriating the theory of knowledge (Erkenntnistheorie) makes them identical. Such a stance is subject to criticism and

11 Cf. J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit. pp. 235–262,12 Habermas fi rst formulates the division of sciences in the Interests constituting knowledge, and

then develops in Erkenntnis und Interesse. Later, the division, similarly to psychoanalysis, was no longer the base for research, which started to shift towards universal pragmatics.

13 Cf. J. Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaft en, op.cit., pp. 184–285,


is interpreted as an attempt, occurring historically in the development process, of limiting refl ection and scientifi city to the type of empirical-analytical sciences. Positivistic theories cannot claim the right to being a universal nature theory. Such a movement may be visible, for instance, in an attitude towards the notion of mind’s interests (Vernunft interessen), which cannot be understood in the psychological view as such interpretation automatically imposes a viewpoint on the positivism’s perspective.14 Th e problem is crucial for psychoanalysis because of its interpreta-tion opposing positivism oriented psychology, only its moulding is regarded by Habermas as the birth of psychology.15

Another reason for removing of Wundt psychology from the horizon of delib-erations is consequent defending of the refl ection or interpretation as the sources of psychoanalysis which should be cleaned from any kind of automatism and in-strumentalism which accompany empirical-analytical sciences.

Psychoanalysis is a type of science which developed mainly in connection with a therapy. “Freud was… not a philosopher. A methodical attempt of [forming] of some science on neurosis led him to a separate kind of theory”.16 According to Habermas, psychoanalysis is the only available example of “methodical self-refl ec-tion, making the use of science.”17 Th e very therapeutic process is regarded as the self-refl ection movement, based on reminding, repeating, and developing, thus psychoanalysis is in no case a natural process.18

On the other hand, it has a deeply hidden, unexploited potential, which got calmed down by the Freud’s positivistic involvement, which is called by Habermas as “scientistic misunderstanding of psychoanalysis”,19 while here it means the lack of understanding of the potential carried by psychoanalysis by its creator himself. Reading it in a view of refl ection results in its implementation, as a specifi c type of interpretation, to the language of philosophy, and in case of Habermas, reading it from the angle, but not psychology, which is the core element of this interpretation of psychoanalysis when one puts emphasis on the criticism of positivism formed by Habermas at that time.

Th e main thing I would like to point out in the Habermas’ interpretation of psychoanalysis if the notion of refl ection, which is also a source of unity for the interpretation uniting such a wide range of philosophical writings, from the Ger-

14 Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., p. 234.15 Ibidem, p. 301.16 Ibidem, p. 262.17 Ibidem18 Ibidem, p. 306.19 Ibidem, p. 263.

64 Agata Kaplon

man idealism, through classical theories shaping contemporary form of philoso-phy, sociology, law, to theories completely contemporary for Habermas. Implemen-tation of refl ection to theory is a natural result of the interests of German idealism. Habermas refers here to Kant, Hegel, and Fichte. Not mentioned so oft en but also very important is the person of Schelling.20

However, this topic will only be mentioned here. What is important is the Hab-ermas’ research into the problems which are essential for his theory, in a view of German idealism, as it happens to the notion of refl ection.

Refl ection, or more specifi cally, self-refl ection, is a key notion in Habermas interpretation of psychoanalysis. Th e implementation of psychoanalysis into sci-ence resulted in automatic arising of criticism. Criticism results in recognition of interests constituting the grounds for science. Th ere is a threat, already mentioned here, that this whole process will be interpreted in the spirit of psychologism. How-ever, in the refl ection a clear “discourse” appears (although the notion of “discourse” is not used by Habermas). Habermas refers to the sphere of communication in the background of which the public sphere is always placed. Besides, from the very beginning he prefers communication to the notions such as dialogue, discourse, and narration.

Another stage which is relevant, maybe as a theme close to Habermas, is a fact of a theory being formed by practice, which, aft er all is the self-refl ection.21 Aft er all, refl ection allows for understanding of the interests shaping of science. Th e process of refl ection in empirical-analytical sciences took place because of Peirce, the turn in liberal arts because of the Diltheyan hermeneutics. Th ese two moments are connected with the criticism of the areas in those sciences which gained their identity through excluding the sphere of refl ection over the subject.22

What is more, the Habermasian criticism, in line with its purpose, is connected with the trans-assignment of the area, into which it is joined as refl ection. Th is phenomenon takes place in the case of both sociology currents, which, as it seems, could meet the demands of the Habermasian theory, and traditional herme-neutics.23 At that time, psychoanalysis constituted a model of criticism and one of

20 Schelling is quoted in Erkenntnis und Interesse only twice, ibid. p. 62, 105, it seems that it is the Schelling’s notion of nature which may be signifi cant as the view for reading of criticism of positivism.

21 Ibidem, p. 307.22 Habermas writes about “fl attening of subjectivity” in positivism, which manifests in analyzing

only two aspects of a subject which may be presented in an objective way, with the omission of the refl exive Me, cf. ibidem, pp. 104–115.

23 Cf. J. Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaft en, op.cit.


the forms of answering the question of performing of including a wider sphere of communication into the area of science, and that could not be done without de-stroying the traditional model of science itself. Th is constitutes a point of departure for introducing psychoanalysis to the Habermasian theory. Th e purpose is to achieve an unbiased picture of a subject, which could occur, provided solely its part being considered, especially only that one connected with the language of subject’s description.

Th is state of aff airs takes place in the fi eld of radical positivism, the latter is characterized by manipulative and objectifying attitude to reality, this movement is carried out without any refl ection on a subject, therefore the inquiries made on ground of positivism fi nally hit at a subject, a partner of an interaction. Habermas, while criticizing empirical-analytical sciences, is against this trend. Th e negative consequences of the attempts of subduing psychoanalysis to a model of positive sciences were not clear to Freud; on the contrary, they were regarded as the con-sequence of the development of psychoanalysis.

According to Habermas, Freud did not realize the possibilities given by inter-pretation of psychoanalysis which focuses on a specifi c model of hermeneutics carried by psychoanalysis as a moment specifi c for it. On the contrary, the process of interpretation was to be a provisional construction, which was to be abolished in the course of development of researches into neurology and pharmacology.24 It is a glaring example of the power of positivistic thinking, which, through its ef-fectiveness, appropriates and excludes the type of inquiries demanding the eff orts of the refl ective nature, thus not so reliable and eff ective.

Such criteria cannot be applied as the most important measure inside liberal arts, emancipative sciences. Apart from the fact that psychoanalysis constitutes an anchorage for the criticism of universalistic claim of positivism, inside which an unnoticed, deprived of refl ection authority is hiding, it is against traditional herme-neutics, in Erkenntnis und Interesse too narrow range of interpretation is ascribed to it, in the dispute with Gadamer,25 in the background of hermeneutic delibera-tions one may fi nd an authority, the same as in positivism. Th e notion of authority poses a threat to refl ection, and it is also a threat to the freedom of argumentation in the public sphere.

Psychoanalysis is free from authority, which becomes visible through analysis of a therapeutic situation itself. Habermas, while analyzing the type of communica-tion between a therapist and patient, emphasizes a supporting role of a therapist.

24 Cf. J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit. p. 263.25 Cf. J. Habermas, Universalanspruch…, op.cit. p. 298–301.

66 Agata Kaplon

Analysis is a role and work of a patient. Also here the opposition between psy-choanalysis and positivism appears, traces of which are in a method of language encapsulation. Analytical-empirical sciences are characterized by monological in-terpretation of language. Th e language of colloquial communication is used for creating of a precise tool of an accurate system nature, which is cleansed of errors and ambiguities.

Traditional, philological hermeneutics has also another task of cleansing of er-rors, it may be said that its work fi eld is diff erent that it is in case of positivism as it includes, in a constitutive way, communication. Positivism creates its binding fi eld somehow.26 Traditional hermeneutics fi nds in the area of its work a subject instead of object, yet, because of some aspects, it is an insuffi cient form of refl ection for Habermas as it does not reach any deeper layers of communication.

Both systems, i.e. both empirical-analytical sciences and hermeneutics have a tendency for appropriating of the whole area which they may potentially deserve. Consequences of such a state of aff airs run in a layer of political consequences, as even if fi nally, in a layer of justifi cations, both types of science have to refer to authority, the consequences turn out to be contrary to the goal of communication, i.e. reciprocal understanding, which is (as an intention) necessary for functioning of a public sphere. Psychoanalysis, however, serves for construing of a subject which will correctly develop in a communication sphere, i.e., as a result, in a pub-lic sphere.

It is the public sphere deprived of an authority which may be the grounds of democracy. A public sphere, in an open discourse which is a basis for democracy, excludes introducing a structure originally based on an authority. A discourse into which psychoanalysis is involved relates to the terms of rationality and communi-cation, and it aims at obtaining a position for such a subject structure where the subject is not ruled by an authority, irrespective if it is a tradition authority or a sci-ence one. Critical refl ection frees a subject from such a threat.27

Psychoanalysis is a type of science directed towards a subject and refl ecting its experience structures. It is not a fi eld based on an authority, a norm in its area is a linguistic norm, a norm related to reciprocal understanding. A subject has to be able to communicate with themselves; only then their communication with others will proceed in a way which creates an opportunity for reciprocal understanding.

26 Positivism is a condition for surviving of a species not aware of an interest which drives it, cf. J. Habermas Interesy konstytuujące poznianie, op.cit. p. 163.

27 Cf. J. Habermas, Technik und Wissenschaft als »Ideologie« [in:] J. Habermas, Technik und Wis-senschaft als »Ideologie«, op.cit.


Besides, psychoanalysis may be developed only and solely in a sphere of a demo-cratic society.

Psychoanalysis shows a union of knowledge and subject, as well as its nature. Experience may be recognized only and solely in the view of a subject and lan-guage, especially a language of experience description. Th e type of science based on a monological use of a language falls into instrumentalism.28

A public sphere, within which psychoanalysis may be developed and which it serves, is an area functioning in a colloquial speech, which means that a subject acting in it is equipped with a communication competence broader, but also less stable than a model subject which acts in a positivistic pattern. Moreover, instru-mental action is not a type conforming to telos of a public sphere, which is consti-tuted by communication; it even threats communication and destroys it, to some extent.

In the area of psychoanalysis, one may fi nd a notion of a norm, due to it, psy-choanalytical practice takes place. According to Habermas, the centre of psycho-analytical norm is a structure of a subject, which is equipped with a competence of self-communication, which is a condition for taking communication with oth-ers. It is a moment diff erentiating classical hermeneutics from hermeneutics of depth, the notion of norm, which can be linked to communication and also con-stitutes a point of departure for criticism.

A subject, that has no power over the symbols it uses, can neither make a prop-er use of them. Such a subject does not understand the meaning of symbols which have to be determined by its biography. Such violated, splintered symbols refer only and solely to the subject themselves, which is contrary to the universal func-tion of symbol. A symbol the meaning of which may be understood only by a sub-ject and their individual biography impairs their communication and excludes them from a public sphere. Psychoanalysis is a road “into the inner self ”, it is a criticism connected with refl ection and its movement natural result. Habermas links the notion of refl ection with the notion of mind:

Die Erfahrung der Refl exion artikuliert sich inhaltlich im Begriff des Bildung-sprozess, methodisch führt sie zu einem Standpunkt, von dem aus die Identität der Vernunft zwanglos sich ergibt. In der Selbstrefl exion gelangt eine Erkenntnis um der Erkenntnis willen mit dem Interesse an Mündigkeit zur Deckung; denn der Vollzug der Refl exion weiß sich als Bewegung der Emanzipation. Vernunft steht zugleich unter dem Interesse an Vernunft . Wir können sagen, dass sie einem emen-

28 J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., pp. 236–237.

68 Agata Kaplon

zipatorischen Erkenntnisinteresse folgt, das auf den Vollzug der Refl exion als sol-chen zielt. (Experience of refl ection is articulated in the notion of the process of education, and it directs methodically to a viewpoint which results in an unaff ected identity of mind. In self-refl ection, the knowledge understands that it wants to co-incide with the interest related to coming of age; as exercising self-refl ection is recognized as an emancipation movement. At the same time, mind is under the interest of mind. One may say that mind results from emancipative cognitive inter-est, which aims at exercising refl ection as such).29

In this respect, also psychoanalysis results from a tendency of mind to self-re-fl ection. Th e notion of mind includes an element of will. It means that emancipa-tion does not become automatically. Th us, psychoanalysis is primarily an eff ort of critical interpretation which carries therapy. At the same, Habermas combines the notion of interpretation (understanding), theory, emancipation, and therapy.

Th e interpretative work of a psychoanalyst is compared with the translation work of a philologist, and this comparison also includes diff erentiation. Habermas divides hermeneutics into the two areas: classical Diltheyan one and hermeneutics present in the area of psychoanalysis, being the basis and core element of the work of a psychoanalyst at all. Common research scope for both areas is constituted by a biography. However, the methods of meaning analysis in the Diltheyan herme-neutics are defi nitely distinguished from the methods of work in philological hermeneutics.

In the former, an objective meaning is searched for, by deleting contradictions and errors which may be found in a text. In depth hermeneutics, the primary role is played by the meanings hidden for a subject. For Dilthey, a biography, a text in general, constitutes a fi eld of making corrections and eliminating potential errors. Errors, as such, result from a subjective point of view of a subject. An example is constituted by a work of a historian who restructures relations between elements present in a text. Th e meaning of traditional hermeneutics is to exclude an error and restoring cohesion of a text, cohesion of a historical message.

Reconstruction carried out by a psychoanalyst looks diff erent:

Die Psychoanalytische Deutung … richtet sich nicht auf Sinnzusammenhänge in der Dimension des bewußt Intendierten; ihre kritische Arbeit besichtigt nicht akzidentelle Mangel. Die Auslassungen die sie behebt, haben einen systematischen Stellenwert, denn die symbolischen Zusammenhänge, die Psychoanalyse zu be-

29 Erkenntnis und Interesse, p. 244.


greifen sucht, sind durch interne Einwirkungen verderbt. (Psychoanalytical inter-pretation directs meaning groups in a consciously intended dimension; its critical work does not refl ect accidental defi ciencies. Th e omissions deleted by psychoa-nalysis have some systematic weight as symbolic groups, which it tries to compre-hend, are distorted by internal infl uences).30

A psychoanalyst’s task is to trace their own errors in a text as they are the ones directing us to the sources of disorders visible in an external symbolic layer. Neu-rotic behaviours happen on three levels, on the level of language expressions (Zwangsvorstellungen), actions (Wiedercholungszwänge) by a sphere of expressions related to a body (hysterische Körpersymptome),31 and they send us to the area to which a subject themselves remains hidden. An error, a moment unclear for a pa-tient themselves at one of these levels, behaviour which is unclear for them is a sign of neurotic grounds.

Th ese disorders are a thing which an analyst reaches. Th eir grounds may be found in a sphere of symbols of primitive nature, or paleosymbols.32 A text of a dream, undergoing an analysis as the fi rst one is a type of narration which may lead to the “kingdom of subconsciousness” undistorted by the infl uence of con-sciousness, subject to supervision to a lesser extent, undistorted to such an extent as a language of colloquial communication.

Freudism becomes defi ned by Habermas as self-refl ection expressed in a form of science. A need for joining the system of sciences which accounts for the sci-ences based on communication actions of another type of refl ection results from the fact that psychoanalysis, as the only one, is driven by cognitive motivations connected with a therapy based on self-refl ective movement of inquiries. Th e two types of hermeneutics analyzed by Habermas develop on account of other cogni-tive motivations. Both of them are linked by the notion of interpretation. Interpre-tation, as understood by Dilthey, is deletion of contradictions, i.e. in some ways it is correcting the coherence of knowledge system within the humanities.

As a result, fi nding an error means its correction, the reasons for doing errors are not analyzed as the themes related to text analysis in direct relation to an author are omitted, in traditional hermeneutic there is no moment of reference to hidden layers of culture. Th is refl ection operates in the area of the conscious. Owing to this, the power of criticism in hermeneutics gets weakened; it does not reach even to

30 Ibidem, p. 266.31 Cf. ibidem, 269.32 J. Habermas Universalanspruch… , op.cit., p. 286.

70 Agata Kaplon

an extra-formal dimension of having authority over someone,33 which causes that its emancipative eff ect is limited. Hermeneutics in its philological dimension turns out to be one of the sources of keeping the authority.

Habermas emphasizes a critical potential of psychoanalysis for the reason that Freud did not become a critic of positivism, psychoanalysis as described by Freud is also criticized by Habermas. Th e former of psychoanalysis himself claimed that aft er making some discoveries in the area of physiology, there would be no need for conducting a therapy as it would be replaced with pharmacology.34 Th is is an expression of underestimating on the potential of psychoanalysis on behalf of a pattern developed in positivistic sciences.

Th e concept of psychoanalysis can be found within the frames of a transcen-dental project. It means refl ecting the bases of philosophy. Th e research process of each of these areas is based on transcendental frames, which means reading the semantic relationship in case of a communication action as necessary con-nections with possible preserving of inter-subjectivity of reciprocal understand-ing. Communication becomes part of sense’s structure as a prerequisite for read-ing the sense at all. Positivistic sciences are based on transcendental frames of instrumental action, the nature manifests itself in them as an object of knowledge in a view of possible technical disposal. Th e interest is defi ned by Habermas in the following way:

Interessen nenne ich die Grundorienierungen, die an besrimmten fundamen-talen Bedingungen der möglichen Reproduktion und Selbstkonstituierung der Menschengattung, nämlich an Arbeit und Interaktion haft en. (For me, the interests are the basic orientations which are linked with fundamental conditions of possible reproduction and self-constitution of mankind, namely with work and inter-action).35

33 Habermas’ interpretation heads in this direction. Form him, emancipative interpretation is opposed to power relations, psychoanalysis is a movement opposed to distortions of socialization, thus it translates into reconstruction of identity and is a step for changing even the most intimate relations. Even the very term of notion enforces on psychoanalysis defi nition of the notion of norm during a therapy, which directs psychoanalysis towards social theory; it is an unavoidable result ac-tivated in the process of therapeutic self-refl ection. Habermas describes the theory of socialization in Notizen zur Erkenntnistheorie (ein Nachwort) [in:] J. Habermas, Kultur und Kritik. Verstreute Auf-sätze, Frankfurt am Main 1973.

34 J. Habermas Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., p. 301.35 Ibidem, p. 242, and cf. J. Habermas Arbeit und Interaktion. Bemerkungen zu Hegels Jenser

»Philosophie des Geistes« [in:] J. Habermas Erkenntnis Technik und Wissenschaft …, op. cit.


According to Habermas, the relationship of knowledge and interest may be restructured and subject to criticism only through self-refl ection as its structures on the way of socialization are acquired by a subject and remain in those types of sciences from which the possibility of return to subjectivity may be guaranteed only by the types of sciences fi lling the type of criticism approved by Habermas. In such a case, psychoanalysis becomes the model for emancipation science, with-in its frames the research is also a process of self-research.

Th e conditions of a therapeutic process are as much transcendental as they are fundamental for a therapeutic process, and are objective to extent to which they “actually make a process of social ills phenomena possible”.36 Transferring a tran-scendental viewpoint onto objective things and interests constituting the knowl-edge becomes unnecessary at that moment, as the way of solving a problem of communication distorted by psychoanalysis is both theory and practice.

„Erst wenn, am Typus der kritischen Wissenschaft diese Einheit von Erkenntnis und Interesse durchschaut ist, kann auch die Zuordnung von forschungstranszen-dentalen Gesichtspunkten und Erkenntnisleitenden Interessen als notwendig an-gesehen werden“. (Only when the unity of knowledge and interest is observed in a type of critical science, assignment of transcendental-research points and interests directing the knowledge may be also recognized as necessary).

Th e arising questions referring to Habermasian interpretation of psychoanaly-sis relate to underestimating hermeneutics by the creator of the new science him-self.37 Habermas, in the criticism of psychoanalysis, assigns it with positivistic bias, the author himself is naturally recognized as belonging to the line of theorists interpreting psychoanalysis in a hermeneutic pattern, others being Paul Ricouert and Alfred Lorenzer, whereas the Habermasian interpretation is closest to the Lorenzer’s proposal.38 On the other hand, also associations with Max Adler’s pro-posal come to one’s mind.39

36 J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., p. 348.37 Th ese doubts are developed by B.W. Reiman in Der Gesellschaft bezug…, op.cit., pp. 79–80.38 Kritik des Psychoanalytischen Symbolbegrifs by Alfred Lorenzer is cited by Habermas in Uni-

versalansptuch. op.cit., p. 286, and cf. Erkenntnis und Interesse, op.cit., pp. 10, 295, and 310 and while clarifi cation of the notion of depth hermeneutics, as well as of psychoanalystical structure of sym-bols.

39 Cf. K.H. Pabst, Transzendentale Erkenntnis und Gesellschaft . Zur Kritik transzendentaler Be-gründungsversuche der Gesellachaft stheorie bei Max Adler, Jürgen Habermas und Th eodor W. Adorno, Frankurt am Main 1992, p. 95, both Adler and Habermas chose for their points of departure the Kant

72 Agata Kaplon

Yet, it was reading of the then unpublished Sprachzerstörung und Rekonstruk-tion contributed to paying attention to the problem of communication in which the core of psychoanalytical therapy is realized, and especially to the specifi c nature of communication within its frames, Lorenzer writes about logical and psycho-logical Verstehen, whereas the former is connected with understanding of what is spoken, and the latter with understanding of the speaking one, for Habermas, the situation of therapy is not a type of communication action as the purpose, apart from reciprocal understanding, is constituted by therapy.40

Another issue is the problem of scientifi city of psychoanalysis. Th is issue has been the subject of discourse from the angle of theory of analytical nature, but not exclusively,41 if one tries regarding it as scientifi c and nomothetic, a naturally born question appears whether psychoanalysis suits this model. Habermas answers this question in a diff erent way, skipping the issue of scientifi city of psychoanalysis, calling it as a science from the very beginning. It is typical for him to broaden the borders and scientifi city as limiting them to sciences of positivistic type is con-nected with a limitation of the consequences which are suff ered by a subject lim-ited by positivism.

In this case, the problem is constituted by Freud’s positivism itself – whether the founder of psychoanalysis did not quite realize its hermeneutic potential and the extent to which his approval of positivistic motives may be criticized become the subjects of discourse.42 Th e criticism of Habermas’ positivism from the angle of psychoanalysis is evaluated as ineff ective since refl ection and understanding are not warranty for relevant explanation.43 According to Habermas, psychoanalysis is not a science which can prove its eff ective results:

Mein Freund Mitscherlich hat seine Erfahrungen als psychoanalytischer Arzt einmal so zusammengefaßt: die Terapie erreichte »oft nicht mehr als die Verwand-

theory of knowledge, although Habermas, while debating with German idealism, departures not only from Kant transcendentalism, which happens in the purest form in case of Adler.

40 Cf. J. Habermas, Ein Interview…, op.cit., p. 231,41 Cf. K.R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutation. Th e Growth of Scientifi c Knowledge, London 1963,

pp. 37–38, “And as for Freud’s epic of the Ego, the Super-ego, and the Id, no substantially stronger claim to scientifi c status can be made for it than for Homer’s collected stories from Olympus.” ibidem, p. 38 is a typical way of criticizing psychoanalysis, cf. Hans Albert; he also criticizes critical psychol-ogy, built around the notion of emancipation, cf. Hans Albert Bemerkungen zu Holzkamps diale-ktischer Überwindung der modernen Wissenschaft slehre [in:] H. Albert, H. Keuth (Hrsg.), Kritik der kritischen Psychologie, Hamburg 1973, also in A. Grünbaum, Foundation of Psychoanalysis. A Philo-sophical Critique, Berkeley–London–Los Angeles, pp. 7–47.

42 Cf. Ch. Nichols, Wissenschaft oder Refl exion: Habermas über Freud [in:] Materialien zu Hab-ermas’ »Erkenntnis und Interesse« Hrsg. W. Dallmayr, Frankfurt am Main 1974, pp. 409–411,

43 Cf. M. Perrez, Ist die Psychoanalyse eine Wissenschaft , Bern–Stuttgart–Wien 1979, pp. 40–41.


lung von Krankheit in Leid, das den Rang des homo sapiens erhöht, weil es seine freiheit nicht vernichtet.« (Some time ago, my friend Mittscherlich summed up his experience of a psychoanalyst: it was oft en the case that a therapy did not achieve anything more than transforming an illness into suff ering, which oft en elevates the Homo sapiens since it does not destroy their freedom).44


Albert H., Bemerkungen zu Holzkamps dialektischer Überwindung der modernen Wissenschaft -slehre [in:] H. Albert, H. Keuth (Hrsg.), Kritik der kritischen Psychologie, Hamburg 1973.

Grünbaum A., Foundation of Psychoanalysis. A Philosophical Critique, Berkeley–London–Los Angeles.

Habermas J., Technik und Wissenschaft als »Ideologie«, Frankfurt am Main 1971.Habermas J., Kultur und Kritik. Verstreute Aufsätze, Frankfurt am Main 1973.Habermas J., Notizen zur Erkenntnistheorie (ein Nachwort) [in:] J. Habermas, Kultur und

Kritik. Verstreute Aufsätze, Frankfurt am Main 1973.Habermas J., Ein Interview mit der »New Right Left « [in:] J. Habermas Kleine politische

Schtifft en V. Die neue Unübersichtlichkeit, Frankfurt am Main 1985.Habermas J., Interesy konstytuujące poznanie, “Colloquia Communia” 1985, 2/9.Habermas, Teoria działania komunikacyjnego, vol. I, Warszawa 1999.Nichols Ch., Wissenschaft oder Refl exion: Habermas über Freud [in:] Materialien zu Hab-

ermas’ »Erkenntnis und Interesse« Hrsg. W. Dallmayr, Frankfurt am Main 1974.Placidus, B. Haeider, Jügen Habermas und Dieter Henrich. Neue Perspektiven auf Identität

und Wirklichkeit. München, Freiburg 1999.Reiman B.W. , Der Gesellschaft sbezug der Psychoanalyse. Zur gesellschaft s- und wissenschaft -

stheoretischen Debatte in der Psychoanalyse, Darmstadt Wissenschaft liche Buchgesells-chaft 1991.

Pabst K.H., Transzendentale Erkenntnis und Gesellschaft . Zur Kritik transzendentaler Be-gründungsversuche der Gesellachaft stheorie bei Max Adler, Jürgen Habermas und Th eo-dor W. Adorno, Frankurt am Main 1992.

Perrez M., Ist die Psychoanalyse eine Wissenschaft , Bern–Stuttgart–Wien 1979.Popper K.R., Conjectures and Refutation. Th e Growth of Scientifi c Knowledge, London

1963.

44 J. Habermas Ein Interview mit…, op. it. p. 230,


J a n C z e c h o w s k i

FUNCTIONS OF DIDACTIC CHILDREN’S AND YOUTH LITERATURE

In this article, discussing educational values of young readers’ literature is pre-ceded by historical outline of the development of literature as an art form. Separat-ing literature from other phenomena of culture has been diffi cult since ancient times. According to one of works of H. Starzec, this results from the complex nature of a literary phenomenon, versatility of literature, as well as various categories of theoretical thinking about this art1.

1. Introduction

Th e mentioned author presents the evolution of literature throughout the centu-ries as follows: “Th e term literature had not been used before the 18th century. Strictly literary works were classifi ed as poetry since they were mainly works writ-ten in a verse form. Poetry did not comprise prose writing, journalism, rhetoric, or fi ctionalized history; yet, it included drama as it was usually written in verse, and fi rst of all, poetry embraced literary works of epic and lyric nature. In the 18th century, a new literary form evolves, namely a novel, written in prose. Th us, the term of literature comprises poetry and literary prose, as well as other kinds of writing. Since that time, the term of poetry has no longer meant the same as belles-lettres, it has been narrowed, and the very phenomenon of poetry has un-dergone various transformations resulting in the present-day scope. Nowadays,

1 H. Starzec, Kultura literacka – wychowanie literackie, Warsaw 1981, p. 5.

75Functions of Didactic Children’s and Youth Literature

literature is regarded as an art, in the contemporary interpretation of the fi ne arts. Such a concept of art was established quite late since it took place as late as in the 18th century. Long before that, a diff erent concept of art had been used, originat-ing from the ancient Greece. Th e Greeks perceived an art as acting subject to the principles of skills, in both material and mental fi elds. Th ey distinguished between the liberal arts (manual work free) and applied arts (created by means of physical eff ort). Th e latter included sculpture, painting, and craft s, whereas the former embraced music. Yet, neither of them contained poetry as this fi eld was neither material production nor was it subject to the rules of action. Th e word poiesis meant creativity for Greeks (from poiein – make, create), and the word poietes – a poet – any creator. Th erefore, poetry was an art of creating – not a craft . It was an individual act, created under the infl uence of inspiration. It was a contradiction of routine, norm, or rule according to which objects of art were made. Poetry resulted form illumination and intuitive experience and due to that it was of the divine-like nature”.

Evolution of children’s and youth literature took place in the following periods: the Former Ages, Age of Reason, Romanticism, Positivism, Young Poland, interwar period, post-1939 years. Based on the works of S. Frycie and M. Sobecka, the main aspects of the then children’s and youth literature are briefl y characterized below.

2. Children’s and youth literature

Th roughout many centuries, there had been no separate literature for young read-ers. Reading needs of young generation before the times of Enlightenment, thus up to the 18th century inclusive, had been mainly satisfi ed by oral transmission (national mythology and folklore, religious works, traditional folk literature). In the period of the Early Middle Ages, Polish children listened to fables, fairy tales, oral tales, legends, and knight tales. In Germany, the Nibelungs’ adventures were popular, in Ruthenia the Vyelkodooh was a well-known character, similarly, elves in Ireland, whereas a young Pole was moved by a story of legendary princess Wan-da or was cheered by defeat of the Wawel Dragon. In the Middle Ages, among the fi rst compulsory literary works were Hagiographies. In the Age of Renaissance (15–17th c.) young Polish readers came across Aesop’s Fables in Th e Biography of Aesop by Fryg Biernat from Lublin, as well as Deeds of the Romans (Gesta Romano-rum), Th e Iliad and Odyssey by Homer… Typical for the Renaissance interest in the ancient classical authors caused that the ancient literature became a signifi cant element of school education at that time, and together with great tradition of the

76 Jan Czechowski

humanities of former ages, appropriate educational models were transmitted. Polish language texts from that period are, for example, Th e Th renodies (Treny) by Jan Kochanowski. In the second half of the 18th century (Th e Baroque, Enlighten-ment), under the infl uence of the then popular in Poland pedagogical ideas of J. A. Komeński and J. Lock (the author of the treatise Some Th oughts Concerning Educa-tion), there was growing awareness of the demand for children’s literature. A sig-nifi cant role in this area was also played by National Education Committee (1773–1794) – fi rst in Poland and the then Europe ministry of public enlightenment, which undertook the work of reforming the national educational system. At that time Perrault’s fables and Th e Adventures of Telemachus by Fénelon appeared. Also other great authors wrote for children, e.g. Krasicki, Niemcewicz, Defoe, and Cer-vantes2.

Th e Romanticism period in Poland was a dawn of belles-lettres writing spe-cially intended for children and youth. Short stories and longer prose moral works were written, arising from the ideological traditions of the Enlightenment (Hoff -manowa, née Tański, Jachowicz). Th e second generation of children’s romantic writers paid much attention to civic education and focused on advocating demo-cratic ideas (Mickiewicz, Słowacki, and Fredro). Other popular writers were Scott, Cooper, and Hugo. Th e Romanticism’s centres of literary life, children’s literature, and publishing movement were Warsaw, and then Krakow, Lvov, and Poznań. For the fi rst time, publishing houses considered editing children’s books3.

Th e second half of the 19th century – period of Positivism, critical realism, and Modernism – brought further development of literature for young generation. It was the time of a rapid growth of prose in all its subject-genre’s varieties, as well as of lyrical and fairy tale writing – moral prose was strongly connected with the positivist ideology and the banners of organic work (Polish: praca u podstaw, lit. work at the bases (Świderska, Papi, Urbanowska, and Dygasiński). Young readers adopted historical books of Polish language universal literature, as well (novels by Kraszewski and Sienkiewicz). At that time one may observe the richness of themes and the variety of genres in prose writings intended for young generation on the one hand and strong interest in a child in various forms of prose works in univer-sal literature on the other hand (e.g. Prus and Orzeszkowa). It was also a period of outstanding representatives of children’s and youth literature, such as Konopnicka,

2 S. Frycie, M. Ziółkowska-Sobecka, Leksykon literatury dla dzieci i młodzieży, Piotrków Trybu-nalski 1999, pp. 203–205.

3 Ibidem, p. 212 and further.


the Grimm brothers, Andersen, Kipling, Carroll, Barrie, et al4. During the interwar years, a young readers’ book’s aim was not only to satisfy demands but also realize the foundations of the concept of culture in a new state, as well as to support edu-cation’s edifying policy. Th e literature was to shape a modern man, a patriot, and a good citizen, compassionate, just, generous, as well as critical, and at the same time a Catholic. Literary output of the epoch consists of fables, fairy tales, poetry works, prose on historical and social and moral topics, nature, as well as fantasy books. Authors of that time are all the following, but not limited to: Ostrowska, Jezierski, Dąbrowska, Makuszyński, Korczak, Kownacka, Molnar, Twain, London5.

Th e war and Nazi invasion hindered the unconstrained development of Polish children’s and youth literature. Despite the discriminatory policy of the invader, persecution of Polish intellectuals, and imprisoning Polish writers in concentration camps, works of Fiedler, Kamiński, and others were secretly distributed and popu-larized. An extraordinary phenomenon was the presence of children’s conspirato-rial magazines: Źródło (Th e Spring), Brzask (Th e Dawn), Bądź gotów (Be alert). Just aft er the war, children’s and youth fi ction literature referred to literary patterns of former years and also exposed war and occupation themes (many books present-ed models of young characters who fought for independence of the nation to-gether with adults). In the area of children’s and youth prose writing a prose of manners became the major genre, presenting the lives of the young in family and friends environment. Th e examples may be a few following authors writing for young readers aft er 1939: Korczakowska, Jaworczakowa, Ożogowska, Jackiewic-zowa, Jurgielewiczowa, Domagalik, Zającówna, Boglar, and Musierowicz.

In the contemporary prose of manners, an important position is taken by works on school, scout, and sports themes, as well as those presenting lives of the young in informal groups. Also poetry has its well-established position in the contempo-rary children’s and youth literary works. Poets include educational elements in their lyric, being aware of the demand of infl uencing children’s moral attitudes by means of poetry words (Kulmowa, Papuzińska, Zarembina, Kern, Tuwim, Brzechwa, et al.6

While getting general acquaintance with the history of shaping young readers’ literature, it is worth mentioning at this point the most important events referring to the development of studies on children’s and youth literature. S. Frycie writes that those studies were created and began to develop at the moment of appearing

4 Ibidem, pp. 214–216.5 Ibidem, p. 216 and further.6 Ibidem, p. 218 and further, see also p. 231.

78 Jan Czechowski

of original works intended for young generation – original books were initially accompanied by literary criticism, then by detailed historical-literary commentar-ies, theoretical refl ection on the identity of that kind of writing, its distinctive features and position in the world of the literary phenomena. Th e beginnings of critical thinking and academic refl ection connected with that genre occurred at the time of the Romanticism (in 1830s and 1840s in the works of J. Woykowska, E. Estkowski, J. Libelt, J. Lompa, and E. Dembowski proposals and suggestions ap-peared as to equip a folk school’s pupil with proper reading primers, historical pictures, etc.).

At that time fi rst reviews of the children’s works appear, by Hofmanowa, Jacho-wicz, and other writers7. According to S. Frycie, during Positivism, children’s and youth literature was a subject of interest for P. Chmielowski, A. Dygasiński, B. Prus, H. Sienkiewicz, M. Konopnicka, and other authors. In the period of Young Poland (Polish: Młoda Polska) two essays were written, important for further research on children’s and youth literature: theoretical study of S. Karpowicz and historical-literary study of A. Szycówna.

In the interwar period, the range of literature intended for young generation was extended by works of K. Króliński, S. Szuman, M. Dąbrowska, and others. Moreover, research in the problem of children’s and youth reading habits was ini-tiated. While assessing the children’s and youth literature, apart from educational values, the artistic ones started to be emphasized, too, which allowed that genre to be upgraded to the level of the proper art. An immense contribution to the devel-opment of post-war study on children’s and youth literature and knowledge on that genre was made by a generation of literature experts, researchers and enthusiasts of the children’s books: J. Z. Białek, J. Cieślikowski, S. Frycie. K. Kuliczkowska, A. Przecławska, I. Słońska, J. Papuzińska, R. Waksmund, and B. Żurakowski. Due to common and individual eff orts of the researchers, a vast record of research works on both former and contemporary children’s and youth literature is avail-able. Numerous essays and monographic sketches on the works of the most out-standing young readers authors are published, many studies and critical works on contemporary young readers literature are announced, research on children’s and youth reading habits is carried on8.

Th e concept of children’s and youth literature, as well as the problems of its classifi cation is explained in the J. Papuzińska’s work. Referring to other research-

7 S. Frycie, Współczesna nauka o literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży i jej przedstawiciele, Piotrków Trybunalski 1996, p. 11 and further.

8 Ibidem, pp. 12–15 and 32.


er, J. Cieślikowski, the author regards “the things children took from adults, which were created for them by adults and what they invented by themselves” as children’s literature (thus, children’s literature comprises children’s folklore, being partially creation of the very children)9. Th ere are many examples of works initially in-tended for young readers which later on became an adults’ reading matter, being of no interest for young readers (e.g. Pisklęta by Z. Rogoszówna). Children’s litera-ture historians carry research also on works which, primarily meant for an adult reader, became annexed and accepted by children (Don Quixote de la Mancha by M. de Cervantes, Robinson Crusoe by D. Defoe, and Gulliver’s Travels by J. Swift ). Th e names of adult reader writers – Dumas, London, and Sienkiewicz, gained also great popularity among young readers and, in the process of education, also works on general nature were used, such as Parallel lives by Plutarch10.

Th e work of Joanna Papuzińka characterizes rules and aims imposed on chil-dren’s literature, as well as processes allowing for distinguishing of that specifi c poetics. Th e early period of development of young reader literature was character-ized by the priority of didactic purposes and not always accurate identifi cation and oft en even discounting of the very reading needs. Th e 18th and 19th centuries initiated children’s writing as a professional category, thus a young reader became a specifi c kind of an addressee. In the 19th century a distinction of the said litera-ture underwent evolution – new genres were established: children’s fable, girls’ novel, varieties of historical and adventure novels. A separate poetics, word range, and structure models of the works were being shaped. In the end of the 19th cen-tury, literature’s addressees were divided in view of age, sex, and social environ-ment. Books for young women, younger and older children, youth, children of rural origins and working class children (a reader’s address was marked in the subtitle of a work, it was signalled by the graphic layout of a book – font size, number of illustrations).

Considering the children’s literature, some kind of characteristic group of trends may be observed, exemplifi ed by a childlike psychic character, moods changeabil-ity, happy ending, limited number of drastic or scary scenes. Similarly specifi c is the selection of themes and problems in the children’s literature, resulting mainly from the aspects and psychic properties of a receiver’s development phases – it alters depending on educational requirements of an epoch and is diff erently shaped in various countries. In addition, a young reader (8–9) possesses neither knowledge

9 J. Cieślikowski, Wielka zabawa, Warsaw 1967.10 J. Papuzińska, Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży – pojęcie i problemy klasyfi kacji [in:] Literatura

dla dzieci i młodzieży w procesie wychowania, A. Przecławska (ed.), Warsaw 1978, p. 28 and further.

80 Jan Czechowski

nor a need to classify works in view of the historical-literary context; they do not make an unimpeded use of time and space concepts and would surely be confused by a novel having disordered chronology of events.

A young reader fi nds relativism of human points of view diffi cult to agree with and the processes of identifying with the main character of a work are very strong, even though a character bears a number of negative features, these are accepted by a child as a part of that character. A young reader who is mainly interested in the plot and the course of action, will not fi nd personal themes fascinating, either11.

3. Literary genres

Genre classifi cation in the area of children’s and youth literature and distinguishing children’s literature from the entirety of writing, running the typology and group-ing that literature in some classifi cation subgroups is oft en quite complicated and, according to J. Papuzińska, may cause diffi culties for a librarian, teacher, or educa-tor (in literature intended for the youngest readers marking the elementary borders between epic and lyric, poetry and prose, realism and fantasy, becomes really com-plex in practice, therefore children’s literature could be classifi ed in reference to its function criteria in the process of education, instead of thematic-literary ones)12.

According to K. Kuliczkowska, literary education in a nursery school has two aspects. It is education by means of literature (using artistic determination of any notions of the surrounding world shapes child’s both passive and active vocabulary range, as well as their speaking skills; children learn how to require explanations of new interesting words and phrases, participate in validating the titles, a book helps them to rationalize an educational or moral theme), as well as education for literature (a child’s positive attitude towards a book is created, together with look-ing for a way to understand the art of word and passion for literature. Th e aim of education for literature is to enrich and deepen the personality of a child by con-scious and planned shaping of their abilities of experiencing literary works in a more and more sensitive and aware way, thus facilitating conveyance of the edu-cational values, too)13.

Placing children’s and youth literature in literary culture, it is worth to stress that belles-lettres can be divided, in view of readers’ circulation and kind of re-

11 Ibidem, pp. 30–32.12 Ibidem, pp. 35 and 38.13 Nurty, konwencje, tematy, K. Kuliczkowska (ed.), Warsaw 1983, p. 40 and further.


cipients, into: high level literature, i.e. the fi rst literature, intended for educated literary addressees of high literature awareness and competences, as well as prop-er knowledge in the area of humanities; and popular literature, i.e. the second one, comprising also pulp fi ction, intended for mass reader; folk literature, i.e. the third one, grown up from the rural environment and intended for the receivers from that culture circle; children’s and youth literature, i.e. the fourth one, also called the separate one, created by adults and the very children, intended for young ad-dressees14.

A framework of children’s and youth literature is constituted by the following: adaptations of literary texts from high level literature; books belonging to high literature coming from reading selections of young recipients; popular literature texts; processed texts of folk literature; texts based on children’s folklore; works intended by authors for children and youth with “children’s-youth” readers’ address implemented in their literary structure. Children’s literature has its defi ned poetics, separate literary genres and its own readers’ circulation. Literary identity of the described literature is based, among other things, on the fact that it joins didactic (educational) functions with proper artistic features. Literary features: plot attrac-tiveness, romanticism of the character’s adventures, humour, folk style content, as well as combining dreams with fantasy are the features truly desired in the fourth literature15.

Children’s and youth literature has a very signifi cant role in the process of edu-cation: it introduces young generation in Polish and foreign culture tradition; pre-pares for reception of general and high level literature and shapes the defi ned kind of culture needs. In the 1–3 forms, when education is based only on children’s and youth literature, school curriculums and excerpts, the preferred forms are the fol-lowing: small lyric poems, literary puzzles and jokes, scenic miniatures, fairy tales and fables, fantasy stories, nature stories, realistic works on social and moral themes, presenting lives of children in the surrounding nature and social environ-ment, at home, school, and in the group of peers16.

Didacticism and artistry in children’s and youth writing are not contradictory terms. Th e former results from both the distance between experiences of an ad-dressor and addressee, as well as from the feeling of a special mission of the authors to educate and instruct (instrumental nature). However, didacticism ceases to have a dominant function when writing for children and youth is done by talented writ-

14 S. Frycie, M. Ziółkowska-Sobecka, Leksykon literatury…, p. 253.15 Ibidem, p. 254.16 Ibidem, p. 234 and further.

82 Jan Czechowski

ers. Besides, the said didactic approach is still an element of art for the young and does not have to lower its artistic level. Comparing this kind of literature with the general one, it is characterized by putting emphasis on teaching and educational functions. It shapes the attitudes towards the surrounding world, conveys moral and personal models, shapes imagination, sensitivity, sometimes also beliefs, and at the same time, strongly exposes aesthetic function of that genre17.

In 1929, the editorial of Świat Książki expressed its desire to fi ght for a right for a good children’s book to have its renowned place in the world of general literature. It was requested for this kind of literature to be evaluated according to the same requirements as used while evaluating any other literary book. It was proposed for content and form, structure and language, thought and word to become infl uential ingredients of a work of universal artistic value, being convincing independently on any pedagogical postulates. Only in that way a book could, by infl uencing the mind, imagination, and feelings, shape new generation of a cultured and sensitive reader18.

Kinds and genres of children’s poetry became the subject of deliberations of many outstanding authors and researchers of children’s literature19. In the area of poetry addressed for a young reader one may distinguish works in view of their author, who may be an adult or a child, and defi ne them as children’s (written by adults) or childlike (created by the youngsters). Another division of poetry for children is as follows: poems for children (dedication, programme, religious, mor-alistic, patriotic, applied poems – wishes), childlike poems (games, plays, childlike creations, puzzles, question plays, fables), lyric for children (fl ower bed, childlike zoo, songs, lullabies, carol poems, season of the year poems), childlike lyric (paro-dies, jokes)20. Th ematic classifi cation in the area of young readers prose comprises moral, historical, biographical, autobiographical, psychological, fantasy, science-fi ction, crime-action, travel, and nature prose, and among literary genres, in chron-ological order there are the following: a fairy tale, legend, tradition, tale, novelette, short story, story, and novel. Children’s literature is characterized by syncretism in the area of literary genres and types, thus the borders between epic and lyric, real-ism and fantasy get blurred completely21.

17 Ibidem, p. 107.18 K. Kuliczkowska, Dawne i współczesne problemy prozy dla dzieci, Warsaw 1972, p. 17.19 Cf e.g. the following authors: J. Cieślikowski, Wielka zabawa, Warsaw 1967; R. Waksmund,

Poezja dla dzieci, Wrocław 1999; B. Żurakowski, W świecie poezji dla dzieci, Warsaw 1981.20 “Childlike” means from childern’s point of view. S. Frycie, M. Ziółkowska-Sobecka, Leksykon

literatury…, p. 308.21 Ibidem, p. 312.


Writing about literary genres and types of children’s belles-lettres, it is worth adding even some more explanations at this point, referring to a literature of man-ners, especially to novels. From the book edited by A. Przecławska one may learn that moral-social literature is usually represented by novels and tales comprising children characters, with the action set in the time they were written, and the main themes are family relationships, child-school relations, growing into peer group, fi rst friendships and loves, accustoming social standards and the choice of ways they would spend their lives22.

Th e role of a novel was also described by K. Kuliczkowska23, who assigned it a double function: on the one hand, a reader could fi nd the elements satisfying their mental needs there, on the other hand, that genre turned out to be specially useful as a literary tool allowing for imposed conveyance of content in order to have an educational impact.

4. The functions

Pedagogy and literature are areas of culture which have many common things – education, for a long time, had functioned without reference to a specifi c fi eld of studies, and the literature had also been created without systematic reference to theory, philosophy or literature – writes the author of numerous works from the area of pedagogy, literature, and reading24.

A.M. Bernardinis writes that in some periods of culture a total union of educa-tional and literary education ways existed, thus an analysis of joints between ped-agogy and literature seems to be a necessity. Th e author justifi es her thesis by three symptoms: mutual dependence between these two areas, proven by the history of culture and education; structural analogy between educational and literary pres-entation; basic meaning of projection into the future, thus imaginary dimension in both pedagogy and literature areas25. At this point, the article starts an analysis of these three groups of aspects on the basis of the text of the Italian scholar26. Activity of a poet is precisely described and limited, similarly to the limitation and

22 J. Papuzińska, Literatura społeczno-obyczajowa [in:] Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży w proce-sie wychowania, op.cit., p. 98.

23 K. Kuliczkowska, Dawne i współczesne problemy prozy dla dzieci, op.cit., p. 66.24 A.M. Bernardinis, Pedagogika a literatura [in:] Nurty, konwencje, tematy, K. Kuliczkowska

(ed.), Warsaw 1983, p. 19.25 Ibidem, p. 20.26 Ibidem, pp. 20–23.

84 Jan Czechowski

defi nition of an educator’s activity – the content and functions of both origin from philosophy, which constitutes the last legislative stage of a state. In view of Plato’s thinking, it is impossible to make any innovations in the area of educational aims and learning, similarly as in case of the existence of true poetic invention or inde-pendent contribution of a poet to looking for the good and truth.

Th e structure of the book Th e Adventures of Telemachus by Fénelon precisely refl exes a structure of tutor-learner relation between Fénelon and his student, the Duke of Burgundy. Fenelon skilfully uses all the narrative techniques and tricks in order to lead a reader towards identifi cation with the character, experiencing his adventures and learning from them; educational process, which, according to Fene-lon, should be based on beliefs and thoughts, combines and unifi es with the struc-ture of the novel, educational ideas are represented in all possible practical applica-tions. Results of moral or life choices occur with their all possible consequences; young age of the character makes possible to mark the line of development through gaining subsequent experiences, a dialog with Mentor is an opportunity to ask any possible questions and fi nding the most exhaustive explanations. In view of the structure, Th e Adventures of Telemachus may be regarded as a prototype of a nov-el with a thesis, whereas, in view of the content and methods – as a prototype of developmental path of education.

Describing the relation between pedagogy and literature is also clearly illus-trated by educational concepts by J. J. Rousseau – he put a child in the centre of educational process, making it a subject, instead of an object of education. Rous-seau considered a need of creating books consisting of the maximum number of lessons and able to convince, i.e. strongly persuade, by means of their force of pas-sion, a reader to pursue the purposes which still cannot result from one’s own experience. He was the fi rst to regard the necessity of using literature in the proc-ess of education, not in view of its content or subjects but because it is the art of invention, able to mark new dimensions for a human and transform them to the plane of the future.

According to the author’s thinking, a narrative situation in which a reader is set, may transform into an educational situation provided the reader uses its elements for refl exion and rethinking their own existential situation in terms of the self-education goals which they set for themselves and which they want to achieve (identically – a narrative situation may induce a reader to refl ect on the nature and function of literature and their own identity, provided their elements are used in a mutual [contextual] relation)27.

27 Ibidem, p. 27.


According to B. Żurakowski, education through belles-lettres (subject of peda-gogical, psychological, and literature studies research) is based on a thesis that literary texts meet the aesthetic and developmental needs of a child. A signifi cant part of belles-lettres texts has an imprinted educational programme formed from the social position. Literature addressed for children and youth accompanies the educational processes and also exists due to the pedagogical inspiration28.

Th is author stresses in his work a role of literature in conveying values, writing that the aim of literary works belonging to the range of literary communication is to convey the collection of values, literary education, and axiological education (including values into the process of education is underlined by education theore-ticians). Th e level of knowledge on values and its development is a condition nec-essary for understanding and organizing one’s own moral life and achieving prop-er axiological motivation, i.e. one’s own moral maturity – the most frequently present aim of education are moral values and values subject to morality (learning, metaphysical, personality, moral, vital, usable, and pleasurable). In Polish poetry the following moral values are conveyed: righteousness, goodness, justice, generos-ity, modesty, and dilligence29.

Th e functions of literary works became a subject of considerations of such children’s literature experts as S. Frycie and M. Sobecka. Th ese researchers claim that reading matter provides young students with a possibility to present an artis-tic vision of the world and of confronting that vision with the surrounding reality. Th ough, literature supplies the young readers with supplementary social experi-ences, models of conduct and personal ideals, points at what is important in people, provokes asking questions about life, at times answering them by itself. Literary works create also situations of expressing moral opinions, as well as of learning about themselves. Artistic experiences also infl uence shaping psychic and cultural needs of students, and lessons, on which one is surrounded by literature, should mainly lead to set a need and habit of reading in children, to shape an approach that a book is something nice, friendly, and helpful in various situations of every-day life, it is as important as food, clothing, or friends; it is a source of joy, a kind of compensation, thus a supplement of something one lacks30.

28 B. Żurakowski, Literatura dla młodego odbiorcy jako przekaz świata wartości wychowawczych [in:] Pedagogika społeczna jako dyscyplina akademicka. Stan i perspektywy, E. Hetka, J. Piekarski, E. Cyrańska (ed.), Łódź 1998.

29 Ibidem.30 S. Frycie, M. Ziółkowska-Sobecka, Kształcenie literackie w okresie wczesnoszkolnym, Warsaw

1995, p. 41.

86 Jan Czechowski

A few fundamental functions of literary work were quoted in a book constitut-ing a methodical guide for elementary forms’ teachers3132. Th ese are the following: aesthetic function of a literary work (accompanied by other functions of the work of art and expressed in artistic experiences evoked by a work); compensatory func-tion of a literary work (infl uence of a work on balancing psychic shortages of a receiver, e.g. complexes, frustration, feeling of alienation). A positive infl uence on a reader may be achieved by the identifi cation with the character, e.g. a harmed one, or an attempt of following the character who is a kind of a role model for a reader. A folk fairy tale may also calm down aggression, minimize frustration, etc.); folk function of a literary work (entertainment function, inspiring the fun); learn-ing function of a literary work (literary world refl exion of the true principles refer-ring to real world – conveying information referring to social, historical, geograph-ical, psychological and other phenomena by means of literary signs); therapeutic function of a literary work (infl uence of a work on psychic disorders of a receiver by provoking shocks, making a reader realizing their mistakes and shortages of their nature); educational function of a literary work (aff ecting ideological and moral awareness of a receiver, shaping their beliefs, imprinting habits).

H. Starzec, along with other experts dealing with literature, claims that contem-porary literature is to educate even more than in other times because of the current needs, since the range of educational possibilities it covers becomes highly strength-ened in view of the necessity of supporting personal development of a person in view of the present-day rationalism and collapse of the established culture and moral systems, the necessity signalled by collective prevention defending against nervous breakdowns and psychic disorders32.

Th e author regards education through art, which is school and extra-school education and refers to all the people and all periods of their lives, as one of the most signifi cant concepts of humanistic education – education through conscious participation in culture33. By means of children’s and youth literature, a language of an entire nation is popularized, being created in line with binding correctness standards. It should be remembered that shaping children’s speech by literary texts is an important duty of pre-school and school education, which should care of the beauty and richness of a mother tongue as a mark of national identity34.

31 Ibidem, p. 204.32 H. Starzec, Kultura literacka – wychowanie literackie, p. 29.33 Ibidem, p. 34.34 Cf S. Frycie, M. Ziółkowska-Sobecka, Leksykon literatury…, p. 99.


Due to the fact that the language of a literary work and its richness, variety, and emotional aspects, are phonic properties are characterized in a child’s friendly way, thus may make children more sensitive to the beauty of style of an author, direct their attention to the visual aspects of descriptions and accuracy of literary imag-ining, point at such aesthetic categories as lyricism, tragic nature, comicality, hu-mour, that is, present those formal attributes of literary expression which shape reader’s aesthetical sensitivity and deepen the very literary reception35.

At the same time, it is worth emphasizing that in literary education a signifi cant role is played by the family home, apart from kindergarten or school, since before a child begins reading independently, they are parents, grandparents or older sib-lings who familiarize them with a book and magazine intended for them. During the leisure time or before going to sleep, they read to children simple fables and nursery rhymes, comment on illustrations in a book. Aft er a child learns the world of letters, they listen to reading of adults, too. It may be said that family meetings with a book create a specifi c culture climate at home, which is then remembered throughout the whole life. It also liberates the cultural needs and shapes reading interests36.

Another mentioned function of literature in school education is enriching pas-sive and active vocabulary of a child and general support in mastering a language. Reading increases the level of word culture, enriches the syntactic-stylistic struc-ture of one’s own expressions, teaches understanding the structure of extensive thought clusters37. Th e development of learning and emotional processes is strict-ly connected with the increase of language culture – a child, while reading, gains diff erent information on a country, world, and human in such a range to which it could not achieve by its own, direct experiences. Reading also constitutes an im-portant aspect of educational impact – shapes socially valuable personality fea-tures38.

M. Cackowska observes an important relation between achieving child’s matu-rity for learning how to write and read and the competence level of analysis and synthesis processes. Th ese processes are necessary during learning how to write and read by the analytical-synthetic method. Moreover, a child has to have a prop-er level of speaking competence since this prevails upon literacy. All the speaking, range of vocabulary, and using accurate syntactic structures, make a child able to

35 Ibidem, p. 99 and further.36 Ibidem, p. 236.37 A. Jakubowicz, K. Lenartowska, M. Plenkiewicz, Czytanie w początkowych latach edukacji,

Bydgoszcz 1999, p. 7.38 Ibidem, p. 8.

88 Jan Czechowski

code and decode information, generalize and pack in term categories39. Eff ective reading is based on collected range of words carrying some meanings, appropri-ately connected with a proper group of terms: each word is a label for a term, a term is a generalization of data mutually connected, these consist of observed subjects, images, and memories (understanding and interpretation, i.e. understand-ing of printed material, is possible when meanings of words are proper and the terms are clear and precise)40. According to Kien’s ideas, the process of reading comprises the range of vision of word letters, as a result of which a shape of a word is born, then, the word gets its meaning (sense) being the foreground of the words cluster (a sentence), fi nally, particular words and sentences connected together, as well as their layout, allow for grasping an idea having been previously put in the read text41.

B. Suchodolski42 sees the usability of reading matter in three aspects: he name-ly treats it as a factor of shaping thoughts and criticism, widening horizons of knowledge, gaining material for comparisons and conclusions; attributes it with superior function of arousing interests and hobbies – due to reading the world and life become more interesting, more things become appealing, it is easier to get disciplined and make some eff orts. Moreover, Suchodolski pays attention to the fact that reading has a great importance in shaping feelings and imagination, the areas of personality usually neglected in education process. Th erefore, the school’s tasks should include the earliest possible shaping of the habit of reading books and looking for satisfaction in a book.

Concluding the above refl ections, the authors would like to quote some thoughts from the work of A. Przecławska, which appear to be quite relevant, whereas refer-ring to a book as a means of social communication. According to the author, a book is a complete sign of human freedom, an opportunity for a human to defi ne them-selves since a reader may choose a reading matter, read wherever and whenever they want, and also has to (such is the core of the reading process) have an attitude towards the read content. Th erefore, the reading process used as a means of social communication is democratic in its very essence43. It is also an obvious fact that when it is desired to build up an attitude of intellectual activity in relation to all

39 M. Cackowska, Nauka czytania i pisania w klasach przedszkolnych, Warsaw 1984, p. 11.40 M.A. Tinker, Podstawy efektywnego czytania, Warsaw 1980, p. 16–17.41 H. Kien, Czytanie w klasach II–IV [in:] Nauczanie języka polskiego w klasach I–IV, T. Wróbel

(ed.), Warsaw 1959, p. 133.42 B. Suchodolski, Rola książki w kształceniu nowoczesnego człowieka, “Przegląd Kulturalny” 1958,

No. 2 [from:] K. Lenartowska, W. Świętek, Lektura w klasach I–III, Warsaw 1993, p. 7.43 A. Przecławska, Książka, młodzież i przeobrażenia kultury, Warsaw 1967, p. 16.


surrounding phenomena, the activity comprising both an evaluation and choice, then the standing of a book increases and its role becomes more socially useful; thus a book teaches how to think44.

In another of her works, the author writes: “[…] the function of a book is in-strumental, it facilitates learning, makes child’s leisure time fruitful, introduces a child into some elements of cultural tradition, emotionally joints with moral values being most valuable from the educational and social point of view. It can sometimes facilitate temporary solving of educational diffi culties or educational problems. However, this organized on everyday basis contact with the book satis-fi es not only a temporary purpose, but it has more long-term task, in some sense more important – it is to teach creative and personal participation in literary cul-ture, independent using of those values which a book, being an element of culture, possesses, interpreting of the read content in such a way as to build a justifi ed and consequent system of one’s own hierarchy of values out of them”45.

A. Przecławska, referring to other authors46, claims that a book (here under-stood as a literature socially approved in a given environment) has been treated for many years as a perceptible expression of those values which were of the highest level at a given time. A printed word, preserved by a stable shape of a book’s vol-ume, seems to be the most durable and eff ective form of conveying of the complete message from adult generation to their successors.


Bernardinis A. M., Pedagogika a literatura [in:] Nurty, konwencje, tematy, K. Kuliczkowska (ed.), Warsaw 1983.

Cackowska M., Nauka czytania i pisania w klasach przedszkolnych, Warsaw 1984.Cieślikowski J., Wielka zabawa, Warsaw 1967.Frycie S., Współczesna nauka o literaturze dla dzieci i młodzieży i jej przedstawiciele, Piotr-

ków Trybunalski 1996.Frycie S., Ziółkowska-Sobecka M., Kształcenie literackie w okresie wczesnoszkolnym, Warsaw

1951.

44 Ibidem, p. 204.45 Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży w procesie wychowania, op., p. 5–6.46 Cf K. Głombiowski, Problemy historii czytelnictwa, Wrocław 1966 [in:] A. Przecławska,

Książka, młodzież i…, p. 13.

90 Jan Czechowski

Frycie S., Ziółkowska-Sobecka M., Leksykon literatury dla dzieci i młodzieży, Piotrków Trybunalski 1999.

Głombiowski K., Problemy historii czytelnictwa, Wrocław 1966.Jakubowicz A., Lenartowska K., Plenkiewicz M., Czytanie w początkowych latach edukacji,

Bydgoszcz 1999.Kien H., Czytanie w klasach II–IV [in:] Nauczanie języka polskiego w klasach I–IV, T. Wróbel

(ed.), Warsaw 1959.Kuliczkowska K., Dawne i współczesne problemy prozy dla dzieci, Warsaw 1972.Lenartowska K., Świętek W., Lektura w klasach I–III, Warsaw 1993.Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży w procesie wychowania, A. Przecławska (ed.), Warsaw

1978.Nurty, konwencje, tematy, K. Kuliczkowska (ed.), Warsaw 1983.Papuzińska J., Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży – pojęcie i problemy klasyfi kacji [in:]Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży w procesie wychowania, A. Przecławska (ed.), Warszawa

1978.Papuzińska J., Literatura społeczno-obyczajowa [in:] Literatura dla dzieci i młodzieży

w procesie wychowania, A. Przecławska (ed.), Warsaw 1978.Przecławska A., Książka, młodzież i przeobrażenia kultury, Warsaw 1967.Starzec H., Kultura literacka – wychowanie literackie, Warsaw 1981.Suchodolski B., Rola książki w kształceniu nowoczesnego człowieka, “Przegląd Kulturalny”

1958, No. 2.Tinker M. A., Podstawy efektywnego czytania, Warsaw 1980.Waksmund R., Poezja dla dzieci, Wrocław 1999.Żurakowski B., Literatura dla młodego odbiorcy jako przekaz świata wartości wychowawc-

zych [in:] Pedagogika społeczna jako dyscyplina akademicka. Stan i perspektywy, E. Het-ka, J. Piekarski, E. Cyrańska (ed.), Łódź 1998.

Żurakowski B., W świecie poezji dla dzieci, Warsaw 1981.



S t a n i s ł a w B u r d z i e j

DISPUTE ON EVOLUTION IN THE AMERICAN SCHOOL : ON THE SOCIAL CAUSES OF ANTIEVOLUTIONISM IN THE USA

Th e turn of the twentieth and the twenty fi rst century still seems to be a period of intensive expansion of scientifi c knowledge1. Th e world leader of technical progress is the United States for several years leading in the rating of the most prestigious universities of the world or in the granted Noble prizes. At the same time when American scientists discover next mysteries of nature, nearly half of their compa-triots do not accept the fundamental theory of contemporary nature sciences – the theory of evolution. For decades in the USA there has been a dispute on its teach-ing at public schools. However, when in October 2006 Mirosław Orzechowski, the vice minister of education in the government of Jarosław Kaczyński, described the theory of evolution as “a lie” and a “loose concept of a disbelieving older man”2, the concept of teaching the evolution was introduced to Polish ground. In spite of the agitation which resulted from the speech of the vice minister, the temperature of of the dispute cannot be compared to the one in the USA, the temperature which is stimulated by the problem of teaching about the beginning of the Universe.

Th e aim of the article is not justifying one of the viewpoints in the dispute on the evolution, but, fi rstly, a short presentation of the concept on teaching the the-ory of evolution and creationism in American schools, and secondly, a trial to

1 Th e article was created owing to the support of the Foundation in favour of Polish Science, and also owing to the grant of John F. Kennedy Institute by Freie Universität Berlin. Th e author is deeply grateful to both of the institutions.

2 Th e quote for: M. Ryszkiewicz, Skandalista Darwin, “Newswek” 2006, No. 43, p. 74.

92 Stanisław Burdziej

explain the sources of the aversion towards the theory of evolution in wide circles of American society. As opposed to the majority of Polish researches” works on the given problems I have decided to accept a sociological perspective not a philo-sophical one. What is important to me is the social context of the dispute, espe-cially the complex relations of cultural domination in the USA, not the substance of the controversy.

1. The varieties of creationism

Substantial percentage of Americans consider the theory of evolution as highly controversial hypothesis, not as an objective scientifi c rule, one which is con-fi rmed in empirical facts. Th e opponents of the theory of evolution diff er among one another as for the acceptance of the achievements of contemporary science and the level of getting used to the literary interpretation of the creation descrip-tion3. Th e two main attitudes are the young and old earth creationism. According to the fi rst one, so-called creationism of the ”young earth”, our planet was created between 6 and 10 thousand years ago, whereas all the species were created during the fi rst six days of the world existence. Th e fossils found by palaeontologists are, in the opinion of the thesis supporters, thesis known also as “strict creationism”, the remains, aft er the described in the Bible the great Flood, and dinosaurs and people lived at the same time. Th e classical interpretation of this point of view is included in the book of Henry Morris and John Withcomb entitled Th e Genesis Flood dated 1961 which is the basis of the so-called creation science4 up till now.

Th e second attitude – the creationism of “the old earth” in several ways tries to reconcile the theory of evolutionism with the picture of God-Creator. According to the day-age theory a day in the Bible description of the creation does not cor-respond with the earth day and night, but it does with the whole epoch, one which lasted even hundred millions of years. Within the attitude there are numerous varieties. Th e gap theory, for example, starts with two separate creation descriptions as one can fi nd in the Book of Genus (Gen. 1,1 and 1,2): the fi rst creation that took place millions of years ago has been destructed, whereas God has rebuilt every-thing in six days. Th e fossils are the proofs of “the fi rst creation”. Th e most wide-

3 A detailed classifi cation of the whole spectrum of the varieties of creationism and evolution-ism is presented by K. Jodkowski in the work entitled Metodologiczne aspekty kontrowersji ewoluc-jonizmu-kreacjonizmu, Lublin 1988.

4 H. Morris, J.C. Whitcomb, Th e Genesis Flood, Philadelphia 1961.

93Dispute on Evolution in the American School

spread attitude is the progressive creationism, one according to which the creation process was stretched in time, and God was creating single plants and animals which subsequently were evaluating.

Th e majority of religions and churches believe, obviously, in some form of world creation. Th e offi cial attitude of the Catholic Church and main Protestant churches may be depicted as the theistic evolution. It is based on the fact that God created the rules of nature which without His direct infl uence directed the process of evolution. Because of the fact that the supporters of the given attitude accept the achievements of the contemporary theory of evolution, not noticing the opposition between science and beliefs in the God-Creator, they are not, however, thought to be creationists5.

Th e latest creational “theory” is “the intelligent design theory” called in short – ID, created at the end of the 80s of the XX century. Th e attitude depicts change of the creationists strategy being under the infl uence of the next failures in the court: they do not form their postulates in the religious language, they do talk only about “the scientifi c objection” as for the theory of evolution. Th ey tried to avoid the charge of violation of the non-establishment principle of the church from the country, a charge that was the basis of rejecting the demands of creationists by American courts. Th e strategy does not change the fact that the ID movement is a masked form of creationism in spite of the fact that the representatives con-centrate on gap-showing in the theory of evolution, for example the discontinuity of found in the mines remains or so-called “non-reduced complexity” of some organs. One of the key arguments of the supporters of the attitude is the fact of the great complexity of a human eye: they recall the observation of the XVIII-century British philosopher, William Paley, that, similarly, when we fi nd a complicated clock mechanism at the wilderness then we may deduct that there must have been some watchmaker, in the same way the complexity of an eye – and other “mechanisms” of the nature – make us think about the existence of some genius Universe De-signer6. In order to support its postulates the ID supporters create persons lists,

5 Th e detailed philosophical considerations concerning the notion of “creation” and its non-contradiction with the theory of evolution was depicted by the priest Kazimierz Kloskowski in the book under the title Between the evolution and creation. Warsaw 1994. Th e evolutionary model of creationism is being developed by Józef Marceli Dołęga in the work entitled Th e creationism and evolutionism. Evolutionary model of creationism and the problem of hominization, Warsaw 1988.

6 See E.C. Scott, Antievolution and Creationism In the United States, “Annual Review of Anthro-pology” 1997, vol. 26, p.280; J.A. Moore, From Genesis to Genetics: Th e Case of Evolutionism and Creationism, Berkley–Los Angeles–London 2003, pp. 176–180.


persons with the doctor’s title who reject the theory of evolution7. Th e Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis take care of the promotion of the attitude; they issue numerous publications, among others the materials for teachers and parents, DVD courses of self-education, and the Cali-fornian ICR provide the stationary and correspondence master’s studies in the scope of physical sciences, where one of the basic subjects is “the advanced creationism”8. Th e scale of the lobbyist eff orts of the ID movement representatives may be depicted by the fact that in May 2000 they managed to organize a briefi ng for the members of the US Congress under the title: “Scientifi c proofs of the intel-ligent design theory and their implications for politics and education”9. Th e speech of George W. Bush dated 2005 also resulted in an agitation, a speech where he expressed his support for parallel teaching of the theory of evolution in school and the intelligent design10.

2. The American public opinion on the evolution subject

Public opinion surveys for a few last decades have proved that a stable majority of Americans support some form of creationism. Nearly half of the respondents be-lieves in the strict creationism version, which means they choose the statement: “God created a man mostly in the contemporary shape, with one act in the last 10 thousand years”. Between 35 and 40% of American accepts the beliefs in God, and at the same time the theory of evolution, and only 9–13% claim that the process of evolution has nothing to do with God (the thinking is not, obviously, identifi ed with the declaration of disbelief in God; in the USA only about 1% of population consider themselves as atheists)11. Table 1 presents the results of the public opinion survey on the theory of evolution carried out by the Gallup”s Institute within the last twenty three years.

7 Th e example here can be the certifi cates anthology of 50 persons with doctoral thesis, who explain their creationism in the book published by J. Ashton, In Six Days: Why Fift y Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation (Green Forest, 2002).

8 E.C. Scott, G. Branch, Antievolutionism: Changes and Continuities, “Bioscience” 2003, v. 53, No. 3, pp. 282–285.

9 R.T. Pennock, Creationism and Intelligent Design, “Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics” 2003, v. 4, p. 150.

10 P. Baker, P. Slevin, Bush Remarks On “Intelligent Design” Th eory Fuel Debate, “Th e Washington Post”, 3rd August 2005, p. A01.

11 P. Edgell, J. Gerteis, D. Hartman, Atheists as “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Member-ship in American Society, “American Sociological Review” 2006/71, pp. 211–234.


Table 1. Americans’ opinions on the beginning and development of human life

Evolution without God taking part in

Evolution – God taking part in

Creation in the present shape I don”t know

2006 13 36 46 52004 13 38 45 42001 12 37 45 51999 9 40 47 41997 10 39 44 71993 11 35 47 71982 9 38 44 9

Th e source: Gallup Poll, a survey carried out 8–11 of May 2006, 7–10 of November 2004, 19–21 of February 2001, 24–26 of August 1999, 6–9 of November 1997, 18–2 of June 1993 and 23–26 of July 1982.

Among the supporters of the theory of evolution there are more people who are better educated: graduates of colleges two times more oft en believe in Darwin’s concept of evolution through natural selection than people who fi nished their education on a lower level. A factor which diff erentiates strongly is also religion: white evangelical Christians are far more prone to accept the creationism than white Catholics or the representatives of the main Protestant fi elds (so-called mainline Protestants). Th e line of division is presented also by the political sym-pathies: about 60% of conservative republicans believe that the world was created in the present form, an attitude that is supported by only 29% of liberal democrats. At last, women and older people more oft en accept creationism than men and younger people. What is interesting, however, about 46–51% of Americans accept, in some way, the theory of evolution (see, table1) but nearly two thirds of the re-spondents support parallel teaching of creationism and the theory of evolution in public schools (table 2), not being aware of the fundamental contradiction between the theory of evolution and strict creationism.

Table 2. Th e support for the theory of evolution and creationism teaching at schools (in %)

I support I reject I don”t knowTeaching creationism together with the theory of evolution 64 29 10

Teaching creationism instead of the theory of evolution 38 49 13

Th e source: Public divided on Origins of Life. Religion a Strength and Weakness for Both Parties, the report of Th e Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Washington, D.C. 2005, available on the page: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/religion-politics-05.pdf.


3. The history of legal controversy around teaching the theory of evolution

Th e history of legal controversies around the evolution derives from the famous trial of scopes dated 1925, called also “the monkey trial”12. In spite of the fact that the fundamentalists led by William Jennings Bryan won formally the process (the state regulations banning teaching the theory of evolution were kept in power, and the young biology teacher from Tennessee was punished with a fi ne), then the fundamentalism compromised itself in the eye of the public opinion. It was until 1968, in the case of Epperson v. Arkansas, the Highest Court in the US claimed banning teaching of the theory of evolution as opposing the constitutional regula-tion of the division of church from the nation, which was included in the First Amendment. Th e opponents of evolution changed their strategy concentrating on the introduction to schools of teaching the scientifi c proofs for the benefi t of the thesis on the world creation, and resigning from the creationism referring to, above all, the Biblical description of the creation. Th ey described their attitude as the creation science so as to avoid the claim of propagating religion at schools. As an answer for bringing back the theory of evolution to schools, there was created a movement for the benefi t of spending the same amount of time, so-called equal time, on teaching of the two attitudes, the evolutionism and creationism; the laws were introduced, among others in Louisiana and Arkansas. Th e law demanding teaching the creation science together with the theory of evolution was thought by the regional court as constitution infringement in the case of McClean v. Arkansas Board of Education in 1982, and the Highest Court maintained the verdict in the case Edwards v. Aguillard (1987). Th e supporters of creationism contributed to the fact that the biology textbooks in some states had a warning on the cover, one which said that the theory of evolution is controversial and has only hypothetical character13. In other cases biology teachers were obliged to read out such a caveat before the lesson on the theory of evolution started. It was thought to be disagree-able with the constitution in the cases of Freiler v. Trangipahoa Parish [La.] Board of Eductaion (1999) and Selman v. Cobb County School District (2005), in spite of the fact that the warnings did not include any religion references.

Th e latest proposition of the evolution opponents is a theory of an intelligent design. In 2004 owing to the suggestion of the School Board in Dover in the state

12 See D. Motak, Nowoczesność i fundamentalizm. Ruchy antymodernistyczne w chrześcijaństwie, Kraków 2001, pp. 79–80.

13 E.C. Scott, Antievolution and Creationism, p. 279.


of Pennsylvania the viewpoint was included in the Biology teaching program, obviously next to the theory of evolution. Th e District Court decided, in the case of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005) that the theory of the intelligent design is not of a scientifi c character, but in a camoufl aged way propagates the religious vision of the world creation by “an intelligent Designer” and is in itself a violation of the principle of church and nation division14.

4. The causes of antievolutionism

Where is the aversion towards the theory of evolutionism coming from? Th e priest Michał Heller explains this as a weak knowledge of the faith content and problem exaggeration by “not fully educated supporters of religion”15. At least in the Amer-ican context the case seems to be even more complicated. Th e question of evolution in public schools is associated not only with the religious beliefs (especially with the literal interpretation of the infallible Holy Bible) of parents and students, but also with the deeply rooted attachment to the autonomy of school boards in the teaching program description, with the problem of competence division between the federal government and single states, and fi nally – with the confl ict between parents’ rights to bring up children according to their beliefs and the children’ rights to have their own opinion. Th e protests against teaching the theory of evolu-tion in public school is not only a sign of the dramatic ignorance of Americans in the fi eld of science. Such a hypothesis of ignorance could explain the lack of knowl-edge of the theory of evolution, but it does not explain the active trials to replace the teaching of it with the version of creationism. Th e problem should be seen in a wider perspective – subjectively felt – cultural marginalization of the group of evangelic Christians.

In 1962 in the case of Engel v. Vitale Th e Highest Court decided that the rejec-tion of the over-beliefs prayer, created by the board of the public school, a prayer for the beginning of the day is disagreeable with the constitutional principle of the church-nation division. Th e decision was opposed by the public opinion: in the Gallup survey as of 1964, 77% of the asked people supported the proposition of the constitutional amendment, one which allowed to say the prayer16. In 1963 the

14 D. Masci, From Darwin do Dover: An Overview of Important Casus In the Evolution Debate, Th e Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Washington, D.C. 2005.

15 M. Heller, Element przypadku, an interview by G. Jasiński, “Newsweek” 2006, No. 43, p. 73.16 M. Servin-Gonzalez, O. Torres-Reyna, Trends: Religion and Politics, “Public Opinion Quar-

terly” 1999, Vol. 63, No. 4, p. 6000


practice of a morning Holly Bible reading in public school was thought to be in-fringement of the First Amendment (School District v. Schempp). Both of the deci-sions have been received by numerous Christians as a dramatic sign of the nation rejecting the fundamental principles, as were established by Fathers Establishers of the US in the Independence Declaration and Constitution. Several people thought that God was “expelled from school” which resulted in the increase of violence among young people and their demoralization. Th e thing that made it even worse was the decision of the Court in the case of Roe v. Wade as of 1973, one which allowed to perform abortion – millions of evangelicals felt like a minority discriminated in their own country.

Obviously in the case of the supporters of the creationism in the American society it is hard to talk about the minority in the static sense. However the re-searchers of the cultural domination relations point out that the minority status is of subjective character: such a group which dominates numerously, and also such a group which is thought by other groups, objectively, to be dominant may still feel dominated17. It is well but partly depicted by a humoristic note by Peter L. Berger on the topic of the status of religious people in the US. He pointed out that if we consider the Hindu nation as the one to be the most religious, and at the same time the Swedish nation to be the least, then we can say, metaphorically, that Americans are a society of Hindu people governed by the Swedish elite. Very similar point of view was expressed by Stephen L. Carter in the book Th e Culture of Disbelief, de-scribing the marginalization of viewpoints of people who are said to believe (who are a dominating percentage of the American society) from the side on national institutions – such as courts and public schools – and a part of the opinion-creat-ing environments. In his opinion, in the legal and political spheres there is a trend increasing concerning treating religion as an irrational, arbitral and totally private choice of a human being. It happens very oft en that the religious orders that regu-late the lives of believers lose when confronting legal regulations; it happens espe-cially in the case of the religion of minorities. As Carter says: “in contemporary America religions are treated as changing viewpoints (…). If you cannot get mar-ried once again because of your religion, then why not to believe in something else! If you cannot take an exam because it is on the day of a religious festival, then why not celebrate a religious festival of a diff erent religion! If the government decided

17 See J. Mucha, Dominacja kulturowa i reakcje na nią [in:] idem (red.), Kultura dominująca jako kultura obca. Mniejszości kulturowe a grupa dominujaca w Polsce, Warsaw 1999, pp. 26–53; idem, Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture: Dominant Groups In the Eyes of Cultural Minorities – Intro-duction [in:] idem (red.), Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture: Dominant Groups in the Eyes of Minorities, New York 1999, pp. 7–24.


to damage the holly ground for you, why not think about a diff erent ground as being holly! If you must work in Sabbath – do not worry about it! Th is is only a day free of work! Why not choose a diff erent day! If you cannot undergo blood transfusion because you think that your God does not allow it – it is not a problem! Choose another God! Th e whole trivializing rhetorics has the one message: pray if you want, worship God, if you have to, but whatever you do, do not take your religion too seriously”18. One does not have to add that Americans think that con-temporary science and intellectual elites treat tolerantly the faith in the dogma on the creation. In the given interpretations all the parents’ eff orts to make schools teach their children the description of creation parallel to the theory of evolution is not a sign of narrow mindedness or the lack of elementary knowledge, but the parents’ care so as not to let school weaken the religious outlook, an opinion that they try to root in their children.

Th e problem is that sometimes the outlook collides with the state of the con-temporary scientifi c knowledge. Th e main reason of the theory of evolution rejec-tion by a great number of Americans is the doctrine of the literal interpretation of the Bible content, and at the same time the literal interpretation of the Biblical description of the world creation within six days. Th e given doctrine is one of the vital points of the religious outlook of protestant fundamentalists, however, it is also supported in wider evangelical circles19. Th e opposition towards evolutionism is not exclusively the domain of the conservative Christians: it is rejected by both ultra orthodox Jews and Muslims. In the opinion of the creator of „the scientifi c” creationism, R. Morris, “the evolutionism is situated at the base of communism, Fascism, Freudism, social Darwinism, behaviourism, the Kinsey”s theory, material-ism, atheism, and in the world of religion also modernism and neoorthodoxy”20. If a man derives from an ape, and indirectly from a common for every species ancestor, then there appears a question of the traditionally thought direct and close relation with God. Moreover, it we were to agree that the Holy Bible in its fi rst verses is only an allegory, there is a threat that the whole Holly Bible is going to be thought as imperfect and of diff erent interpretations also in its ethical layer. Al-though the acceptance of the theory of evolution and even wider – the scientifi c

18 S.L. Carter, Th e Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devo-tion, New York 1993, pp. 14–15. See also the classic work on the subject of the American “cultures war”, of which the element is the disagreement of the creationists with evolutionists: J.D. Hunter, Culture Wars: Th e Struggle To Defi ne America (New York 1992) and the book J. Petra-Mroczkowska Amerykańska wojna kultur (Warsaw 1999).

19 See D. Motak, op.cit.; K. Armstrong, W imię Boga. Fundamentalizm w judaizmie, chrześcijaństwie i islamie, Warsaw 2005.

20 Quote for: E.C. Scott, Antievolution and Creationism, p. 264.


explanations – does not have to exclude all religious explanations, undoubtedly it does exclude some of them. Th is is why the opposition as for the theory of evolu-tion seems to be a rational trial of the protection of some religious outlook integ-rity against the chaos of a complete freedom and relativism.


Armstrong K., W imię Boga. Fundamentalizm w judaizmie, chrześcijaństwie i islamie, War-saw 2005.

Ashton J. (ed.), In Six Days: Why Fift y Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation, Green Forest 2001.

Baker P., Slevin P., Bush Remarks On „Intelligent Design” Th eory Fuel Debate, “Th e Washing-ton Post”, 3rd of August 2005.

Carter S.L., Th e Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, New York 1993.

Dołega J. M., Kreacjonizm i Ewolucjonizm. Ewolucyjny model kreacjonizmu a problem ho-minizacji, Warsaw 1988.

Edgell P., Gerteis J., Hartman D., Atheists As “Other”: Moral Boundaries and Cultural Mem-bership in American Society, “American Sociological Review” 2006, v. 71

Heller M., Element przypadku, an interview by G. Jasiński, “Newsweek” 2006, No. 43. Hunter J.D., Culture Wars: Th e Struggle To Defi ne America, New York 1992. Jodkowski K., Metodologiczne aspekty kontrowersji ewolucjonizmu-kreacjonizmu, Lublin

1988.Kloskowski K., Między ewolucją a kreacją, Warsaw 1994.Moore J. A., From Genesis to Genetics: Th e Case of Evolutionism and Creationism, Berkeley-

Los Angeles-London 2003.Motak D., Nowoczesność i fundamentalizm. Ruchy antymodernistyczne w chrześcijaństwie,

Kraków 2001.Mucha J., Dominacja kulturowa i reakcje na nią [in:] idem (ed.), Kultura dominująca jako

kultura obca. Mniejszości kulturowe a grupa dominująca w Polsce, Warsaw 1999.Mucha J., Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture: Dominant Groups in the Eyes of Cultural

Minorities – Introduction [in:] idem (ed.), Dominant Culture as a Foreign Culture: Dom-inant Groups in the Eyes of Minorities, New York 1999.

Pennock R.T., Creationism and Intelligent Design, “Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics” 2003, v. 4.

Petry-Mroczkowska J., Amerykańska wojna kultur, Warsaw 1999.


Public Divided on Origins of Life. Religion a Strength and Weakness for Both Parties, raport Th e Pew Forum on Religion&Public Life, Washington, D.C. 2005, available on the website: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/religion-politics-05.pdf.

Scott E.C., Branch G., Antievolutionism: Changes and Continuities, “Bioscience” 2003, v. 53, No. 3.

Servin-Gonzalez M., Torres-Reyna O., Trends: Religion and Politics, “Public Opinion Quar-terly” 1999, v. 63, No. 4.


A n n a B r o s c h

TEXT COMMUNICATION AND THE ALIENATION PHENOMENA AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE

Introduction

Th e technological development, as we have been able to notice in the last years, has generated, in great extent, some transformations in contacts between people. As a result of personal computers popularization, as well as the popularization of the Internet and mobile technologies, contemporary communication becomes more and more mobile. Th e electronic media change society, contributing to a specifi c form of speeding up1. On these grounds one can see the fading of relation of dis-tance and duration. Wireless communication has replaced the traditional letter correspondence or the stationary telephony, enabling immediate information re-ceiving in any place and time. At the same time one can notice change in relations between people. Th e number of contacts between people has increased, but they have become shorter and more surface-like2.

Communication between people in the electronic environment has totally new features, and causes new social phenomena. Th e main factor occurs to be com-munication mainly on the text surface with the use of new, in writing, symbol signs, so-called “emoticons” (emotion icon – image, emotion symbol), which describe feelings. Contemporary technologies allow to send multimedia messages, including

1 T.H. Eriksen, Tyrania chwili, Warsaw 2003, pp. 78–106.2 A. Toffl er, Szok przyszłości, Poznań 1998, p. 104.

103Text Communication and the Alienation Phenomena among Young People

sound, images (photos) or video fi lms. However, there are some consequences of communication only on the text and image level.

On the one hand, it enables the direct participants interaction, which in turn may cause danger associated with alienation in the social dimension, limiting the abilities to express feelings and emotions, as well as the reduction of the scope of verbal communication3. Media “fi lter” a greater part of information available in personal contact, such as non-verbal messages, the accent or speed of conversa-tion4. It makes our abilities of listening to the other person poorer. Th e text infor-mation is usually one – dimensional, emphatic, does not make us feel like analyz-ing and interpreting like a literary text. On the other hand, it opens the possibilities which seem to be unreachable in the traditional interactions. A spoken word, sim-ilarly to gesture and mimics, which it is associated with, belongs to the temporal means of communication – verba volant – words fl y away. Whereas the media communication does not have to take place in the real time, the message received by a text message or e-mail may be stored and read later – at any time.

1. The social dimension of text communication

Th e modern technologies are an essential social environment element, entering our homes and everyday lives of people, and infl uencing the change of social activ-ity forms and interactions between people. Th ere is a great possibility of using electronic media which makes everyday human activity more effi cient, comfort-able and funny.

Million of phones, billion of text messages, thousands of sent electronic letters – these are the signs of keeping contacts with people. It is refl ected in the under-standing of contemporary young people, for whom the virtual reality has become nearly an alternative world, which generates peculiar relations, quasi-groups and collective. In the Internet, newspapers and literature one can read about e-gener-ation, Y Generation, Millennium Kids, Video Kids5, the text messages generation6

3 B.M. Nowak, Nowy wymiar młodości. Th e virtual communication and education in the peda-gogical perspective [in:] Edukacja medialna, edited by M. Sokołowski, Olsztyn 2004, p. 306.

4 D. Goleman, Inteligencja emocjonalna, Poznań 1997, p. 160.5 W. Cwalina, Generacja Y – ponury mit czy obiecująca rzeczywistość [in:] T. Zasępa (Edit.), Th e

Internet. Th e phenomena of the informative society, Częstochowa 2001; C. Th urlow, S. McKay, Profi ling ‘new’ communication technologies in adolescence, “Journal of Language and Social Psychology” 2003, 22(1), 94–103.

6 T. Goban-Klas, Cywilizacja medialna, Warsaw 2005, p. 245.

104 Anna Brosch

or Txt-Generation7, which names the generation of children and young people born aft er 1980, brought up in front of the computer screen, for whom a virtual message is simpler and more attractive than a book message.

Th e electronic media expansion has a profound infl uence on the behaviour of young users, which initiates numerous and two-poles discussions which are to describe the power and the consequences of the interaction. Th e problem of social alienation takes a very important place, an alienation resulting from the permanent using of the modern communication technologies. Th e feeling of alienation is a result of the lack of the needed relations with other people, social norms, values and oneself8.

During the time when the personal computer, wireless connectivity, and a mo-bile phone belong to the technological news in our society, the debate concerning the electronic media interaction infl uence on the social relations is nothing new. Th e interest of the researches has been concentrated so far around the infl uence on the TV and computer games receivers (Gajda 1993; Kirwil 1995; Griffi ths 1995; Boroń, Zyss 1996; Braun-Gałkowska, Ulfik 2000; Wawrzak-Chodaczek 2000; Sokołowska 2000; Anderson, Wilkins 2000)9. In Poland one can notice the lack of long-term researches in the scope of communication with a use of electronic me-dia messaging, researches that would allow to describe the infl uence of this kind of communication on the participants’ behaviours. Attempts to make a social anal-ysis of the results of the modern technology communication, such as a mobile phone or the Internet, one can encounter in the foreign literature.

Th e invention of a telephone at the end of the XIX century, as C.S. Fischer10 noticed, infl uenced the reduction of social isolation among the agricultural fami-

7 C. Th urlow, Generation Txt? Th e sociolinguistics of young people’s text-messaging, http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/vl/nl/a3/thurlow2002003-paper.html as of 12.10.2005

8 K. Korzeniowski, Ku pojęciu poczucia alienacji, “Przegląd Psychologiczny” 1986, No. 29, pp. 345–369.

9 J. Gajda, Dziecko przed telewizorem. Warsaw 1993; L. Kirwil, Negatywne skutki oddziaływania telewizyjnych scen przemocy na dzieci, “Nowiny Psychologiczne” 1995, No. 4; M. Griffi ths, Czy gry komputerowe szkodzą dzieciom?, “Nowiny Psychologiczne” 1995, No. 4; J. Boroń, T. Zyss, Świat gier komputerowych II – badania ankietowe nad ich rozpowszechnianiem wśród młodzieży szkół średnich, “Psychiatria Polska” 1996, 2(30); M. Braun-Gałkowska, I. Ulik, Zabawa w zabijanie. Oddziaływanie przemocy prezentowanej w mediach na psychikę dzieci, Warsaw 2000; M. Wawrzak-Chodaczek, Kom-puter jako nowe medium kultury domowej [in:] Shaping the audio-visual culture of young people, Wrocław 2000; M. Sokołowski, Wpływ gier i programów komputerowych na dzieci. [in:] W. Strykowski (Edit.) Media a edukacja, Poznań 2000; J. Anderson, R. Wilkins, Żegnaj telewizorku. Jak nauczyć swoją rodzinę rozsądnie korzystać z telewizora, gier komputerowych i Internetu, Warsaw 2000; S. Juszczyk, Człowiek w świecie elektronicznych mediów – szanse i zagrożenia, Katowice 2001.

10 C.S. Fischer, America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940. Berkeley 1992, Uni-versity of California Press.


lies through enabling them to keep in contact with people living far away. Within the last few years the phone cable has been replaced by wireless connectivity and the function of the telephone has changed. A few years ago the mobile phone was perceived as a kind of a prestige and well-being because it was mainly used by businessmen in their aff airs. However, nowadays, the situation has changed radi-cally, and digital phones have become more popular, and on these grounds cheap-er and generally available. The miniaturization and increasing the technical possibilities of cameras has transformed the way they are used, and made a fash-ionable accessory out of a phone, which means, it is no longer only a communica-tion tool. Th is is why for the young generation the communication of dreams is “a mobile phone”, with the fi rst place, as for its functions, reserved for sending text messages (Short Messaging Service) which expresses and shapes perfectly the per-sonality of the contemporary young people.

Th e results of the research carried out by the Japanese11 say that the unusual popularity of SMSes results from the fact that the contemporary youth has not many places where they could meet or talk. Th is is why the mobile technologies enable them to create some alternative world that allows them to have an intimate contact without parents interference, and the time, and space limit.

Moreover, a text message is an ideal way of making contacts with the opposite sex because one can still be isolated, and at the same time keep distance. Th e one who writes text messages does not undergo a risk connected with the lack of sym-pathy repaying – as it may happen with the “face to face”12 contact. Th is is why the SMS was named “billet doux of the 21st century”13 – the love letter of the XXI cen-tury.

Th e next problem is the Internet infl uence on the social interactions. Initially one thought that the Internet would damage social relations, lead to alienation and society atomization. Robert Kraut and others14 came to the conclusion aft er carry-ing out the research in 1995–199615 on the users-beginners of the Internet. Th e issue of the social interaction fulfi lment with the use of the net was called “the

11 M. Ito, D. Okabe, M. Matsuda (Eds.), Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: MobilePhones In Japanese Life, MIT Press, Cambridge 2005.

12 T. Goban-Klas, Cywilizacja medialna…, pp. 248–249.13 For H. Geser, Are girls (even) more addicted? Zurich 2006, p. 5, http://socio.ch/mobile/t_ge-

ser3.pdf, as of the day 19.12.200614 R. Kraut, M. Patterson, V. Lundmark, S. Kiesler, T. Mukophadhyay, W. Scherlis, (1998). Internet

paradox: A social technology that reduces social environment and psychological well-being?, “American Psychologist” 1998, No. 53(9), pp. 1017–1031.

15 Th e research occurred to be a part of research project “HomeNet” carried out by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

106 Anna Brosch

paradox of the Internet”, because the participants in isolation took advantage out of the Internet in order to communicate, which in general seems to bring positive social eff ects. In the researchers opinion the surface social relations created in the net eliminated essential and strong bonds built in the real world. However, since the Internet makes communication between people easier, it should also contribute to making the contacts. Th e latest empiric researches confi rmed the thesis. Th e researches carried out by the team of R. Kraut three years later within the frame-work of the same project proved the weakening infl uence, the negative one, of the Internet on social relations16. Manuel Castell also proves in his book that using the Internet does not lead to the social interaction limit and to alienation17. It is caused by the Internet popularity, the Internet as a communication tool, which allows to continue the social interactions initiated in the real world.

M. Braun-Gałkowska highlights that the text communication causes diffi culties in expressing one’s thoughts and disturbances of languages abilities, ones which are very important in contacts between people18. Th e young generation, for which a conversation through the Internet or text messages have become the basic form of communication diff ers because of the poorer vocabulary and problems with the stress and pronunciation. It is connected with the rare conversation with parents and also results from using special slang during the electronic communication. It is a mixture of the traditional native speech with the students’ slang and the skilled computer terminology and vocabulary in English19.

2. Communication between young people and the social relations in the light of one’s own research

Th e given text concerns the issue of indirect interactions of youth, aft er concentrat-ing on the communication by means of the text messages.

In order to collect the empirical material at the turn of 2006 and 2007, there were carried out some researches among the students of the high school in Dąbrowa

16 R. Kraut, S. Kiesler, B. Boneva, J. Cummings, V. Helgeson, A. Crawford, Internet Paradox Re-visited, “Journal of Social Issues” 2002, No. 58 (1), pp. 49–74.

17 Compare M. Castells, Galaktyka Internetu. Refl eksje nad Internetem, biznesem i społeczeństwem, Poznań 2003.

18 M. Braun-Gałkowska, Dziecko w świecie mediów, “Edukacja i Dialog” 2003, No. 6.19 E. Miodek, Tworzenie się nowych kodów językowych w komunikacji społecznej na przykładzie

wypowiedzi internautów [in:] A Child in the Knowledge, Information and Communication Word, ed-ited by S. Juszczyk, J. Polewczyk, Toruń 2005, p. 242.


Górnicza, there were 153 students of the I and II year. It should be pointed out that Dąbrowa Górnicza belongs to the cities in Poland which are highly industrialized and of law level of unemployment. Th e economical status can be described as medium owing to the answers of responders - 23% of the tested described the family material situation as very good, and 55,7% as good.

Th e choice of the research sample was made owing to the lottery simple choice, which allows to create such conditions that each element has the same chance to be in the sample20. Owing to this one selected a representative sample, of which the participants attend to the same school but come to the school from diff erent places – 52,8% commute from the suburbs, and 47,2% come from huge city dis-tricts.

Th e empirical data collected with a use of a questionnaire of an interview of one’s own construction and the Scale of Alienation Experiencing elaborated by Krystyna Kmiecik-Baran21.

Th e author on the basis of the theory of H. Seeman numerated fi ve dimensions of experiencing the alienation:

1. the feeling of anomy – being convinced that the existing social norms (legal, moral, habitual) are not unique, clear, compulsory, and behaving according to them makes it impossible to achieve one’s aims.

2. the feeling of nonsense – being convinced that there is no sense in one’s life, losing the value of hierarchy, inability to predict the results of one’s behav-iour;

3. the feeling of hopelessness – being convinced that our faith depends on the outside and not on our activity, hopelessness, losing the psychological con-trol over the things that surround us, feeling the inability to meet one’s own needs;

4. the feeling of self-alienation – being convinced that we do harm if we listen to our ideas, opinions etc., and the diffi culties in describing one’s own iden-tity, diff erences from the others, authenticity.

5. the feeling of loneliness – being convinced that entering the accepted inter-personal and social relations is impossible owing to several facts, and is in-dependent on one’s behaviours, the feeling of lack of relations with other people that makes us satisfi ed.

20 S. Jusycyzk, Badania ilościowe w naukach społecznych. Szkice metodologiczne, Katowice. 2005, pp. 130+131.

21 K. Kmiecik-Baran, Poczucie alienacji – charakterystyka psychometryczna, “Przegląd Psycho-logiczny” 1993, No. 4, pp. 461–480

108 Anna Brosch

2.1. Young and free, but addicted to ‘a mobile phone’

A mobile phone has become standard tool of communication between young people. Nearly 92,8% of the tested teenagers have their own mobiles phones and can use them any time of day and night. It is made possible owing to the mobility of a phone and possibility of discrete communication by text messages, which eliminates the problem of the ringing phone and voice conversation. It seems to be refl ected in the answers of the respondents – each phone user uses this form of communication, but of diff erent intensity. Th e unusual popularity of communica-tion by text messages may be proved by the fact that nearly half of the tested peo-ple sends more than 200 text messages per month, that is nearly 7 SMSes daily. Th e activity in the scope of text communication can be diff erentiated by the sex of the tested – girls send more text messages than boys, that is why they treat the phone as a substitute of social meetings.

SMS communication is reserved, above all, for the same age group – with adults the youth try to communicate by phone conversation. Th e little size of the phone enables to communicate in a discrete way, even during a lesson or in the cinema. Th e only limit is the limit of the size of the text message (up to 160 signs) and the manual ability of the one who sends – one must be skilful to write with a use of the mini-keyboard.

Easy access to a mobile phone connected with quite a low cost of the service allow young people to exchange their opinions concerning their everyday lives, moment by moment. It may be proved by the answers of the respondents concern-ing the content of the sent messages. Nearly 60% of the tested young people treat SMSes as a way of chatting and talking on the current situation. Nearly half of the teenagers use text messages to exchange their thoughts, refl ections and opinions. Th e school subject seems to be a very popular topic (32,7%), and gossips as for one’s friends (27,5%).

Th e research has proved that a mobile phone, as a modern tool of wireless com-munication, is a symbol of the youth subculture, one which contributes to social integration. What is more, it makes it possible for people, who are not socially in-volved, to create the feeling of belonging to some group – it is enough to have a mobile phone hung on “a lease” around your neck and you become a member of some society.

Th e mobile phones producers promote some peculiar fashion in the scope of apparatuses, and do take care in order not to weaken “the bond” between the phone user and the mobile phone by enriching it with more technical possibilities and new accessories. Th e majority of them, like the exchangeable housing of the apparatus


– video cameras or mp3 players are mainly directed to young receivers, and allow to introduce to the process of communication some elements of entertainment – listening and sending favourite music, taking photos or recording fi lms.

2.2. Chatting on the Internet, that is loneliness in the net

In the ranking of popularity as for a mobile phone, even the Internet connection loses. It is not a doubt because the Internet mobility is limited by the size of the computer and the length of the phone cable. Whereas the wireless Internet off ered by some mobile phones operators is still too expensive.

Th e possession of a home Internet connection is declared by about 60% of the tested, and 15% say that they regularly use it at friends’ or the Internet café. Th e Internet is a favourable place of information exchange for 43% of girls and 44,7% of boys, who also spend more time on this kind of communication. Taking into account the budget of free time of higher school students aft er the school time, one fi nds that virtual communication is the basic form of social interactions and it takes place instead of a direct contact with teenagers. Moreover, the Internet com-munication usually takes place in loneliness as it is impossible to chat on the net when being in a company a situation which happens when using a mobile phone.

Students use the Internet to contact with friends (70,6%). An average user of the Internet communicator usually has got 88 persons on his/her contact list. Stu-dents make also new contact by the net (15%) which usually exist only in the virtual reality.

When thinking about the communication one should also get to know the content of the sent and received information. It is the most oft en chatting (30,7%), current aff airs (13,7%), or gossiping (11,8%). Moreover ¼ of the tested arranges dates or fl irts, and also exchanges information concerning school (14,4%). Th e Internet communication, in the opinion of the tested is easier than direct interac-tion because it allows to overcome one’s shyness, but at the same time giving emo-tional safety. However, on the other hand it may be a danger at the same time. Th e anonymity that we experience with this form of interaction allows to behave in a way which would be not accepted by the social norms. Some little percentage of the tested young people (11,8%) has encountered some aggression owing to the Internet communication. Th ese were very rare situations, and the content of the received information may be treated as unrefi ned jokes which result only from the hopelessness of the sender.

110 Anna Brosch

3.3. The media communication and the phenomena of alienation

Th e analysis of the subject proves that the media techniques infl uence directly the process of communication, and at the same time, the society. Th e matter of the empirical researches was to fi nd answer to the question: do the young people who communicate by text messages show a higher level of general alienation, taking into account its detailed dimensions, anomy, nonsense, hopelessness, self-aliena-tion and isolation? According to the above the raw research material received ow-ing to the Alienation Scale underwent the statistical analysis. Taking advantage of the X² test of the relevance of the statistical verifi cation diff erences there were formed two hypothesis:

H1: Th e frequency of communication through SMSes infl uences the level of feeling alienation in all its dimensions.

H2: Th e level of alienation in all its dimensions depends on the length of time spent on the Internet communication.

It has turned out that at the level of relevance α = 0,05 the H1 hypothesis oc-curred to be correct only as for one of the dimensions of alienation, that is, as for the anomy feeling: the greater frequency of text messages sending, the greater level of anomy feeling among young people. Th e dependence between the com-munication through SMSes and the feeling of anomy for the tested young group of people is statistically essential and the power of its dependence is average.

Th e verifi cation of the hypothesis H2: the level of relevance α = 0,05 allows us to say that it is correct for two dimensions of the alienation feeling, that is, for the feeling of anomy and the nonsense feeling: the more time young people spend on the Internet communication, the higher level of alienation and nonsense one can notice in them. Th e dependence between the time spent on the Internet commu-nication, and the anomy, and nonsense feeling is statistically essential, and the strength of its dependence is also average.

Th e positive verifi cation of the depicted hypothesis only in specifi ed dimen-sions of the alienation feeling means that the young people who prefer the text messages communication, which is equal to casual information exchange do not feel the need of behaving according to the social, moral and legal norms. Quite an important infl uence on such a picture of situation has the character of the contacts. Th e interaction with the use of text messages is send in a telegraphic shortage similar to communicative “fast food”, where there is no place for behaving accord-ing to the social norms and etiquette. In the opinion of the tested young people it


is also an easier way of communication because it allows to express the thoughts which are not always positive for the second party. Moreover, text communication breaks barriers such as parents’ control, place and time of information sending. It makes it more diffi cult to teach savoir-vivre in the process of communication.

Th e next problem is the higher level of nonsense feeling among the youth who spend on average 3 hours per day on the Internet communication. As for the feel-ing of nonsense, we talk about it when an individual does not know what to believe in, and it is expressed in the feeling of nonsense in life and a values crisis. Values have a vital role in the process of individual and social human development and describe, to a high extent, the style of their lives. For young people who are looking for their own identity the cyberspace became an everyday, enabling chatting, opin-ion exchange and even the creation of an imaginary character. It allows to create a virtual society, but on the other hand it disturbs in the sphere of values, ideas and notions.

Conclusions

Th e Gutenberg era belongs no longer to the present times, an era based on the printed information transfer. Presently, the generation of high school students have become the screen generation, for whom, earlier the image, and now more oft en the text have become the main information transfers. It can be expressed by the number of sent text messages and time spent on chatting. An interpersonal contact of a contemporary young person is enclosed in a few very laconic expres-sions, orders, casual requests and requirements. Young people oft en forget about true, deeper communication act dimension, treating it as a single word exchang-ing, words which do not form a unit. A young man creating a barrier in a form of the electronic means of transfer for personal contacts with another man, contrib-utes to the lack of possibilities of creating higher forms of social bonds, where the basis consists of respect, politeness and friendship. It may be refl ected by the re-sults of the researches – a higher level of anomy and nonsense has been proved among young people using text communication. Th e simulated social bond feel-ing which may be created by the contacts through the electronic media disables the creation of value hierarchy and allows to express feeling by means of sym-bols.

Th e quality of communication is conditioned by the kind of interpersonal rela-tion. Verbal imagination is based on fantasy and creativity of a man, on his abilities to make analysis and synthesis, on the abilities to elaborate an intellectual image

112 Anna Brosch

of reality. An image does not force us to create any imagination. As a consequence, the icon language creates people of similar imagination. Th is is why so many young people have the same opinions, fashion styles or outside behaviour.

In the very context the process of indirect interpersonal communication has a very essential meaning, enabling the dialog, discussion and diff erent point of view presenting. Th e interpersonal abilities should be shaped by a family during every-day conversations and discussions enabling them to get to know the others, and create stronger family and social bonds. Th e media reality becomes a challenge to school and education. Polish schools need a critical and reasonable knowledge of media and good preparation as for the social science in order to support a family in the operations which increase the value of the interpersonal communication.


Anderson J., Wilkins R., Żegnaj telewizorku. Jak nauczyć swoją rodzinę rozsądnie korzystać z telewizora, gier komputerowych i Internetu, Warsaw 2000.

Boroń J., Zyss T., Świat gier komputerowych II – badania ankietowe nad ich rozpowszechni-aniem wśród młodzieży szkół średnich, “Psychiatria Polska” 1996, No. 2(30).

Braun-Gałkowska M., I Ulfi k I., Zabawa w zabijanie. Oddziaływanie przemocy prezentow-anej w mediach na psychikę dzieci, Warsaw 2000.

Castells M., Galaktyka Internetu. Refl eksje nad Internetem, biznesem i społeczeństwem, Poznań 2003.

Cwalina W., Generacja Y – ponury mit czy obiecująca rzeczywistość [in:] T. Zasępa (edit.), Th e Internet. Th e phenomena of the informative society, Częstochowa 2001.

Eco U., Diminutive, but perfectly formed, Guardian Newspaper, 20 April 2002.Eriksen T.H., Tyrania chwili, Warsaw 2003.Fischer C.S., America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940, Berkeley 1992,

University of California Press.Gajda J., Dziecko przed telewizorem, Warsaw 1993.Geser H., Are girls (even) more addicted? Zürich 2006, http://socio.ch/mobile/t geser3.pdf,

as of the day 19.12.2006Goban-Klas T., Cywilizacja medialna, Warsaw 2005.Goleman D., Inteligencja emocjonalna, Poznań 1997.Griffi ths M., Czy gry komputerowe szkodzą dzieciom?, “Nowiny Psychologiczne” 1996, No. 4.Ito M., Okabe D., Matsuda M., (Eds.), Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: MobilePhones in Japa-

nese Life, Cambridge 2005.


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Kmiecik-Baran K., Poczucie alienacji – charakterystyka psychometryczna, “Przegląd Psy-chologiczny” 1993, No. 4.

Korzeniowski K., Ku pojęciu poczucia alienacji. “Przegląd Psychologiczny” 1986, No. 29.Kraut R., Kiesler S., Boneva B., Cummings J., Helgeson V., Crawford A., Internet Paradox

Revisited, “Journal of Social Issues” 2002, No. 58 (1).Kraut R., Patterson M., Lundmark V, Kiesler S., Mukophadhyay T., Scherlis W., Internet

paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-be-ing?, “American Psychologist” 1998, No. 53 (9).

Miodek E., Tworzenie się nowych kodów językowych w komunikacji społecznej na przykładzie wypowiedzi internautów [in:] A Child in a Worlkd of Knowledge, Information, and Com-munication, edited by S. Juszczyk, I. Polewczyk, Toruń 2005.

Nowak B.M., Nowy wymiar młodości. Th e Virtual Communication and Education in the Pedagogical Perspective [in:] Edukacja medialna, edited by M. Sokołowski, Olsztyn 2004.

Sokołowski M., Wpływ gier i programów komputerowych na dzieci [in:] Strykowski W., (edit.) Media and Education, Poznań 2000.

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Th urlow C., McKaz S., Profi ling ‘new’ communication technologies in adolescence, “Journal of Language and Social Psychology” 2003, (22)1.

Toffl er A., Szok przyszłości, Poznan 1998.Wawrzak-Chodaczek M., Komputer jako nowe medium kultury domowej [in:] Shaping the

Audio-visual Culture of Young People, Wrocław 2000.


J o a n n a G ł u s z e k

THE SOCIALIZING SPECIFICITY OF A WORKING-CLASS FAMILY IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF A QUESTION ON SOCIAL PROMOTION

Hannibal, William Wallach, Napoleon Bonaparte – the history knows several trag-ic heroes, who could try the so-called ‘sweet success’ and the “bitterness of failure”. When relating to the social history of Poland, people of working-class origin may be considered as tragic hero (in the situation the hero is a group).

Th e very special social group, starting with its birth in the XIX century, was gaining greater and greater social meaning – owing to the growing number, and also the political one – as a result of the social working-class movement, one ap-pearing in the political discourse (aft er 1905). At the same time a great number of its members was forced to cope with the very diffi cult economic situation, poor working conditions and unemployment (in the period between the two world wars). Th e bad luck of the social group was to terminate with the beginning of the new social regime which “promoted” it to the “leading class”, transforming it, at the same time into the central social category, and what is more, giving goods to them, ones they were seeking for – it guarantied job for them, taking part in ‘ruling’ and gave back the dignity to the working people1. So this is not a wonder that in the period of PRL workers became the most numerous social class. Up till the begin-ning of the 80s, when because of the economical crisis petrifi cation of the social

1 J. Tischner, Etyka solidarności oraz Homo Sovieticus, Warsaw 1992, pp. 125–129

115The Socializing Specificity of a Working-Class Family

structure took place, workers belonged to the half of the society (46.6%)2. What is worth mentioning is the fact of a continuous growth of working-class members from diff erent social classes, which resulted in an enormous diff erentiation in the group, which in the 80s contributed to the confl ict between the younger and older generation of workers. Having better qualifi cations the younger generation of workers had a little possibility of development, and experienced their economic and status deprivation. Th e promotion, they were seeking for by educating at high-er schools or the university, had no chances to be real. Th ere happened to be the clash of ideas passed in the process of school upbringing, and the indoctrination with reality, experienced in family and workplace3. Th e cognitive disharmony of better educated workers resulted not only from unfulfi lled aspirations, but also from the ability of making detailed analysis of the mechanisms of social reality, one which diff ered drastically from the assumptions of the socialistic nation mod-el. Th e reality seemed to be quite discomfortable even for those workers of whose authoritarian habits should enable the functioning in the frame of the authoritar-ian order. Th e authorities, rising the level of social authoritarianism, got involved in their own net.4 Th e social chaos contributed to the workers feeling unsatisfi ed, especially the workers who come from the environment of huge industrial facto-ries, which resulted in a radical social awareness of the group, as well as in rebel-lion5.

Diff erent attitude was characteristic for unskilled workers. Th e group was aim-ing only at its own economic matters, and did not show any interest in politics, the principles of system functioning, what is more, it even showed conformism as for the authorities6. Th eir mentality may be described as passive, and productive, and anti individual7. Th ey were a perfect system product: politically passive, obedient to the authorities, hard-working for their own and everybody’s well-being. In order

2 E. Jaźwińska-Motylska, Klasa robotnicza w strukturze społeczno-zawodowej, demografi cznej i przestrzennej kraju [in:] Wójcik Przemysław (ed.), Położenie klasy robotniczej, Warsaw 1984, v. 3, pp. 12,15.

3 W. Adamski, Dziedzictwo strukturalne socjalizmu [in:] the book (ed.), Polacy ’95. Aktorzy i klienci transformacji, Warsaw 998, pp. 27–35.

4 J. Koralewicz-Zębik, Autorytaryzm-lęk-konformizm, Warsaw 1987, pp. 82–83, 148–182.5 W. Zaborowski, Radykalna świadomość społeczna w przededniu kryzysu [in:] W. Adamski (ed.),

Interesy i konfl ikt. Studia nad dynamiką struktury społecznej w Polsce, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków 1990, pp. 105–125.

6 W. Adamski, Konfl ikt interesów a przemiany struktury społecznej [in:] the book (ed.), Interesy i konfl ikt. Studia nad dynamiką struktury społecznej w Polsce, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków 1990, p. 235.

7 M. Ziółkowski, J. Koralewicz, Mentalność Polaków, Poznań 1990, pp. 135–158.

116 Joanna Głuszek

to keep status quo they were willing to make outside factors responsible for the crisis.

Th e workers were the social group which lost the most as a result of social transformation. It had to face several events – privatisation, violent unemployment increase, the restriction of labour qualifi cations in all types of factories8. Subse-quently, it resulted in deprivation of the economic situation. Th e workers, both skilled and unskilled, are a group of poor and losing9. It did infl uence the psycho-social condition of the group. Its representatives belong to the category of disap-pointed (because they lost meaning and entitlements which they were off ered by the former system) or losing, and lost (because they can notice the deprivation of their situation, one which is under the infl uence of system transformations)10. It seems that everything tries to prove that the situation aft er ’89 became for the working class discomfortable. Th ey oft en feel hopeless, disoriented, and politically isolated. As much as in the period of PRL the country was more open to the issues and perspectives of the lower social groups, as much the system transformations gave privileges to the rich and intelligent social groups11. We should not be sur-prised that there appears a nostalgia for the past, specially among workers, the main actors of the transformations. It is a nostalgia Homo Sovieticus, a man who became imprisoned by the socialistic system, who cannot come to terms with, or it is very diffi cult for them to let the present direction of the system transforma-tions exist12, for whom there is no place (or it is diffi cult to fi nd) in the present system.

Th e diffi culties to suit to the market rules result, to a great extent, from their specifi c mentality, one which was shaped in the conditions of socialistic system. As I have already mentioned, the unskilled workers represent an attitude which is passive and productive and anti individual, an attitude of which implication is the conformism as for the authorities and system. Whereas in the skilled workers one encounters the type of mentality that is defensive, and preserving, and demanding, as well as industrial and objective13. One should notice the fact that these are the

8 L. Gilejko, Robotnicy i społeczeństwo. Szkoła Główna Handlowa, Warsaw 1995, pp. 5–17.9 L. Beskid, Wygrani/przegrani w procesie transformacji [in:] the book (ed.), Zmiany w życiu

Polaków w gospodarce rynkowej, Warsaw 1999, pp. 16–19.10 K. Milczarek, Przystosowani? O kondycji materialnej i psychospołecznej Polaków [in:] M. Fal-

kowska (ed.), O stylach życia Polaków, Warsaw 1997, pp. 124–131.11 J. Reykowski, System Transformations and the Mentality of Polish Society [in:] the book (ed.),

Values and Social Attitudes and System Transformations, Warsaw 1993, pp. 38–39.12 J. Tischner, Etyka solidarności…, pp. 125–129.13 M. Ziółkowski, J. Koralewicz, Mentalność Polaków…, pp. 135–158.


opposite mentalities: the fi rst one is a result of an adaptation to the defective work-ing socialistic system; the second one is like a model of an individual participating in the society of citizens. Th e fi rst type shows a strong demanding attitude, a ten-dency to avoid an eff ort, and risk, sticking to the checked ways of behaviour, then the second type may be characterised by people who are enterprising and active in the social, political and economic lives, people who seek for a complete subjec-tivity in all spheres of life. On these grounds one may deduct that nostalgia of Homo Sovieticus is going to accompany the unskilled workers and the part of the skilled workers who show the defensive and preserving, and demanding mentality type.

Th e social and political awareness and mentality of the social class does infl u-ence the socialization of the young generation. What type of awareness and attitude towards the present system is the young generation, brought up in the working-class families, going to take? Will the next generation, which derives from the most numerous, one day, social class, fi nd itself in the social reality successfully? Is the young generation going to belong to the category of people who are active, enter-prising, and resourceful, or maybe it is going to be the opposite, they will become demanding, and passive, and, what is more, will enter the group of unemployed and the benefi ciaries of the social aid? Th ese are the important questions because it depends on the young people what the social structure will look like.

What is obvious, only a small part of the teenagers coming from the working class will inherit an social status of their parents. Th e economic and social trans-formations result in the increase of the number of white collar workers at a de-crease of the number of blue collar workers. Th e majority of them will be forced to locate themselves on diff erent levels of the social ladder: higher or lower from the initial position.

In the context of consideration upon the future of the youth coming from the working class, it is worth pointing at the socializing specifi cs of a family, where the awareness of the young people is shaped. Looking closely at the factors, which infl uence the way of bringing up, will allow us to diff erentiate the features of the working-class family which may infl uence, in a stimulating way, the promotion of the unit, and the ones which will create a barrier in the matter.

Taking into account the fact that the introduction of the market economy re-sulted, among others, in transformations in the job market, where university edu-cation has become necessary factor, but not good enough to receive an attractive workplace, a typical reaction of adaptation, occurred to be acquiring university education. One should check whether such an attitude towards education among children in working-class families stands any chance to educate, whether the par-

118 Joanna Głuszek

ents – workers stimulate the process of children education, bearing in mind their own educational aspirations which were not met?

Th e aim of the article is, on the one hand to present the group of factors which are included in the specifi cs of the socializing space, where the youth coming from the working-class is brought up, on the other hand, it is to present the lives of the young people in the context of numerous, social, and economic transformations, which could infl uence, both positively and negatively, their situation and life chanc-es. Th e fi rst parts of the article concentrate on the socialization problems, as well as on the aspirations and attitudes of the young people from the working-class, the next ones present the functioning of the youth in the frame of the higher education system levels. Th is part becomes a reason for thinking over the functionality of the educational system as for the social and economic transformations which took place aft er ’89.

1. A socializing specificity of the working-class family

Family life, similarly to all the other aspects of social life, depends on strong inter-actions of the macro- and microstructure. Each family has its own place in the class structure of a society, is associated with some local society, with neighbours, and company circles. Its members belong to some specifi ed social organizations, and are employed in their workplace. Th ey are also under the infl uence of the mass media, and widely named culture. However, depending on the place in the social and professional structure, the family functioning in other conditions is going to have a diff erent character. In this way one creates, specifi c for other family type, social space, in which its members move. Belonging to some class seems to be a factor infl uencing signifi cantly the structure and family functioning, the material and cultural aspect of its situation, and what is more, the awareness of its members. It infl uences the personality shaping and specifi ed way of behaviours of those who live in the family, however one should notice their individual and autonomic fea-tures which are also very infl uential14.

Taking into account the socialization process in a working-class family in the context of the social promotion problems, one should highlight the features which may have an infl uence in a stimulating way on the unit promotion, and the ones which will be a barrier in the matter. Th e characteristics refer to the material and

14 Z. Tyszka, Społeczne uwarunkowania cech rodziny i procesów życia rodzinnego, [in:] the book (ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1984, pp. 18–19.


cultural factor, and the way of bringing up children, the kind of values and aspira-tion passing.

Th e economical dimension of a family life occurs to be essential because the whole family well-being and the height of the educational costs depend on it. In the PRL period the economical situation of working-class families started to im-prove. One could sometimes even notice the equality of the salary levels of white and blue collar workers. However, on the basis of the content of working-class diaries from that period15 one may deduct that in spite of the “advantage” of the workers in the scope of the salary height, the level of living of their families diff ered signifi cantly from the one of white collar workers. However, there was not such a situation that the children were forced to get a job in order to help the family budget. In this place one has to add that the number of working-class families, which also infl uences the family wealth, decreased even in the 70s., which could prove that workers leave the traditional family model (a family with a group of several children). However, one must notice that the number of children of these families is higher when comparing with families of diff erent social and profes-sional belongings16 .

Aft er the year ’89 the situation seemed to be quite diff erent, the workers became a social group in a material depression. Th e level of their lives they describe as modest or medium17. Obviously this kind of opinion of the tested group may only be a result of comparison of the present economic situation with the situation of the past, and also with the level of living of diff erent social classes. Th e research carried out in 2004 by CBOS prove that the level of life is higher, the higher is the education level of the respondent, which makes one think that the material situa-tion of working-class families is worse than of families with higher social status.

Th e economic factor of life determines also in some way its cultural sphere. Th e material situation of the working-class families in the PRL period enabled their participation in culture, but it occurred to be only a ‘home cultural consumption’18. Th is kind of culture participation was limited only to receiving some information

15 “Oblicza młodości (ed.) J. Bolek, I. Gajewski, B. Gołębiowski, F. Jakubczak. Warsaw 1974; Ro-botnicze pokolenia (ed.) J. Bolek, I. Gajewski, B. Gołębiowski, F. Jakubczak, Warsaw 1980 – both vol-umes include the diaries of the workers from the 70s.: Robotnicze losy (ed.) Szafran-Bartoszek, E. Kiełczeska, A. Kwilecki, J. Leoński, K. Wawrach, Poznań 1996 – the workers’ diaries as of the years 1981–1982.

16 W. Mrozek, Górnośląska rodzina górnicza a miejska zbiorowość lokalna [in:] Z. Tyszka (ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1984, p. 71.

17 K. Milczarek, Przystosowani? O kondycji materialnej… 18 Z. Tyszka, Społeczne uwarunkowania cech rodziny i procesów życia rodzinnego [in:] the book

(ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1977, p. 139.

120 Joanna Głuszek

popularized by the radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines. According to the results of the researches on the cultural life of working-class families, the tendency has not changed much19.

Th ere was also a dependency between a worker’s and his wife’s education and the cultural activity. A worker with secondary or higher education used to read the press more oft en, and at the same time, more oft en read a book. Contacts with cultural institutions were limited, in majority, to movies in the cinema, more sel-dom in a theatre20. Also the analysis of the autobiographic materials from the be-ginnings of the eighties seem to prove that the cultural life of working-class fami-lies was rather poor21. Th e content of the diaries22 seem to depict a picture of a worker who is aware of his imperfectness, as for the sphere of culture, but tries to come up with it by means of available to him means, that is: the mass media and a book. He also attempts to know the current political events and technological news. Special attention to cultural life was paid by those workers who were being edu-cated at some courses, studied extramural, or from the very childhood liked read-ing, but because of several reasons could not allow to educate longer. It was the group of workers who experienced in their lives a kind of promotion through increasing the level of education, or at least intended to do so.

Th e low level of the participation in high culture oft en resulted from the place of living, or the diff erence in perceiving the cultural needs between a wife and husband. At the same time one of them, who thought the cultural life to be vital, tried to pass the passion to the children23. What is more, also the place where one worked used to be the animator of cultural life, for example, they funded theatre tickets to their workers.

Owing to the researches on the cultural life of the working-class families one may deduct that it was a participation rather in the mass culture, one which also provides some models and stimulates the aspiration, equalizing the diff erences caused by a lack of the cultural habits and environmental isolation24. Owing to the relations of the workers one can see a picture of a diff erent image of their cultural

19 Th e results of the researches that Zbigniew Tyszka refers to (1977): J. Malanowski, Robotnicy Warszawskiej Fabryki Motocykli – the researches as of the 50s, F. Adamski, Hutnik i jego rodzina – the researches from the 60s,; W. Mrozek, Rodzina Górnicza – the researches as of the 60s.

20 Z. Tyszka, Społeczne uwarunkowania….21 A. Kwilecki, M. Łączkowska, Problemy rodziny robotniczej w świetle najnowszych materiałów

autobiografi cznych, “Studia Socjologiczne 1987, No. 1 (104), pp. 101–132.22 Oblicza młodości, Robotnicze pokolenia, Robotnicze losy.23 Robotnicze losy: Th e biography of Józef Chmieliński.24 M. Latoszek, Socjalizacja w rodzinie robotniczej, “Studia socjologiczne” 1978, No. 2 (69), pp.

217–239.


participation. Th e cultural life (also the participation in the higher culture) plays a vital role among “the ambitious workers”, that is, among those who aim at rising their social position by means of education or active participation in their cul-tural life. One may deduct that in the families of those workers the set cultural models are not going to be passed to children, but some aspirations towards the participation in the cultural life and the development of their interests and cul-tural habits.

At the same time one should notice that the willingness of participation in the high culture, either by getting to know it at school or by self-development of inter-ests and habits, occurs to be a failure – a failure in the sense that it can only be a kind of learnt activity, one that needs intellectual eff ort or even having the inside awareness of the necessary consumption of symbolic goods of the higher culture. It is in the cultural sphere overcoming the barriers that result from the received, in the process of socializing, initial habits25, which seems to be the essential challenge for the units coming form the working-class families (and other lower classes). “Archetypical attitude towards the symbolic goods”26 characteristic for the higher classes, ones which are dominating and imposing the higher culture on other social classes, guarantees to them the freedom as for the relations with culture products, which individuals of the lower classes shall never achieve. Th eir attitude towards the products of the higher culture will always be “the school attitude”27. What is more, they are forced to choose between “the pleasant culture” with the character-istic for their class “folk aesthetics, and “the legal culture” with the “clean” aesthetics, strange to the educated tastes, abstracting, not connected with life28. Th e diff erence created on these grounds may result in experiencing the feeling of “being up-rooted” and lack of belonging. By means of their aspirations and knowledge they will be higher than the class they come from, however, as for the manners with the dominating culture, they will not to be able to be equal with the class they are aim-ing at.

Th e level of education is associated with the culture participation. It makes an individual active in a cultural way, and also infl uences the values system, and the level of aspirations. It seems that it will depend on parents what kind of life aims, aspirations, and values will be passed on children. At the same time, the mother’s role, as for shaping the future of children, seems to be more vital than the father’s

25 P. Bourdieu, J.C. Passeron, Reprodukcja. Elementy teorii systemu nauczania, Warszawa 1990.26 M. Jacyno, Iluzje codzienności, Warsaw 1997, p. 117.27 P. Bourdieu, Distynkcja. Społeczna krytyka władzy sądzenia.28 Ibidem, pp. 40–58.

122 Joanna Głuszek

role. In the case when a wife is better educated, it is she who infl uences, decisively, the level of education of children29. It results mainly from the fact that it is mother who passes on a child a specifi c language code, and it is depended on the code whether the child will achieve any success as for education.30 Any school uses a developed code, characteristic for the middle class. Th e code of the working class is limited, which results in the fact that children from the working-class families encounter diffi culties at school because they are required to operate the higher form of language they have never met. Whereas children coming from the middle class use the limited kind of code without any problems, one which depends on the context of incidents, and is used in everyday conversations, and the informal one, which is developed (abstractive and universal), and characteristic for the of-fi cial language of literature, administration or education. A mother who uses both the limited and developed kind of code, characteristic for the offi cial language at school provides the child with instrumentarium in the process of socialization, one which is necessary for adequate functioning in the frame of education system.31 Th is is why the mother’s education is so essential in the context of social promo-tion.

Th e importance of the factor may be also proved by empirical data. Owing to research carried out by Maria Jarosz in 1980, the mother’s education does infl uence the continuity of child’s education aft er the primary school, and the direction of education. Some percentage of children who learn at secondary schools, of whose mothers graduated from the university is much higher educated than children of whose mothers possess only primary education. Th e low level of mother’s educa-tion has an infl uence also on the fact that their children, more oft en than children of mothers with higher education, continue their education in the professional schools or technical schools. As for the studies, there is a similar tendency, that is, the higher level of mother’s education, the more oft en children enter the higher studies; the lower level of mother’s education, the more likely it is that a child will take a job instead of continuing education32

According to the analysis of Maria Misztal the lower level of mother’s education co-exists with the higher salary and lower meaning of education in the values’ system of children. At the same time, people of whose mothers were of the profes-

29 M. Jarosz, Nierówności społeczne, Warsaw 1984, pp. 98–99.30 B. Bernstein, Odtwarzanie kultury, Warsaw 1990.31 B. Bernstein, Odtwarzanie…32 M. Jarosz, Nierówności społeczne…, pp. 100–105.


sional or basic education, estimated their chances of higher level education as minimal or none.33

Taking into account the above dependency one may deduct that the chances of the young people who come from the working-class families, as for education at the higher levels, seem to be fewer than those of young people of the higher social status. Th e education of parents, to some extent, decides also about the fact of how the value of education will be received by their children. However one should not ignore the importance of the infl uence of the whole complex of factors which are associated with the issue of education, that is the material situation of a family and parents aspirations towards their children. High parents aspirations and high in-come in the working-class family may compensate the negative infl uence of low parents education on the social promotion of children.

As for the content of the working-class diaries34, the issue of education seems to be presented in a diff erent way. Above all, one should highlight the fact that some part of workers oft en notice the gaps as for their education. In such a situation their own aspirations, which were not met, are passed on their children. Th e example is, the investment in their children’ education, concentration on their children’ progress when studying. At the same time, it is also symptomatic that in the case of these workers, who aimed at reaching their level of education, and as a result of it were promoted, the issue of their children education was highlighted more oft en in their autobiographies than in the work of the workers who did not feel like rising their qualifi cations. A special example may be the diary of Antoni Sikorski35 who as a father, on his own, brought up his daughter aiming at her high education. He learned and, knew, owing to his experience how important is hard-working with oneself, regularity, and patience. He attempted to teach his daughter the same values. He encouraged his daughter, as for education, in spite of the fact that she was not very skilled, to develop interests through conversations, watching fi lms together, and reading books. He took care also of her preparations for studies – she joined the preparation courses for higher studies. Owing to this, he achieved the aim.

However, the examples of the planned child’s education were quite rare. Passing the aspirations were not accompanied by activities that would enable its fulfi lment by a child. Although a child of a working-class family was exempt from some do-mestic responsibilities for the benefi t of school tasks, and was supposed to have

33 M. Misztal, Społeczeństwo-psychologiczne aspekty reprodukcji struktury edukacyjnej w Polsce, “Studia Socjologiczne” 1984, No. 2 (93), pp. 87–106.

34 Oblicza młodości, Robotnicze pokolenia, Robotnicze losy.35 Cf. “Robotnicze losy”.

124 Joanna Głuszek

good marks at school, it does not inspire the child to any additional activity, which would undoubtedly make it easier to overcome any barriers on the educational “rungs”. A child was given “the best” so that they could achieve more than their parents, and this “the best” could occur not to be enough instrumentarium in order to meet one’s aspirations which were internalized by children in the working-class families.

As for the level of parents’ aspirations in the working-class families, owing to the monographic research of “shipyard” families carried out by Marek Latoszek in 1978, 31% of parents of the tested families wanted their children to study, and only 3% preferred their children to fi nish their education aft er the primary school. Th e number of families who planned to make their children study was quite min-imal. Th e choice of the way they were to acquire education ( extramural one or in the evening) may prove that in a working-class family, at the end of the seventies, the education model of parents had a negative infl uence on their children’s educa-tion “path”36.

However, one should notice that the period of system transformations has changed several issues also the issue of educational aspirations of children. Th eir increase was proved in Polish society in the last few years37, owing to the research-es carried out in Poland. Th e wish that children graduated from the higher studies has grown especially among respondents with fundamental professional education (about 21 percentage points of increase for daughter and 26 percentage points for a son) and the basic one (respectively 15 and 14 percentage points). One should notice also that the highest level of aspirations38 as for one’s children is character-istic for the group of people who have higher education, and it does not change much.

One may ask whether the growth of aspirations among workers (in the above research, people of fundamental and professional education) will contribute to an increase in the number of students of the working-class origin? Taking into ac-count the fact that nearly all parents with higher education plan for their off spring the same, or even higher education, one may assume that the number of people who want to promote as for the social position will increase, and it may turn out that the high educational aspirations of workers as for their children will become a necessary condition, but not high enough to promote inter-generationally. Chil-

36 M. Latoszek, Socjalizacja w rodzinie robotniczej…, pp. 229–232.37 Th e report of CBOS: “Wzrost aspiracji edukacyjnych Polaków w latach 1993–2004”, 2004.38 In 2004 100% of parents with higher educations wanted their daughters to graduate from

studies; 99% had the same wish as for their sons.


dren from the families of higher social status inherit not only higher education aspirations, but also some economic, social, and cultural capital, one which makes it easier for them to meet their life aspirations.

As I have already mentioned, the social position may infl uence the way children are brought up. According to the theory of Kohn and Schooler the working situa-tion infl uences one’s life values, ones which are passed to children in the process of their bringing up with the conviction that they will bring a success to them. Th is is where the similarity of life values of specifi ed social classes is coming from, as they concentrate the individuals who work in a similar profession. Higher position in the class system is associated with the proff ered self-controllability because the performed work needs self-controllability and intellectual fl exibility. In the case of lower position the conformism is more respected because the situation at work does not allow for the self-controllability, and enforces the obedience, and does not demand the fl exibility in thinking (especially in a kind of a routine profession with products). Self-controllability is associated with the conviction on the reality of aim achieving chosen by the individual. Th e conformism is also associated with the perception of all deviations from the traditional course of events in the catego-ries of danger39.

Passing values to children, values which are associated with self-controllability will provide them with better educational achievements, and will be a stimulator on the way to higher social positions. Th e values connected with the category of conformism may block even the most skilled individual, because the innovative-ness and diff erent behaviour shall be perceived in a negative way.

Th e parents’ position in the stratifi cational system “determines the self-control-lability at work, the self-controllability at work determines the self-fulfi lled parents’ values”40 (Słomczyński and others, 1996:150). Th e working-class families where the parents’ professional promotion takes place, create more possibilities as for their children promotion. Th e change in the working position will result in a great-er approval for the innovative behaviours of a child, or even in the stimulation of such behaviours. Th ere is no doubt that the working-class family may be encour-aged to achieve higher social positions in the next generation. However one should pay attention to the fact that it will not be a typical working-class family. It will stand out in its environment where it functions. For sure, it will not be a family which experiences economic deprivation, and what is associated with it, can aff ord

39 M. Kohn, C. Schooler, Praca a osobowość, Warsaw 1983, pp. 29–78.40 K. Słomczyński, K. Janicka, B. Mach, W. Zaborowski. Struktura społeczna a osobowość, Warsaw

1996, p. 150.

126 Joanna Głuszek

paying for education. What is more, in the family parents pass to children high (maybe oft en non-fulfi lled in relation to their biography) educational aspirations, and shape personality, one which aims at self-activity and seeking for the aim. Moreover, one should notice the fact that being brought up in the same family does not always have the same eff ects41. Th is is where one more conclusion is coming from: the socialization in a family is only one of the factors which has an infl uence on shaping an individual’s awareness and his or her future. It is one of, as Bourdieu shows, but the most determining one.

2. The values and aspirations of young people with working-class origin

In the era of system transformations teenagers, similarly to parents, have changed their attitude towards numerous values, also towards education. Owing to several statistics, one can see the growth of educational aspirations. Education has become an instrumental value, it is becoming more and more benefi cial, and at the same time, the value of a higher studies diploma on the job market is falling (“the eff ect of a lift going down”42). Th e social drive towards the improvement of the material conditions by the rise of the educational level may lead to a paradoxical situation, however, it does not put out the aspirations of adults and young people.

Owing to the CBOS report “Plany, dążenia i aspiracje życiowe młodzieży” [“Life Plans, Wishes, Aspirations of Young People] as of 199843 more than 57% of teenag-ers want to acquire higher education. Among people of whose parents are of the basic, or fundamental and professional education more than 40% have the aspira-tions for higher education, whereas among those of whose parents graduated from university – two times more (above 80%). With the general growth of educational aspirations the percentage of young people with working-class origin who want to study is not so high.

A research44 carried out in 2003 in higher schools in the region of Toruń proves that there is a huge diff erence as for the level of aspirations of young people of diff erent status. Among people with lower class education origin 50% has the as-pirations for higher education, among people of whose parents are of fundamental

41 Cf. Oblicza młodości, pp.593–607.42 Cf. U. Beck, Społeczeństwo ryzyka. W drodze do nowoczesności, Warsaw 2002.43 Th e whole Poland sample of the young people of the last year of higher schools.44 J. Domaleski, P. Mikiewicz, Młodzież w zreformowanym systemie szkolnym, Warsaw 2004, pp.

89–94.


and professional education – about 60%, and those of whose parents graduated from the university – nearly 96%. Th ere is also a great advantage of the last group of young people as for the aspirations for the diploma studies (so-called master’s +). Even one third of them wants to be admitted to studies, whereas only 7% of children of whose parents are of basic education have got such aspirations. In spite of the profound interest of young people of lower status in education, and the wish to rise the formal level of education as for the family origin, the distance between single social groups is still enormous. Th e educational structure has moved up but has not created any possibilities to overcome the social barrier.

Th e full picture of aspirations of young people one receives when looking closely at the results of the researches on the planned social status, acquired in 200345. As it turns out, the higher educational aspirations are accompanied by high professional aspirations, and, what is associated with it, planning of rising the social status. Making real such ambitious aspirations would cause a complete change of the social structure shape. However, when analyzing the diff erentiation of aspirations as for the family status, it is proportional to the growth of the edu-cational level, of which the respondents’ parents legitimate. Young people of high family status in a great majority (95%) prefer to copy their parents’ status, and at the same time want to keep the advantage over the people of lower class origin, or even aim at better situation than their parents. Among people of lower social status there is a strong over-representation of people with low social and profes-sional ambitions. In the case when parents are of the professional education more than 30% of children have got the aspirations to the highest social positions, to the middle-high status – about one fourth (similarly to the middle status), and to middle-lower 15%. Only 1% of young people of such a class origin plan to have the low status.

Th e picture presented by the quantitative researches complete the topologic analysis of Barbara Fatyga46. In the typology of the urban youth created by Barbara Fatyga, the youth of working-class origin (and the youth of middle-technical and offi ce-intelligence origin) belongs to the category of “normal ones”. Th ey usually educate at secondary technical schools, choose such studies fi elds which result in acquiring a profession (economics, law, marketing). Th ey got used to the new social and economic conditions, and improve the market transformations. Th e aim of

45 Ibidem, pp. 103–110.46 B. Fatyga, Dzicy z naszej ulicy. Antropologia kultury młodzieżowej, Th e Young People Research

Centre – the Institute of the Applied Social Studies of the Warsaw University, Warsaw 1999, pp 50–75.

128 Joanna Głuszek

their life is to acquire competences of market value. Unfortunately they do not always have the chance to achieve it because of some economic conditions. A ma-jority of them do not possess high ambitions: they want to work in fi rms where they could get a high salary, but they do not aim at working at high positions, they do not want to achieve success at any costs. Th eir motto is: to cope with but do not cross the borders of “decency” and do not infringe the co-existence rules with other social groups.

Th e intelligence-class youth treat life in a diff erent way. In their case education also has an instrumental value, as it is necessary to achieve high social positions. Th e young people possess not only education but also the social capital, one that they inherited owing to their family home, which was multiplied by themselves. Th ey appreciate initiative and individual resourcefulness. Th ey want to preserve their social dominance on the way of economical domination, this is why the pro-fessional career is more important than the family life.

Also the material issues play a very vital role for children of entrepreneurs. Th e very group is convinced that everything is for sale and on these grounds think that education is of neither autotelic nor instrumental value. Th e hedonistic orientation seems to dominate, and the fact of being clever is the most valuable feature. Th is is why the youth do not show any aspirations for education. Th e majority of them become students of fundamental professional schools as well as the technical ones.

Th e last group is the group of “losers” that is the young people who do not have chances for education and, at the same time, for a job. Th ese are very oft en students of fundamental professional schools or the students of secondary schools who thought that they could more than in reality. Th ey oft en become very demanding. In fact having high education is much valued but perceived as “very rare”. Th e most needed value, in the case of the group, is working which allows them to make real the vision of safe family life. Th ese young people value peace and safety.

Th e youth typology by Barbara Fatyga presents to us the above mentioned picture of working-class young people, a picture which indicates its acceptance of the transformations in the system. However, the category of “losers” which the young people of working-class origin may belong to, presents the existence of the individuals who, in spite of their young age, inherit the passive and demanding attitude. Obviously, it will result, in future, in moving the young people to the mar-gin of social life.

At the same time it seems to be characteristic that the youth of working-class origin do not aim at achieving the highest social positions. Education is treated by them as a necessary condition for fi nding a well-paid job, a job which would pro-vide economical safety and would allow to create a family.


At that point one should notice that acquiring high education may not infl uence an individual’s position in the social structure. Undertaking high studies is usually associated with the hope for better existence. In the situation when the job market is not able to provide jobs for every graduate, and a part of them probably will share the same life as the rest of the social group, which have not even attempted to make any eff ort for the benefi t of rising its education level, than one may encounter some pressure. So far the young people with high education blamed themselves for the misshapenness in their lives. Th is is why there are so many ways of preventing the situation of unemployment in the process of studying. Th e existence of strong ten-dency for individualization of one’s own educational and life “paths” proves the acceptance of the “games rules” which are required in the system.

3. The youth of working-class origin and the educational system

High educational aspirations, even though very essential in the case of aiming at social promotion, are not decisive as for the achievement of an ambitious target, that is graduation from the university. Th e selection concerning higher studies, as well as the selection in the course of education verifi es eff ectively the ambitious plans of the youth. At the same time, the access to high education depends, in great extent, on the educational politics of Poland. Presently, the educational sphere is led by the free market principle of supply and demand – those “buy” the knowledge who need it, and have fi nances for it. In the PRL period the quantity of students at the university was regulated by the proper authority. However, the analysis of the statistics concerning the social composition of higher studies presents a picture to us of the behaviours’ dynamics, aiming at the improvement of life situation of young people with the working-class origin.

Th e beginning of the 50s was a period of an enormous demand for educated offi ce clerks, which gave better chances, for the youth with working-class and peas-ant origin, for education at higher levels. In the academic year 1952/53 there was admitted for the fi rst year of studies the same number of people with working-class origin (35.9%) as people with higher education (36.4%)47. However, the number of it fell down for the benefi t of “the youth – intellectuals”, and in the academic year 1959/60 there were only 26.2% of student of working-class origin who were admit-ted to the fi rst year of full-time studies. In spite of the decrease in the number of

47 Statystyka Polski, 1962 for: “Studenci Warszawy” (ed.) S. Nowak, Warsaw 1991.

130 Joanna Głuszek

students with working-class origin who were admitted to university, the group still outnumbered those of peasant origin. Th e group was losing the number of its representatives among students in the greatest extent.

Owing to the analysis of GUS as of 1960–1968 the youth of working-class ori-gin constitutes 25% of the whole students48, and was a more numerous group than the youth with peasant origin, of which number was still falling for the benefi t of the young people with the intellectuals-class origin49. Very characteristic seems to be the fact that when analyzing the statistics concerning the social “composition” of students at universities, one may notice an even greater number domination of the last group (more than 50% of students at universities). Th e second place is oc-cupied by working-class origin young people, the third place by the youth with peasant origin. Th e above fact may prove that the young people of working-class origin tend to choose technical studies, ones which provide some specifi ed job, rather than universities where one acquires general knowledge. On the other hand, one may interpret it as a greater selection of university in relation to the working-class youth – they lack of competence which is required in order to start high studies, it starts the mechanism of auto-selection.

Th e year 1968 should introduce essential changes as for the social ‘composition’ of students as in this year the so-called ‘points’ for working-class or peasant origin were introduced. Th e fi rst part of the 70s may be characterized by a growth of the number of students with working-class origin among students in general, although the group of students with peasant-class origin was still falling. However the number of the intellectuals-class origin students was, consequently rising.

Th e reason may be found in the fact that these are the data concerning students in general, not only those who were admitted to the fi rst year. In the course of studies one fi nds the selective mechanisms, which result in the selection of “weak-er” students. On these grounds the force of the youth infl ux in the category of working class will be weakened by the “migration” of the group of young people in the course of studies. Th e analysis of the social “composition” of students in the year 1978/79 owing to GUS may be complicated by the change of variable “social and professional; group” to the variable “social and professional category”, one which introduces division into the employed on the workers’ position, employed on the non-workers’ position, members of the agricultural production co-opera-tive, who work on their own (also in farming), and the others. In the situation the

48 Between the academic year 1960/61 and 1965/66 there was an increase as for the number of students with working-class origin from 24,6% to 27,2%, whereas in the academic year 1967/68 one could note 26,7% of students with working-class origin (Rocznik Statystyczny Szkolnictwa, GUS)

49 Rocznik Statystyczny Szkolnictwa, GUS


comparisons will be limited only to the youth with working-class origin, of whose parents probably belonged to the group of employers who were employed on the workers’ positions, and to the intellectuals-class origin youth, of whose parents were employed on the non-workers’ positions.

As for the young people of peasant origin, their family could be qualifi ed both to the category of members of agricultural production co-operative, as well as to the category of those who were employed on their own. Th e approximate evalua-tion based on the above ideas prove the systematic fall of the number of young people with the peasant origin at the university on the fi rst year in the years 1977––1985.

Th e number of students of the working-class origin also decreased in the pe-riod, however, it was not so dramatic as in the case of the group presented above. Still the working-class young people were placed on the second place (as for the number of students on the fi rst year of studies). Th e group of intellectuals was growing up to the beginning of the 80s., where one could notice “the phenomena of aspiration cooling” (the notion by Z. Kwieciński), which was characterised by the fall of interest in the higher studies and low value of higher education in the opinion of young people50. Th e chance to fi ll in the gaps in the place of intellectu-als was grasped, to the greatest extent, by the young people who worked on their own and by ‘the others’51 – the general category. One should also pay attention to the fact that in the eighties on the fi rst year of f u l l – t i m e studies, young peo-ple coming from the families of white-collar workers constituted about 50% of all students, whereas the working-class youth about 30%. On these grounds the diag-nosis mentioned above, concerning the researches on families with shipyard ori-gin52, that the fact of acquiring high education by children of workers does not usually take place at the full-time studies may be generalized to the whole working class.

Th e analysis of the data carried out by GUS concerning the seventies and the eighties is confi rmed in the research on students carried out by Mirosława Jastrząb-Mrozicka in 1977, and subsequently, ten years later in 198753. Th e ‘composition’ of students as for their parents education’ changed between the fi rst and second re-search. Th e number of students of whose parents had lower than secondary educa-

50 Look At Z. Kwieciński, Dynamika funkcjonowania szkoły, Toruń 1995, pp. 113–114.51 Th e Statistic Annual of Education. GUS.52 Look at M. Latoszek, Socjalizacja w rodzinie…53 M. Jastrząb-Mrozicka, Student 1987, Warsaw–Łódź 1990, pp. 4–28. Th e described research

carried out by the representative research sample, takes into consideration the diff erentiation between the high schools (universities, polytechnics, academies, high schools).

132 Joanna Głuszek

tion decreased, however the number of students of whose parents had high or secondary education increased. As for mothers the proportion of persons with high education, and those who passed the maturity exam increased, as for fathers the same happened with the number of those with high education .

Th e author has explained the research’s results in two ways. Firstly, it may result from the rise as for the young people’s parents’ education, especially in 1978, taking into account 10 years ago. Secondly, there is a chance that during the selection to higher schools the young people with higher education family origin have stood better chances. However the data gathered above proves that the most eff ective wishes to get higher education are cultivated in the families with high education origin. Diminishing the role of higher education as a tool to acquire better educa-tion in the eighties, and the decrease of people admitted for the I year of studies have resulted in a quick loss of high aspirations among the youth coming from the families of low level of education.

Th e growth and fall of young people’s interests should be found in the social and economical situation of Poland. Presently, when the value of education is ex-ceptionally high, the demand as for education on the higher level is considerable. However, there is no data concerning the social composition of students aft er 89’, but one may think that the popularity of secondary education will bring on the popularity of education on the level of master’s studies. And as it results from the studies carried out in Toruń in 2003, a signifi cant percent of secondary school students constitute children with the working-class origin54, then the number of them at the university is going to increase. However, there is a huge possibility that they will not be admitted to the studies that prepare to prestige positions. But tak-ing into consideration the above mentioned analysis one may conclude that reach-ing the social walk of life among young people with working-class origin has al-ways been noticeable, even at the times when the authority decided about admitting students to the university. Th e situation of regulation took place in order to control the social structure transformations, but, surely, did not prevent from the pressures in the structure. Th e drive to acquire knowledge by the youth with working-class origin, a very noticeable drive nowadays, is undoubtedly, a signal of signifi cant structural changes. Is the principle: supply and demand regulating the present educational market, one which is functional as for the economical and social trans-formations? Unfortunately, not. So far, the high studies have become a kind of a deposit for the unemployed, for whom the moment of formal unemployed status has moved temporarily in time. Th e common belief of high value of education as

54 J. Domalewski, P. Mikiewicz, Młodzież w zreformowanym systemie…


a catalyst of other valuable social values (income, prestige) is losing its charm when being in contact with the reality of the job market. As it turns out, besides the school knowledge there is a number of other factors which decide as for success in the professional life or the eff ectiveness of the eff orts in improving one’s social position. Th ese are so-called: ‘out-of-functional’ criteria, as for example “ the prop-er appearance55 and behaviour, relations, language abilities, loyalty” and all the other features, which may be shaped in the process of school education, but are a result of socialization in specifi ed social environment. Th e question is, whether the mass of young people with working-class origin is going to share the faith of the described, by Hoggart, grand holder, who got used to, in a perfect way, to the prin-ciples of the educational system (“a circus horse for scholarship winning”), but after finishing the education loses its power, “be scared of decision and involvement”56, because the world outside the school walls is strange to him, be-cause he feels inadequate, because there is no guide (teacher), who would lead him through his life, and through next social walks of life?

4. The conclusion

One of the features that diff erentiate the working-class people, as I have mentioned in the introduction, is their inner diff erentiation. In the question context, concern-ing the future of the young people with working-class origin, it seems to be es-sential. Th e variety of attitudes, diff erent mentality, social and political awareness, as well as the diff erentiation of the income, educational and cultural among work-ing-class families models must have resulted in the stratifi cation in the next gen-eration. Th e thing that will diff erentiate the working youth are probably three proc-esses of social movements, which will decide about their professional fate: promotion, reproduction and degradation.

Social promotion is going to become a part of those who can read out in the correct way the rules of free market, and decide to take part in the game concern-ing the higher social status. Th ese will be people who in the process of socialization acquire the ability of the self-creation of one’s own life path. We shall fi nd them among students who taking into account the requirements of the job market try to individualize their educational careers (additional courses, studies fi elds, work-ing at the same time as studying), and prepare for new adult life. In their cases one

55 U. Beck, Społeczeństwo ryzyka…, p. 132.56 R. Hoggart. Spojrzenie na kulturę robotniczą w Anglii, Warsaw 1976, pp. 367–383.

134 Joanna Głuszek

may formulate a thesis that the process of socialization in their homes was func-tional as for the system, owing to which they are able to cope with pressure at the macro-structural level, and be responsible for their fate.

Th e second group, undergoing the reproduction, may inherit the status of par-ents both because of the lack of abilities to educate at the high level, and because of acquiring in the process of socialization the improper (ones which do not en-able to achieve a success) life attitudes directed at keeping the present life level at the minimum eff ort. Students who do not have any idea as for their future lives may also belong to the category (like the grand holder of Hoggart), students who because of their life viewpoint which is not quite refl ective, will not be able to react in the proper way to the transformations on the job market.

Th e young people of working-class origin who are going to lose their low origin status will fi nd themselves in the disadvantageous life situation. It will result from the inheritance of the demanding attitudes, and the early exemption from the system of education. Th eir lives will be marked with long-lasting unemployment, which in turn will change them into the benefi ciaries of social aid. Both the lack of education and competence, as well the lack of willingness to change one’s life will lead them to torpor and poverty.


Adamski W., Konfl ikt interesów a przemiany struktury społecznej [in:] the book (ed.), Inter-esy i konfl ikt. Studia nad dynamiką struktury społecznej w Polsce, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków 1990.

Adamski W., Dziedzictwo strukturalne socjalizmu [in:] the book (ed.), Polacy ’95. Aktorzy i klienci transformacji, Warsaw 1998. Tischner J., Etyka solidarności oraz Homo Sovieti-cus, Warsaw 1992.

Beck U., Społeczeństwo ryzyka. W drodze do nowoczesności, Warsaw 2002.Bernstein B., Odtwarzanie kultury, Warsaw 1990.Beskid L., Wygrani/przegrani w procesie transformacji [in:] the book (ed.), Zmiany w życiu

Polaków w gospodarce rynkowej, Warsaw 1999.Bourdieu P., PasseronJ.C., Reprodukcja. Elementy teorii systemu nauczania, Warszawa 1990.Domalewski J., Mikiewicz P., Młodzież w zreformowanym systemie szkolnym, Warsaw 2004.Fatyga B., Dzicy z naszej ulicy. Antropologia kultury młodzieżowej, Warsaw 1999.Gilejko L., Robotnicy i społeczeństwo. Szkoła Główna Handlowa, Warsaw 1995.Hoggart R., Spojrzenie na kulturę robotniczą w Anglii, Warsaw 1976.Jacyno M., Iluzje codzienności, Warsaw 1997.


Jarosz M., Nierówności społeczne, Warsaw 1984.Jastrząb-Mrozicka M., Student 1987, Warsaw–Łódź 1990.Jaźwińska-Motylska E., Klasa robotnicza w strukturze społeczno-zawodowej, demografi cznej

i przestrzennej kraju [in:] P. Wójcik (ed.), Położenie klasy robotniczej, Warsaw 1984,.Kohn M., Schooler C., Praca a osobowość, Warsaw 1983.Koralewicz-Zębik J., Autorytaryzm-lęk-konformizm, Warsaw 1987.Kwieciński Z., Dynamika funkcjonowania szkoły, Toruń 1995.Kwilecki A., Łączkowska M., Problemy rodziny robotniczej w świetle najnowszych materiałów

autobiografi cznych, “Studia Socjologiczne” 1987, No. 1 (104).Latoszek M., Socjalizacja w rodzinie robotniczej, “Studia socjologiczne” 1978, No. 2 (69).Malanowski J. Robotnicy Warszawskiej Fabryki Motocykli – the researches as of the 50s,

F. Adamski, Hutnik i jego rodzina – the researches from the 60s; W. Mrozek, Rodzina Górnicza – the researches as of the 60s.

Milczarek K., Przystosowani? O kondycji materialnej i psychospołecznej Polaków [in:] M. Falkowska (ed.), O stylach życia Polaków, Warsaw 1997.

Misztal M., Społeczeństwo-psychologiczne aspekty reprodukcji struktury edukacyjnej w Pols-ce. “Studia Socjologiczne” 1984, No. 2 (93).

Mrozek W., Górnośląska rodzina górnicza a miejska zbiorowość lokalna [in:] Z. Tyszka (ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1984.

Oblicza młodości (ed.) J. Bolek, I. Gajewski, B. Gołębiowski, F. Jakubczak, Warsaw 1974.Reykowski J., System Transformations and the Mentality of Polish Society [in:] the book

(ed.), Values and Social Attitudes and System Transformations, Warsaw 1993.Robotnicze pokolenia (ed.) J. Bolek, I. Gajewski, B. Gołębiowski, F. Jakubczak, Warsaw 1980.Robotnicze losy (ed.) Szafran-Bartoszek, E. Kiełczeska, A. Kwilecki, J. Leoński, K. Wawrach.

Poznań 1996. Słomczyński K., Janicka K., Mach B., Zaborowski W., Struktura społeczna a osobowość,

Warsaw 1996.Statystyka Polski, 1962 for: “Studenci Warszawy” (ed.) S. Nowak, Warsaw 1991.Th e report of CBOS: “Wzrost aspiracji edukacyjnych Polaków w latach 1993–2004”, 2004.Tyszka Z., Społeczne uwarunkowania cech rodziny i procesów życia rodzinnego [in:] the book

(ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1977.Tyszka Z., Społeczne uwarunkowania cech rodziny i procesów życia rodzinnego [in:] the book

(ed.), Rodzina a struktura społeczna, Bydgoszcz 1984.aborowski W., Radykalna świadomość społeczna w przededniu kryzysu [in:] W. Adamski,

(ed.), Interesy i konfl ikt. Studia nad dynamiką struktury społecznej w Polsce, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków 1990.

Ziółkowski M., Koralewicz J., Mentalność Polaków, Poznań 1990.



M a g d a l e n a B e r g m a n n

CONFLICT AND CIVIL SOCIETY: 7th CONGRESS OF THE EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, 3–6 SEPTEMBER 2007, GLASGOW

Two years have passed since organising the 7th Congress of the European Socio-logical Association (ESA) in Toruń, the city Glasgow has become the host of the eight event edition – Glasgow, the greatest metropolis and the leading academic centre in Scotland. More than 1600 delegates gathered at the congress which was organised in the period 3–6 September 2007, delegates who came to the congress from 51 European and world countries. Th e members took part in a conference, one which lasted four days in extensive camps of two Glasgow’s universities – the Caledonian University and the University of Strathclyde – as well as in plenary sessions, half-plenary sessions and research network meetings. Th ey represented several sub-disciplines of the contemporary sociology, displaying its vast and var-ious spectrum of theoretical, methodological and empirical interests.

Th e ESA congresses, being the most momentous events in the European socio-logical environment life, have always distinguished themselves with titles that re-ferred to the key diffi culties they are dedicated to. Th e leading issues of the ESA Congress in Glasgow were associated with confl ict and civil society. As the present ESA chairwoman, Giovanna Procacci, a professor of the University in Milan, marked in her welcome letter to the congress members, the confl ict still remains one of the key issues organising the sociological refl ection on the society in Europe. Breaking the traditional socio-economical frames, where the confl ict was situated in by Karol Marks, the confl ict in today’s Europe and its societies started to focus on other factors, such as, age, sex, ethnics and religion, vocational status or even migrations. It infl uences, at the same time, the citizenship, one which is understood

137Conflict and Civil Society: 7th Congress of the European Sociological

not only as a kind of belonging to the country institution, but as a sense of feeling at home, integrating and being a member of a society. Similar issues were included by Donatella della Porta, the professor of the University in Florence, in the ple-nary lecture inaugurating congress. She highlighted also the fact of the changing character of the social confl icts’ actors (global social movement), and the battle language of civil rights (a language referring, to a greater extent, to ‘soft ly’ under-stood identity of units and groups, rather than ‘concrete’ rights in their formal meaning).

Th e questions of the confl ict and its connection with the civil society condition, though leading for the congress and including several topic sections, did not dom-inate the whole event. As it has already been mentioned, European sociology was present in various issues at the congress in Glasgow. Th e topic sessions of fi ft y re-search networks representing, so-called, detailed sociologies of: work, education, culture, health, youth, sport, and other spheres of social life, became the main arena of the congress. In each of the sessions, ones which were held simultane-ously in various congress premises, there were presented from 20 to 30 projects – which means that the great majority of more than 1600 congress participants were not only the spectators, but also the lecturers. Th e speeches were mainly of the report character, a report of their own research work or the existing analysis of the empirical material with its roots in, e.g., international comparative research work. One can fi nd several of this type of projects in the topic networks, ones dedicated to the family sociology, sex questions on the market, or even to the social politics, proving, in that very way, the existence and dynamic development of the European research space in the social sciences. Th e speeches concerning the analysis of var-ious social issues in Russia, Belarus, Turkey or Balkan countries – countries oft en situated on the margin of the European discussion, were of the greatest interest, or even they occurred to move the participants deeply.

Th e activity of the topic research network, one abound with more than thou-sand speeches, makes one think also in the critical way about some aspects of the congress. One could clearly notice, as for the presented speeches, the sometimes troublesome inter-disciplinary – both in the backstage, and during the debates of several lecturers, one could also fi nd problems with the choice of the topic group where one had to send the project summary because some of them could match at least a few areas. A few Scandinavian sociologists were accompanied by the mentioned dilemma; they dedicated their papers to searching the connections between some Christian fraction and the variety of social politics models in Eu-rope, which could be interesting for religion sociologists, as well as the social pol-iticians. Th e given fact proves that the sociology sub-disciplines are associated with

138 Magdalena Bergmann

one another as tightly as interesting for the sociologists social reality elements – however, on the other hand, it does seem to weaken the identity of the explored questions by the researches. Some of the speeches were dedicated to such detailed problems, formulated in an arbitrary way, being the reasons rather then the re-search issues, that the participating sociologists had doubts as for the legitimacy of their presentation at the general European forum. Th e congress participants could not stop asking aft er the common presentation of two researches of the mentioned countries: “Why the fashion designers, why their family lives, why the example of Germany and Portugal?”, the researches, who presented the results of their comparative research on the family life of fashion sector managers, could not explain why they were interested in the detailed problems. Certainly the positive signal associated with the topic research network functioning is the process of their development and active operation not only during congresses, but also in the two years long periods between them. Members of several networks keep research contacts with one another, organise common seminaries and conferences, make research project partnerships, which proves, without any doubt, integrating and network creating potential of European Sociological Association congresses.

Th e traditional scientifi c sessions, fi lled with lectures and projects were not the only aspects of the programme formula of the 7th ESA Congress. One could also attend meetings with the authors of the most interesting academic works within the sociology scope issued within the last years. Th e works were presented by Jef-frey C. Alexander, one who is thought to be a neo-functionalism classic, and Janusz Mucha, one associated for several years with sociology in Toruń, an appreciated specialist in the sociology and anthropology of ethnic relations on the interna-tional arena. It seems that the panel discussion entitled “What happens with soci-ology graduates in Europe?”, where the lecturers draw the picture of the encoun-tered opportunities and barriers of the young generation of sociologists on the work market and scientifi c career, became also an attractive initiative. Th e vital part of the 7th European Sociological Association Congress was the scientifi c training for postgraduates dedicated to the questions of the confl ict and civil society, a train-ing which started three days before the offi cial inauguration. During the training the young researchers participated in the classes of the leading representatives of the European sociology, presented and discussed the topic concepts of their doc-tor’s papers or some results of their research works. What should also be mentioned is the fact that the training is an initiative, one which was started in September 2005 in Toruń during 7th ESA Congress, which aims at encouraging the young research-ers’ generation to taking active part in the European sociological environment life.

139Conflict and Civil Society: 7th Congress of the European Sociological

Th e congress ended with a general meeting of ESA members, where the key issues concerning the organization function and development were discussed, and the leadership and the board for two years long cadence 2007–2009 were chosen. Giovanna Procacci, so far the present chairwoman of the European Sociological Association, was replaced with Claire Wallace, professor of the University in Ab-erdeen, who co-created the Middle-European University several years ago. One should not forget the success of the re-elected to the board Monika Kwiecińska-Zdrenka from the UMK Sociology Institute. During the general meeting one got to know – which seems to be a tradition of any congress – the place and hosts of the next event edition, that is, Lisbon and its university with the Science Institute of Work and Employment, which is going to be held in 2009. Th e leading idea of the ninth sociologists meeting, sociologists from the whole continent, seems to be the dispute on whether there is one society or several European societies. Observ-ing the controversy associated with the next formula of the European Union, dy-namics of such notions as employment migrations, social echo of the world eco-nomic crisis, globalization of culture patterns, but on the other hand, also, e.g. separatist and regional tendencies on the map of Europe, one may come to the conclusion that the questions of the next ESA congress are going to be very attrac-tive to the social researches of the Old Continent.


E w a N a r k i e w i c z - N i e d b a l e c

THE 13TH ALL-POLAND SOCIOLOGICAL CONGRESS OF POLISH SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 13–15 SEPTEMBER 2007, ZIELONA GÓRA

The leading idea and the Congress preparations

Sociological congresses are lately organised in Poland every three years. Th ey refer to the fi rst meeting, one in 1931 in Poznań where Florian Znaniecki invited 60 scholars associated with sociology. Th e second congress was held in Warsaw in 1935, and for the next one, one had to wait 40 years (Th e congresses history by Antoni Sułek on the website of the Zielona Góra congress – www.zjazd-pts.uz.zgora.pl). Th e next congresses started to be held more and more oft en, and the number of members during the last few ones oscillated around a thousand.

Th e last congress was held in 117 thousand population Zielona Góra, situated 70 km from the Polish and German border on the area of Zielona Góra Univer-sity. Th e Programme Committee was responsible for the Congress substantial preparations, a Committee which was established in May 2006 by ZG PTS. Profes-sor Janusz Mucha became the chairman, Janusz Mucha – PTS member for many years, editor-in-chief of Sociological Studies, Sociology Institute director of Mining and Metallurgical Academy (AGH). Firstly, the Committee pointed out the leading problems and the Congress’s title, that is: Something that connects us, something that divides us. Th e committee chose the subject matter of two plenary sessions, four symposiums, and announced the regulations of introducing the suggestion topics of thematic groups and special sessions. 80 similar suggestions were raised in the regulation fi xed time, suggestions of which 60 were qualifi ed by the Pro-gramme Committee for execution. Th e Organization Committee was responsible

141The 13th All-Poland Sociological Congress of Polish Sociological

for the organizational tasks, a Committee consisting mainly of Sociological Insti-tute of Zielona Góra University research workers. Th e University celebrated its 13th existence anniversary in the year of the 23th Congress. Professor Czesław Osękowski, the rector of UZ supported the Congress organization materially and fi nancially in the form of facilities for the conference and full equipment. Th e main fi nancial Congress source consisted of the fees contributed by the members (about 62%), fi nancial support acquired from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (about 16%). Th e last part of the fi nancial means was received from UZ (9%), the city of Zielona Góra (7%), and sponsors (6%).

Th e Congress website started from November 2006, a website where one could fi nd essential information for Congress members, abstracts of all planned speech-es, the Congress programme, Zielona Góra maps, the campus map with marked conference points and their photos. Th e website is still active, and is going to func-tion up to September 2008. Aft er the Congress one could see also the congress photos on it. One can fi nd also the archives – short elaborations of all previous congresses and the photo of Polish sociologists meeting of 1935. Th e Congress service was maintained by e-mail: from the application fi lling and automatic res-ervation in the Congress members base, through mailing and list making, one of members reserving single Congress options. Th e Organizational Committee was in constant electronic contact with the webmaster and the Programme Committee Chairman.

The Congress course

Th e president of RP Lech Kaczyński took part in the Congress opening, the presi-dent gave a speech where he referred to the wonderful cards of Polish sociology, to its achievements in the inter-war period of Florian Znaniecki and Bronisław Malinowski who were working abroad. He mentioned the deceased in July 2007 Maria Hirszowicz – his sociology lecturer. He also recalled the person of Stanisław Ossowski naming him an authority, one who went beyond the given knowledge discipline. He recognized the status of Polish sociology referring to Jan Szczepański who chaired ISA in the sixties and Piotr Sztompka in the period 2002 – 2006. Th e President talked about the absence of sociology at Polish universities and its com-ing back aft er 1956, about the critical relations of sociologists toward the surround-ing reality and the published elaborations in the sixties, ones which were read and criticised by the present authorities. Th e President continued his speech saying that the same situation took place in the eighties, and added that aft er the transforma-

142 Ewa Narkiewicz-Niedbalec

tion period sociologists had to face the reality, one which was unprecedented. Never in the world has one tried to establish the market system as a result of a political decision.

There were also vital, though in some cases controversial, theses in Piotr Gliński’s, the PTS chairman, speeches. He pointed out that in the past the discipline of sociology seemed to be an elite science fi eld, for young people with great intel-lectual expectations, and, what is more, one could study it only at a few universities. Today, one can study sociology at 80 higher schools, and as it oft en happens with mass events, it is accompanied by the decrease of its quality, in the very case, the quality of education level. Presently, universities are not very oft en able to carry out the accepted programme, and one can fi nd a graduate who hardly knows the names of Ossowski or Znaniecki, and for sure does not diff er between Dilthey and Durkheim. He did not state his opinion but asked whether the situation is simply negative. Additionally, he noticed the conditioning of the happening: democracy of higher education, the costs of extricating oneself out of the civilisation collapse, one which was the result of communism, but, at the same time, he also pointed out the cultural and social conditioning, processes like technicalization, materialism, commerce and consumerism. Th e listeners were moved to a high extent by the speech part concerning the fall of intelligence ethos of the sociologist profession. Piotr Gliński said: It seems not to be a tragedy in itself that we less and less name ourselves the intelligence elite, which once was the most essential for us because it diff ered us from the world of ‘dumps’ dictatorship’, but the thing that is even worse is that we lose more and more the contact with the intelligence ethos, and we be-came unable to introduce the truly intelligence values to the world of, forgive me to say that, ‘dumps’ democracy’, obviously, I do not want to give an off ence to any-one and I do not refer to social mass – as sociologists describe it, but to the very elite who tries to rule our democracy or even usurps the right to lead the mass.

Th e PTS talked about the change of the professions performed by sociologists, about their participation in the non-governmental organisation basis creation in the beginning of the nineties. He pointed out the dangerous matters of: ethics level decrease, about plagiarism and little interest in the problem matter of the environment. He considered lack of Poles in the international and European re-search grants and lack of substantial synthesis and works of younger generation to be a weakness of Polish contemporary sociology.

Th e defi nition: ‘dumps’ democracy’ resulted in some controversy among the participants, and the President of RP decided to give a speech at the end of the inaugural session, a speech referring to three mentioned issues mentioned by P. Gliński. Firstly, he said that never had he heard such a critical evaluation of one’s


own environment when taking part in congresses of various professions. Second-ly, he pointed out that the contemporary leading elites are of intelligence origin and disagreed with the fact of describing them as dumps’ government. Th irdly, he said that it seems to be a myth that Polish people do not take part in international scientifi c life.

Th e Rector of UZ, the President of Zielona Góra City Janusz Kubicki and Vice President of ISA Michael Buravoy also took part in the inaugural session. Th e last one mentioned his contacts with Polish sociology, sociology which fulfi lled its ideas through the works of William I. Th omas and Florian Znaniecki: “Polish Peas-ant in Europe and America”, as well as works of Włodzimierz Wesołowski on social classes. He talked about his interests in the transformations in the Middle Europe aft er 1989 and the participation of intellectuals in shaping the direction of the his-tory course. M. Buravoy noticed that the presence of the President of RP is a sign, contrary to what Piotr Gliński says, that sociologists in fact do have some infl uence on the authorities and that both: the authorities and sociologists take part in the political debate.

Th e main plenary session which was held directly aft er the inaugural session was entitled : ‘Th e Commonwealth and Political Culture’, and the participants such as Andrzej Waśkiewicz (UW), Marek Czyżewski (UŁ) and Rafał Drozdowski (UAM) mentioned, one by one, the category of commonwealth as a question of normative democracy theory, Polish democracy version, and spontaneous break-down of the commonwealth idea. Th e session was prepared and led by Mirosława Grabowska (UW) and Grażyna Woroniecka (UW, WSIiE TWP in Olsztyn).

Th e second plenary session was held in the aft ernoon and was entitled “Better Ones and Worse Ones’ in Polish contemporary society. Th e papers were prepared by Kazimierz M. Słomczyński and Krystyna Janicka (both IFiS PAN, UZ), Elżbieta Tarkowska (IFiS PAN) and Ewa Rokicka (UŁ). Th e fi rst paper concerned the di-chotomy in the social structure, and the diff erences deepening in Poland, the mot-to of it became the words of the Gospel of St. Mathew saying that the one who possesses shall receive more, and the one who possesses just a little shall lose it. Th e second paper concerned the description of Polish poverty. In the third one the author depicts the risk of social inequality heritage in Europe. Th e conference was prepared and chaired by Wielisława Warzywoda-Kruszyńska (UŁ) and Jarosław Górniak (UJ). In the evening of the same day, the conference, nine special sessions and three poster sessions started.

Th e second day of the conference started with four parallel symposiums. One of them concerned the borderlands and migrations in contemporary Europe. Th e sym-posium was prepared by Maria Zielińska (UZ) oraz Sławomir Łodziński (UW).


Th e next symposium was dedicated to surveys and comments. Th e social roles of sociologists, their infl uence on social self-awareness, and the shape of the cur-rent political debate were discussed during the symposium. Jan Poleszczuk (UW) made a speech on the commonwealth of knowledge and communication rituals. Michał Wenzel (CBOS) pointed out the cognitive role of the dynamic researches, whereas Stanisław Jedrzejewski (KUL) mentioned the research on media and con-sumer consumerism. Th e third symposium, one prepared by Kaja Gadowska (UJ) and Cezary Trutkowski (UW), concerned the relations: unit and community. Grażyna Skąpska (UJ) pointed out the question of constitutional community, Marek Ziółkowski (the professor of UAM, vice-speaker of IV term RP Senate). Th e fourth symposium, one organised by Barbara Fatyga (UW) and Tomasz Szlendaka (UMK) concentrated on the issues concerning consumerism and lifestyle. Barbara Łaciak (UW) elaborated on the presented and applied models in the period of transformation, Wojciech J. Burszta (SWPS) prepared a speech on ‘wasting’ the contra-culture of the 40 years ago period, whereas Arkadiusz Karwacki (UMK) underlined the questions of models and consumerism conditioning among people with limited capitals and possibilities.

Th e rest of the day consisted mainly of thematic groups conferences, and also special and poster sessions. In the frame of the accompanying events one could also take part in two meetings with the authors of works recently published. Th ere was a meeting with Piotr Sztompka dedicated to the novel Trust – the Social Basis, edited by the Publishing House “Znak”, the meeting was run by a journalist of a television station TVN Grzegorz Miecugow. Lech Szczegóła – a political science specialist of the UZ Sociology Institute – ran a meeting with David Ost, a meeting dedicated to his novel Th e Failure of “Solidarność”.

When analysing the questions discussed during the thematic groups confer-ences and special sessions, one can notice the fact that the discussed topic of fi ve of them concerned media – mainly the Internet and network pictures, four times one discussed the migrations issues, three times - the problems concerning the woman’s role in the contemporary society, the same number of times - problems on local Poland and city sociology, two times - the corporation functioning prob-lems. One could fi nd also a discussion on traditional sociological issues (social classes, norms and values problems, civil society, issues on social exclusion, social research methodology).

Th e greatest number of participants concentrated on the inaugural session and the Congress summarizing one. Th ere were about from several dozen to 100 par-ticipants of the symposiums. Th ere were also several up to several dozen partici-pants of the thematic groups and special sessions, however, there was one excep-


tion. Th e thematic group concerning the backstage sociology operations with the authority professor Andrzej Zybertowicz (UMK) gathered the most numerous number of participants; the spectators estimated that there were about 450 par-ticipants. Th e conference was held in the UZ assembly hall instead of the prepared smaller one on the grounds of the numerous questions of local and all-Poland media, as well as of Congress non-participants. One could notice a great interest in the speeches concerning business relations of one of the owners of a huge com-mercial television station with the secret service. As one could expect, it initiated a very lively and emotional discussion. Th e arguments ‘for and against’ were prized alternatively with applause. Th e support of the discussion was pole-like, from the ones who discredited the reader (lack of scientifi c speech character, satisfying the hidden political interests, infringement of methodological norms), to the ones who underlined the importance and legal force of the issue (disclosing the mechanism which may contribute to the understanding of Polish transformation). Th e confer-ence of the very group lasted longer than expected, and was very attractive for the participants – some preferred to be late at the planned banquet than resign from taking part in the discussion.

Th ere were about twenty six thematic groups and two special sessions on the third day of the Congress from the morning to the noon. In the aft ernoon, the conference of the last plenary session was held in the assembly hall full of partici-pants, the session so-called the Round Table was entitled In the Direction of Social Life Forms. Th e session organiser Włodzimierz Wesołowski (the PTS Chairman in the period 2001-2004) invited Barbara Fatyga, Andrzej Rychard, Paweł Śpiewak, Michel Wieviorka and Piotr Sztompka – in the role of readers.

Plenary sessions, four parallel symposiums and thematic groups conferences were, in the substantial sense, considered the main points of the Congress. Ad-ditional forms of Congress participation consisted of special events, such as PTS unit meetings, poster sessions, academic circles, meetings with the authors, fi lms on social issues presentations. European session of the sociological associations with participants from Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine and Hungary was held during the Congress for the fi rst time. Th e Congress guests consisted of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the International Sociological Associa-tion (ISA) – Professor Michel Wieviorka and Michael Buravoy. Th ere were also guests from Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Rossia, Slovenia, the USA and Great Britain. Th ey created mainly three English speaking groups, ones which were prepared by Jolanta Perek-Białas (UJ) with Andreas Hoff (University of Oxford), David Ost (Hobar and Williams Smith Colleges New York) and Juliusz Gardaw-ski (SGH).


What should be highlighted is the great participation in the Congress of stu-dents and sociology doctorate candidates, and, as well the fact that about 50 of them worked as volunteers. Th e youngest ones made ¼ of all participants. Th e students had their own thematic group dedicated to the city sociology and the presentation of fourteen scientifi c meetings from diff erent universities and cities.

One of the Congress’s attractions seemed to be the fact that it was held during the Zielona Góra Days, traditional Vintage, because during the WW2 there were vineyards around Zielona Góra where there was wine production. Today, the city and the Vineyard Owners Association have been trying to restore the wine tradi-tion in the city and the nearby area, as well as intending to establish the status to the produced wine as a local product. Th e ‘entertaining’ part of the Congress con-sisted of a banquet and the cabaret ‘Hrabi’ performance, of which programme was specially prepared for the Congress: something that connects and divides the world of women and men.

Th e PTS Chairman Piotr Gliński delivered summary and the closing formula. He said he was very grateful to the participants and organisers, and highlighted the wonderful atmosphere during the Congress. Several participants were pleased with the organisation and the great and kind atmosphere. Th e leaders of thematic groups, in their Congress reports, pointed out the very good substantial level of the speeches and discussions, and depicted the fact that the meeting participants talked about their inspirations for further scientifi c searching. Presently, one works on the preparation of the aft er-congress elaboration, of which subscription was paid by more than 500 Congress participants. Th e Congress publications of some thematic groups are also being prepared. Th ey seem to be a continuous form of the discussed issues record, and let’s hope, a form which will allow us a reference to the submitted questions, and will stand a chance for thorough considerations, and maybe will become an inspiration for some question solutions.


T e r e s a H e j n i c k a - B e z w i ń s k a

REPORT FROM THE 6TH ALL-POLAND PEDAGOGIC CONGRESS, 17–19 SEPTEMBER 2007, LUBLIN

Between 17 and 19 September 2007, in Lublin, the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Con-gress took place. It was organized by Polish Pedagogic Association and two uni-versities, namely MCSU in Lublin and Th e John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin. Th e Programme Committee was chaired by Prof. dr hab. Joanna Rutkowiak, dr hab. Dariusz Kubinowski, Professor at UMCS, and Rev. dr hab. Marian Nowak, Professor at KUL, were the Chairmen of the Organizational Committee.

Th e plenary addresses and comments of members of semi-plenary sessions were joined by one common subject Education – morality – public sphere. Long and thorough work of Organizers, proceeding the discussed event – resulted in a rich programme, original in terms of content and form, of three day meeting of 371 people (as that was the number of the enrolled to a list allowing for voting, mentioned in a separate part of the report). As usual, the Congress’ deliberations were inaugurated in a form of plenary deliberations.

Th e session of platform papers was opened by the addresses of the Chairman of Polish Pedagogic Association, Prof. dr hab. Zbigniew Kwieciński, on the need for critical literacy, and of the Chairman of the Pedagogic Sciences Committee of PAN, Prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Lewowicki, whose speech organized the subject called Pedagogy in the face of (im)morality of public sphere. Both Authors, in their ad-dresses referred to the most important discourses of the contemporary humanities of the turn of the centuries which appeared in the Euro-American civilization, and, in this context, tried describing Polish problems, which emerge within the space outlined with three title notion categories: education – morality – public sphere. As a receiver of those addresses (since it is diffi cult to resign from personal and

148 Teresa Hejnicka-Bezwińska

individual reception of texts), I paid special attention to the problems I could call as – paraphrasing the title of a work1- “hot” problems of the area outlined by the subject of the Congress.

Prof. dr hab. Zbigniew Kwieciński encouraged the members of the Congress to focus on – as announced by the address’ subject – such problems as:

– “backward” political and historical consciousness of the Poles,– shortages in traditional functions of the school (the reconstruction, adapta-

tion, and emancipation ones) in the world aft er the fall of big narratives,– tensions connected with religion education in Polish schools, and others.Th e mentioned problems may be regarded as indicators of a low level of critical

literacy of groups responsible for education, and also for the quality of functioning and eff ects achieved in education system institutions. It is a pity that it was not said clearly that educationalists and pedagogy cannot feel exempt from responsibility for such a state. An accurate diagnosis of the low level of critical literacy of educa-tion subjects and being convinced of the need for critical literacy may directly translate into evaluation of practice of education not only in the education system but fi rst of all into the evaluation of practice of academic education in the range of pedagogy of professionals of more than a hundred pedagogic specialities and specializations. Th e level of critical literacy achieved in educational institutions may be a good source of evaluation of the quality of their work in the world which is characterized by the increased level of risk – as Ulrich Beck convinces.

Prof. dr hab. Tadeusz Lewowicki applied a method of seeing the area outlined with three category notions (education – morality – public sphere) from the angle of “common good”. In his address, the following claims describing the reality have been cited:

– on alienation of power,– on emigration of people, the both external and internal ones,– on transferring from a society of goals to society focused on means,– on deepening the distance and discrepancies between ethics and morality, as

well as pedagogy and education, and others. Th ese claims constituted a context justifying the conclusion on good prepara-

tion of pedagogy for producing knowledge in the world aft er the fall of the big narratives. In this case, it is worth mentioning that this opinion was expressed by

1 It refers to a work of the expert nature, prepared by the members of KNP PAN, the publishing of which coincided with the date of the Congress: “Hot” problems of education in Poland. Expert evaluations and opinions (“Gorące” problemy edukacji w Polsce. Ekspertyzy i opinie), T. Lewowicki (ed.), Warszawa 2007, Committee of Pedagogical Sciences of PAN (Komitet Nauk Pedagogicznych PAN), University of Pedagogy of Polish Teachers’ Union (Wyższa Szkoła Pedagogiczna ZNP).

149Report from the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Congress

the Chairman of KNP PAN, who had this function in the years 1993–2007 and at that time he initiated many diagnoses of pedagogy state and evolution in the break-through process of political system transformation and radical culture change. Th us the meaning of these words seems to be diff erent than of those spoken by the ones observing the process of changes of social education practice and the process of paradigmatic change in producing scientifi c knowledge on education from nar-row and partially seen view of particular sub-disciplines and speciality knowledge areas arisen in the lively process of diff erentiation of scientifi c knowledge on edu-cation.

My attention was especially drawn to a thesis reminding pedagogic thinking of education of its “obligation” category. It seems, however, that referring to this cat-egory in a circle of which a number of educationalists positively become parts of so called “postmodern discourses”, related to the criticism of the modern world and pedagogy connected with this world, which off ered producing eff ective doc-trines of educating people (by target-oriented processes of upbringing and educa-tion) of defi nite quality, useful for realizing Enlightenment idea of “progress” is an act of courage.

A debate on the meaning and legitimization of normative sentences in peda-gogy and the status and role of pedagogy (mainly in a form of doctrines, ideologies, hidden programmes and methodologies) deeply divides the circle of contemporary Polish educationalists. However, I would like to draw one’s attention to the ambigu-ity of the categories of “obligation” and remind that talking about obligations is justifi ed not only in Polish pedagogic tradition2 regarded as the classic of peda-gogy but also in the works of great contemporary Western philosophers, e.g. in the works of Hannah Arendt3 and in the theory of communication of Jürgen Haber-mas, which is so oft en cited as a reference by the supporters of postmodernism discourses.

2 In Poland, the works on these issues, written by Kazimierz Sośnicki, Stefan Wołoszyn, and other specialists in the humanities especially constituting a part of the tradition of Kazimierz Twar-dowski Lvov-Warsaw school have not lost its meaning.

3 Th e quotation: “Th e qualifi cations of a teacher are based on the knowledge of the world and abilities to convey it to others, but their authority is based on taking responsibility for the world. For a child, a teacher is a kind of representative of all the adult inhabitants of the world, pointing at its various details and telling a child: “This is our world” (H. Arendt, Między czasem minionym a przyszłym. Osiem ćwiczeń z myśli politycznej, Translated by M. Godyń, W. Madej, Warszawa 1994, pp. 225–226). My attitude to this issue is proven by the fact that this quotation constitutes a motto for a general pedagogy course book I wrote. Maybe the relations between the following notion catego-ries need some rethinking: obligation – responsibility – involvement –participation, and a concept of a “decent man”, cited by the address’ Author.


I believe that these two platform opinions were rather corresponding instead of contrary ones – as it was understood by some participants of the described meeting.

Th e next three papers had been prepared by philosophers, which may be inter-preted as a sign of establishing of the return of pedagogy to philosophicality aft er excessively and unnecessarily prolonged period of instrumental usage of peda-gogy reduced to producing doctrines (a doctrine), becoming a part of the positiv-ist orientation (positivist paradigm). Th ese opinions were joined by the accepted ethical-moral view in regard to examining varied relations between education and the public sphere.

Prof. dr hab. Jan. P. Hudzik entitled his speech as Education: a thing on building bridges between experience and imagination, and a point of departure in his speech was a thesis on the tension which grows between “experience” and “imagination”. He also convinced that leading to “understanding” is the best strategy for overcom-ing this tension. In this context, the conclusion claiming that education in the conditions of democracy has to be favourable for creating competences useful for people so that they could understand themselves and the world, was totally justi-fi ed. Among many competences listed by the Author of the text there were the following ones: most generally speaking a manner characterized by involvement and activity, disposals of mind open to a dialog, feeling of responsibility, and read-iness for mediating between the public and personal.

Also, important and interesting were the Professor’s deliberations on the public sphere aft er 1989, which he described as an area of two rationalities and two types of language representation (ideals – postulates) meeting head-on, which in con-temporary pedagogy may become apparent as a dispute over the language of a dialogue on education. For me, the most valuable in this speech seems to be the showing of context of justifi cation for the postulate saying that searching for argu-ments is an important task of pedagogy, and the dialog on “pedagogic sense of education”4, as well as forming of two detailed postulates: 1) on unity of teaching and education, 2) accepting a criteria of “the quality of life” as a criterion for pur-pose values of educational processes, and not only a publicized instrumental cri-terion of knowledge and practical competences.

Dr hab. Leszek Koczanowicz, Prof. DSWE TWP discussed the problems relat-ing to the subject of Ethics of democracy. Th e text of this speech corresponded

4 Th e address’s Author did not defi ne this idiom, thus, it is possible that my understanding of “pedagogic sense of education” (these are the interpretations of “pedagogy” as a social educational practice, made in the context of scientifi c knowledge on education) distorts reading of intentions of Prof. Hudzik).


mainly with the idea of the 2nd All-Poland Pedagogic Congress, the participants of which met in 1995 in Toruń on the subject of Democracy vs. Education: Teaching and Education. It diff ered from that meeting in terms of shift ing the stress on the fi rst part of this title. Th e author of this speech assumed a long time view of expe-riences related to democracy (from the world of ancient Greek states-cities to contemporary times).

Th is multi-centuries experience of people, connected with practicing of democ-racy as executing power, creating social structure and building proper institutions for supporting the defi ned order was summed up by him in an amazingly true sentence, whose meaning may be expressed in the following words: people knew what democracy was although they could not live in it, but today, they live in de-mocracy without knowing what it is. I have understood it as a very clever and catchy defi nition of the state of crisis of contemporary democracy.

Such abbreviated identifi cation of the problem allowed the Author of the speech to focuse on comparison of the two types of organizing society (on the example of Athens and Sparta) so as to create a proper context for analysis of democracy in the cognitive, concerning political sciences and philosophical views. Th e former one allowed to identify endemic threats to democracy as a type of social order, and the two of them were regarded as the most important: 1) the anomy of legitimiza-tion, 2) totalitarianism. In a philosophical view, there was an incredibly important constative to say that democracy is a system organized in an “empty space”, where there is no centre of power, I would add in the light of my experiences – there is no centre which would appropriate a monopoly for “the truth”5 (or made a suc-cessful attempt at such an appropriation).

In this context, the thesis saying the following is justifi ed: democracy cannot be defended by institutions only, as it is a form of life of people of a particular place and historic time, the core of which is constituted by the fact that ethics combines (unites and gives common sense) actions of people with social prac-tices and functioning of institutions the existence of which is regarded as a condi-tion for democracy. Th us, the only bond combining these three spheres of social functioning may be an “ethical project”. Th e question of the required shape of education which is favourable for building, lasting, and defending democracy through involvement of people into building and realizing of a defi ned ethical project remained open.

5 I presented this problem in the work: T. Hejnicka-Bezwińska, Historia wychowania, cz. IV (Oświata i pedagogika pomiędzy dwoma kryzysami, Kielce 1996, p. 50.


Th e subject of deliberations of Rev. Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Szostek was the school, discussing the subject called Moral education at school: a key to a programme of upbringing of an adult citizen. In the fi rst part of the statement, those educational practice elements were identifi ed which are mostly connected with moral educa-tion and they were mentioned as such: form periods, religion/ethics, teaching sub-jects with a special emphasis put on the role of liberal arts subjects, and the exam-ple of a teacher. Th is fragment was completed with quoting of a constative being a part of a proverb saying that the words teach but the examples are appealing.

Th is maxim referred to contemporary educational reality where for tens of years we have been observing a phenomenon of a negative selection to the profes-sion of a teacher, as well as marginalization of teachers’ professional training in terms of realizing of upbringing programmes, including teaching within the scope defi ned by a plan and curriculum of school subjects. Th e Professor’s statement was completed with forming of a series of precise postulates, which could be regarded as a programme for school repair.

In my opinion, they could be only an introduction to a discussion, requiring, on the one hand, a deepened legitimization for forming them, and giving some thought to the situation in which, despite the obviousness and common consent as to some postulates, still, they are not realized.

Th e plenary deliberations were completed with a statement of a team of young researchers from the MCSU Special Social-Pedagogy Unit, which, directed by Prof. dr hab. Maria Chodakowska, carried out empirical researches and presented their results, fi lling by this the common subject of attitudes towards morality in the public sphere of future creators of their various areas. Th e researched object was constituted by opinions, beliefs, and values of students – as future creators of “mo-rality in a public sphere” of the following fi elds of studies: journalism, law, medi-cine, pedagogy, and areas concerning political sciences. It is diffi cult to cite the incredibly interesting results of the empirical research done in the short report from the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Congress.

Regarding them as highly general, it may be claimed that they manifest quite signifi cant changes in recognizing things moral/immoral by future creators of morality in a public sphere, in comparison with ethic values recognized and real-ized before, assuming the generation criterion or ethos criterion. Th ey also reveal a phenomenon called by the speakers as “empty pedestals” of patterns and models believed in the past. Th e author of the concept of those researches and their organ-izer announced continuing the researches on a representative sample so that she could verify these very interesting data and information achieved in the research which may be regarded as a pilot study.


Th e plenary deliberations were continued on 19th September, and a part de-voted to merely a few minutes report from deliberations in semi-plenary sessions, submitted by Chairmen of these deliberations or their deputies was a signifi cant part of the report written by me. Such reports were submitted by:

From the 1st session – What community? – Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Szahaj,From the 2nd session – What justice? – dr Maria Reut (instead of dr hab. And-

rea Folkierska),From the 3rd session – What culture? – Prof. dr hab. Lech Witkowski,From the 4th session – What relations? – dr hab. Astrid Męczkowska,From the 5th session – What paradigm? – Prof. dr hab. Bogusław Śliwerski,From the 6th session - What educational policy? – Prof. dr hab. Elżbieta Alina

Hałas (instead of Prof. dr hab. Stefan M. Kwiatkowski),From the 7th session – What future, What school? – Prof. dr hab. Zbyszko Mel-

osik.Th e reporters expressed their content referring to the course of discussions in

their sections, some of them decided to particularly highlight and emphasize the involvement of some persons in the deliberations. Th ey also shared the opinion that a debate in semi-plenary sessions should be rather treated as an attempt for opening for the great number of problems, aspects, and cognitive views, presented on the occasion of consideration of persons debating in particular sessions and searching for answers to questions asked by Organizers of the Congress.

Due to the fact that the semi-plenary sessions were held simultaneously, a sin-gle person cannot submit a report from that part of the deliberations. Th e editor-in-chief of the Culture & Education – Prof. dr hab. Ryszard Borowicz, had an idea of supplementing this report with the reports of the participants of the delibera-tions in some semi-plenary sessions. Th is remark also justifi es the succinctness of my information referring to the discussed sessions and allows me for moving to the last part of the report, including more general remarks, and, at the same time, more subjective, though also the choice of the discussed issues of particular au-thors’ speeches, as well as their interpretation were burdened with subjectivism.

However, every participant of this important event, namely the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Congress, looks at particular sequences of this meeting through some kind of a fi lter (glasses) of one’s own cognitive structure, yet possible to be discov-ered by a receiver as it can be reconstructed on the grounds of formerly written authors’ texts. Talking about my view, I could say that it is a cognitive view of gen-eral pedagogy.

To sum up, I believe that the 6th All-Poland Pedagogic Congress was – simi-larly to all previous Congresses – a signifi cant intellectual event and a great under-


taking and organizational test, for which the Organizers have deserved great rec-ognition.

Looking at the said event in the context of experiences from the previous con-gresses, joining the ethic aspect into the area of the debate on education and pub-lic sphere is a novelty. Th e frames of congress debate, outlined with the three key notion categories (education – morality – public sphere), in my opinion, strength-en the change of the research subject of contemporary Polish pedagogy (when compared to traditional pedagogy), already registered in contemporary lexical resources (encyclopaedias, dictionaries, lexicons, and course books).

Such a wide subject of the Congress was benefi cial also for integration of the academic group dealing with the issues of education in various cognitive views and within diff erent science disciplines, being benefi cial, at the same time, for overcom-ing, metaphorically speaking, the “walls” arisen in a dynamic process of diff eren-tiation of pedagogic knowledge. During the 6th Congress, the union between pedagogy and philosophy was particularly highlighted, which may be interpreted as an indicator of full consent to restoring to pedagogy one of the aspects of the traditional triad: philosophicality – abstractness – historicity of science knowledge on education. It would appear that the historic orientation was represented least in this Congress, which can be confi rmed by the missing upbringing historians’ circle in this meeting, while the circle dealing with the history of pedagogy did not mark their presence in this area at all.

Also, an awaited organizational form of signifi cant limitation of debate par-ticipants presenting their whole prepared speeches was successfully tried. Replac-ing papers with forming only the main thesis of the speech really allowed some time for discussing, though the time turned out to be too short for deepened dis-cussion respecting the principles of rational discussion. Also, there has been some unsatisfi ed feeling referring to the quality of communication and reaching the consensus of the debates participants in which I could take part.

Th e declaration of the Congress’ Organizers saying that in the current calendar year there will be an aft er-congress book published, including the texts of plenary deliberations, introductory texts into semi-plenary deliberations, as well as se-lected speeches from semi-plenary deliberations, was well acclaimed.

Similarly to previous congresses, there was a minor participation of subjects of education outside the circle professionally dealing with producing and publicizing of knowledge on education, thus possible receivers and most important verifying persons of such knowledge, such as: teachers and educationalist (graduates of dif-ferent specialities and specializations of academic education within pedagogy), local government members, politicians, representatives of educational administra-


tion of various levels, and representatives of various departments existing in the public sphere.

Th e permanence of this phenomenon encourages to refl ect that we deal with marginalization of educational issues in organization of social life at simultaneous declarations of many subjects that these are the most important issues for the present and future. Th is phenomenon may also be interpreted as deepening the distance and discrepancies between what is off ered by the ones producing knowl-edge on education and this is what is expected by other subjects of education.

Th e awareness of this weakness of meetings of the All-Poland Pedagogic Con-gresses nature was present in the speech of the Chairman of the PTP, whose opin-ion closed the deliberations, but it also included an announcement that the next Congress will be held in 2010 in Toruń by UMK, and personally by the Dean of new Pedagogic Department in this University – Prof. dr hab. Aleksander Nalaskowski. Th e message for its Organizers is to be constituted by the words of a poet, Adam Asnyk: To aspire for a new life.


REVIEWS–REPORTS

Aleksandra Zienko (rev.): Jadwiga Kró-likowska, Socjologia dobroczynności [Th e Sociology of Charity], “Żak”, Warszawa 2004, pp. 358.

The book of Jadwiga Królikowska may slightly scare off at fi rst glance – 350 pages, almost a fi ve page table of contents, the text font the smallest allowable to print. In addi-tion the subject, given in subtitle, restricts the title issues of poverty to English experi-ences which may raise the question whether such a precisely pinpointed problem re-quires such an extensive study. Th ese are the refl ections just before reading the book, hav-ing taken it to your hand for the fi rst time. The question though is: What reflections might arise having read the whole – will the initial purely “technical” doubts sink into oblivion, and will the book turn out to be a very interesting read? Or will they prove to be harbingers of subsequent more unsettling substantial errors? Within the confi nes of introduction I am only going to say that yes and no, and along with the review progres-sion I will try to develop and justify this off -hand opinion.

Th e subject of the book is the issue of charity. Charity is seen by the author as ‘the key to many important issues of modern

sociology’ (p. 17). As a phenomenon insepa-rably connected with social and historical context, charity refl ects the state of a par-ticular epoch. Th rough the forms it takes on in given times it shows the current social structure and dominant social and econom-ic tendencies and also religious and ideo-logical motifs of public activity. Its analysis constitutes basis for a broader refl ection on the state of contemporary culture of west-ern societies. For Królikowska charity is the fi gment of culture and results from the ex-istence of social bonds, hence “the study devoted to it in fact becomes the study of society’ (p.19). To perform this study the author resorts to both theoretical underpin-ning and to empirical research.

Th e book is divided into two main parts and an aft erword, which is summarizing the whole. Th e fi rst part “Social Charity Sources’ constitutes an introduction to the discussed issue. It presents defi nitions of charity, takes it as a social institution and introduces de-liberations on the subject of the future or vanishing character of this institution. Moreover it undertakes the issue of poor people as a social class and poverty as a con-temporary social problem. At the end of this part the author presents the stratifi cation of English society as well as the review of Brit-

157REVIEWS–REPORTS

ish researches on the subject of poverty and exclusion.

Th e second part entitled “Charity in Eng-lish Society” constitutes an empirical illustra-tion of the issues presented in the fi rst part of the text. Th ere are sociographies quoted here of a dozen or so charity institutions bringing help to the poor and in need – in the fi rst chapter in Oxford and in the second in Exe-ter. Th e part concerning Oxford though is much more complex as it presents nine cen-tres, whereas in the part devoted to Exeter we deal with merely three. Both chapters com-mence with a brief description of a given town and its urban and social landscape. Th en individual institutions are being dis-cussed through the prism of their targets and tasks, the description of the people benefi ting from their help as well as the description of the personnel, ways of fi nancing them, the circumstances of their creation, manners of their daily operation etc. Achieving such “an overall photo” of various centers was possible thanks to the application of many methods by the researcher – apart from the socio-graphic method, the analysis of the subject literature has been also applied, the analysis of available statistical data, offi cial and train-ing documents, and particularly essential, stressed by Królikowska (p. 22) – an overt observation. Furthermore the authors draws from various spheres – from sociological, economic, ethnographic, philosophical works as well as from personal memoirs and the press.

Th e aft erword contains a recapitulation of the analyses and empirical research on English charity. Having relied on the ideo-

logical tendencies prevailing in British soci-ety, the sociologist points out the factors which played a key role in the shaping of axionormative bases for modern charity and practical forms of realizing it.

As soon as the “dry” description of the book been presented, it becomes apparent that Królikowska has set herself an ambi-tious task. By scrutinizing one aspect of so-cial life, as charity is, she wanted to take the opportunity to express the essence of prob-lems of the whole society and the culture ruling it. Th e research designed by her was quite a big project requiring a lot of time and eff ort, and the material gathered over its realization, was apparently uneasy to proc-ess and to draw conclusions from. Similarly the adoption of poor and dependant people viewpoint as a research assumption compli-cated the goals set by the researcher even further since the subjectivity of such a per-spective could have aff ected scientifi cally assumed objectivity. At the same time the highly raised standards also boost our ex-pectations, because if the assumptions were met, we would deal with a signifi cant work saying plenty about current problems and based on a reliable research material. Unfor-tunately “Th e Sociology of Charity” does not come up to expectations and is only partially redeemed.

Firstly the book is non-objective on quite a few occasions, what is unacceptable for scientifi c works which this text is sup-posed to be. Obviously a complete inde-pendence from one’s beliefs and author’s ultimate impartiality are hardly achievable, but in the world of science it has become

158 REVIEWS–REPORTS

customary to strive aft er objectivity. I do not see this striving in Królikowska’s work. She clearly becomes part of the critique of lib-eral and capitalist system where individuals are reduced to the role of a consumer or at most of a producer, failing to explain thor-oughly how exactly it translates into the situation of the poor, actually contenting with a statement that bad capitalism is the major source of social problems of all kinds. Th e longing for a virtually perfect state of prosperity becomes the main thesis. Unfor-tunately this prosperous country was de-stroyed by liberal ideology. Th e economic crisis which took place in England in the 80’s is mentioned only in the context of the slash of benefi ts for the poor. However the fact that the crisis was partly due to the cri-sis of a prosperous state overloaded with social expenditure seems unworthy of being mentioned. Th e criticism of the way today’s country operates, and the criticism of social aff airs, are based on contrasting the mythi-cal “once”, when egalitarian society was comprised of good and comforting people, with today’s global economy which does not care about the interests of its citizens de-spite the good intentions of past political agendas (p. 68). Th us the hypocrisy of the deadlocked UN, the communist propagan-da or fi nally unfulfi lled social promises, all the aforesaid, seem better than viable eco-nomic targets. Th e author too frequently tends to use a moralizing approach. She presents economic liberalism and the coun-try founded upon it as an egotistic system where “one can only count on reproachfully granted basic help at the most” (p. 43), and

a welfare state as the one which “carries on dialogue with the most lasting values of hu-manity” (p. 112). By involving her argument into such a black and white critique she loses real issues resulting from the function-ing of the global market economy and con-sumerist society, issues which undoubtedly exist and aff ect the lots of the poorest1.

Th e author presents English society in black and white as well. Poor people are al-most holy whereas British aristocracy is the parasite and cancer eating England away. Being poor is a result of either a bad fate or social and economic determinants, but nev-er a result of one’s own wrong doing or bad decisions.

Th e sociologist does not stop short of putting forward a thesis that women who were pregnant several times by different partners and ended up in hostels “encoun-tered life misfortunes” (p. 250). Apparently the author believes that these women were submissive persons completely incapable of running their own lives and for this reason unable to make a mistake. Such women merely experience bad fortunes on the path of life. Moreover while dealing with poor people we tend to pay attention to their character features and appearance and she perceives this fact as an insult to people’s dignity forgeting that every man living in society is assessed on common criteria. Moreover these features, even if inappropri-ate, result from the system oppression and

1 Cf.: Z. Bauman, Praca, konsumpcjonizm i nowi ubodzy, 2006; A. Giddens, Poza lewicą i prawicą: przyszłość polityki radykalnej, 2001.


political and economic activity undertaken by the system. Unfortunately these types of simplifi cations do not serve the cause of the poor. It is an unquestionable fact that cer-tain conditions of life and some symptoms of poor people’s inability to adapt are all due to the presence of free market. Being left behind by the tax and banking system, as the author exemplarily pointed out, actually discourages the poor from any possible at-tempts of initiative. However putting the whole blame on the state and all misfor-tunes on its bad functioning is an oversim-plifi cation of the causes of poverty which are very complex.

In order to limit the poverty issue one should look at it from the realist standpoint and thanks to this perspective one should take measures appropriate to the well diag-nosed causes. The fact that the author presents every individual aff ected by pov-erty as guilt free, is nothing but overlooking the other side of the coin, the side which is essential to learn the whole.

Aristocracy, on the other hand, appears as a sect allowing nobody into its world and at the same time preying on all the other members of society. Even the tax system comes under criticism. Even though it im-poses one of the highest taxes in Europe on the rich, it still favours, according to the au-thor, the interests of these wealthy people. Such a presentation of aristocracy may sur-prise a little in a text of a Polish researcher, who having experienced communism get-ting rid of elites, can see their existence in such a negative light. Regrettably without the fi nancial elite there is no intellectual and

cultural elite either, and, however cynic it may sound, the existence of exclusive elite in Great Britain constitutes one of the most important assets around which prestige and economic prosperity of the whole state are built, thus bringing wealth to other social strata. Aristocracy in England is a valuable human capital, oft en envied by other coun-tries. In the world where the rich are getting even richer and come into indecent fortunes whereas the number of the poor does not diminish even in wealthy countries, cries for a fairer distribution of goods are under-standable. However one should not forget that the economic and social world is more complicated than the forest of Sharewood in the times of Robin Hood and it had al-ready been attempted once to share every-thing equally for everyone in the majesty of state, which eventually resulted in a collapse of the whole system.

By raising the subject of class fights, Królikowska loses track of the purpose of helping people in need. She wants them to take, as a social class, their due and signifi -cant position in society. In other words, they are, as the class of the poor, to participate in a public discourse on equal terms with oth-er social classes. I am not entirely convinced whether it should be the goal of the poor and of the aid directed to them. Would it not be better if they stopped being poor and did not need help? Is it not the aim of social services to bring excluded people back to the bosom of a “normal’ society?

Th e lack of objectivity and distance on many occasions does not mean that Th e So-ciology of Charity does not mention inter-


esting aspects. Królikowska shows that the rise of charitable activity results from the slump of institutional social welfare and paradoxically it means the disappearance of social bonds and collective solidarity. Char-ity stems from the desire to deliver aid through separate, selfl essly oriented indi-viduals, contrastingly the remaining major-ity of community remains neutral at best. Hence poor people oft en live contained in the world of social services receiving no help from their relatives nor from the com-munity they come from. Having offl oaded some of its social duties onto non-govern-mental organizations and local collectives, the state, calls for civic mutual aid but the response is limited. These observations seem to be apt, particularly when we have a closer look at the centres presented in the empirical part of the work. In most cases they function thanks to the zeal of one man or a small group of dedicated to the cause people who sacrifi ce a lot to be able to bring aid to others. Th e author blames the degen-eration of social bonds on the dominance of middle-class liberal ideology, however I’d rather favour the conclusions of Charles Murray2, who blames the state of aff airs on welfare state and the dependence of its citi-zens on state’s aid. In a society where every misfortune was assisted by social services, counting on your relatives or members of a given community was no longer needed. Social solidarity could no longer rely on mutual help if such need arose, so it practi-cally vanished. When in the 80’s Britain

2 Cf. Ch. Murray, Bez korzeni, Poznań 2001.

faced economic recession, big reforms were introduced and the prime minister, Marga-ret Th atcher, slushed the social funds. Th e society found itself in a position it was un-accustomed to, what in the years ensuing the crisis and later on “bore fruit” in the in-creased number of the poor and excluded. It is still debateable what aff ected this in-crease to a larger extent – the dysfunction of communities or perhaps the drastic measures taken by the conservative govern-ment. Undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher, through statements such as “there is no such thing as society” propagated the culture of competition between individuals rather than the culture of social solidarity. And it would be diffi cult to defend the thesis that the government actions were only benefi -cial3. Nonetheless freeing oneself of one-sided perspective and taking into account in the analysis the causes of a “new” British poverty, both the fl aws of a welfare state and the faults of a neoliberal state, seems to be a more appropriate solution.

The perception of charity in various European countries is also an interesting aspect to consider. In England and Ger-many charity is a desired complement of social and cultural activity of the state, but in Scandinavia it appears to be too pater-nalistic placing people in need in an awk-ward situation. Similarly to the situation in communist countries in the past, charity, is associated there with signalling the supe-

3 Cf. E. Majewska, J. Sowa (ed.), Zniewolony umysł 2. Neoliberalizm i jego krytyki, Kraków 2007.


riority of the helping person. To neutralize the sense of humiliation in people asking for help only governmental agencies have the authority to deal with charity as they are in a way objective and impersonal. It is an interesting example of how theoreti-cally universal willingness to help the poor is yet strongly conditioned by cultural con-text.

Th e role of the Christian Church in of-fering help is also worth mentioning. Th roughout the book there are numerous references to the Church teachings, the Bi-ble is cited, there are clearly pinpointed re-ligious ways of conduct. Since European charity was built on the concept of mercy and based on the activity of Church institu-tions, it is no wonder that there are so many references in the text to this subject. What is though particularly worth having a closer look is the issue of the Church’s new task of helping the poor and in need. Especially in a situation when the number of church goers drastically fell and Anglican Churches were empty. In the face of society secularisa-tion it was hard for priests to keep churches operational, hence to survive they began to adapt them to serve as orphanages, poor-houses or eating places for the homeless. In this way the Church which was in crisis ac-quired a new sense of purpose to continue its existence on the Isles and the poor re-ceived needed help.

Generally in the empirical part one can see the clash of ideals from the fi rst part with the reality of social services’ daily rou-tines. Th e previous attempt to present pov-erty as suff ering due to bad system does not

stand to the test of realities. For it turns out that one cannot help everyone. Drunk peo-ple, drug addicts or people under 25 are not allowed to the centres. Th e latter because younger people were aggressive at times. However these limitations do not result from mind infecting liberal ideology or sheer practice and the will to provide secu-rity to as many wards and personnel. Th ere-fore the exclusion has at times practical and worldly grounds, the fact which Królikows-ka previously had no intention to admit to, nor the desire to remember about it while doing her general analyses. On some occa-sions she even contradicts herself or the things she wrote in other parts of the text. When discussing nightshelter for the youth she admits that many young people become reliant on the help of institutions and they do not want to become self-sufficient whereas earlier she claimed that such argu-mentation from the supporters of social expenditure reduction was hypocritical and insincere. She also observes that some peo-ple end up in the street on their own accord just following their own paths of life, a fact which was formerly attributed only and ex-clusively to social and economic determi-nants.

Th e book contains a good deal of inter-esting and instructive descriptions of social services sites. All the described institutions operate well and are fi nanced both from pri-vate and public or local resources. Th ey are generally approved of by local communities. Th ey have appropriately equipped premises and specialized personnel as well as volun-teers. Sociographies of these centres could


be set as examples for Polish social services since they illustrate well how aid should be brought eff ectively. For example the broadly discussed creation of mutual assistance funds, the nationwide programme of youth re-adaptation, the circulation of second hand furniture and the contact centre in particular – a neutral meeting point for children and adults in the middle of divorce; all the aforementioned are worth trying to be adopted to suit Polish needs. However instead of making her text a source of ideas and inspirations which could be introduced into Polish social work reality, Królikowska, preferred to lean towards criticism of Brit-ish people and their state. In my opinion it is a bad depiction of the issue and the book would have been a much more and useful title if its central theme had been the pres-entation of a free market oriented society. Society which is still very capable of main-taining charity and social services despite gradual loss of social bonds. Yet by com-plaining about the condition of charity in England and by clearly failing to stay impar-tial while presenting the complexity of is-sues causing poverty, the author annoys us and regrettably does not win our acclaim and sympathy for the cause of poor people. We might even interpret her theses as her discontent with the return of distant charity initiatives, which, in a way, she perceives as the side eff ect of the disassembly of a wel-fare state (p. 336). I would see in them sign of change though, (the change around which ) communities will be reborn and on this foundation social bonds and local mu-tual assistance will be slowly rebuilt.

Th ere has been sincere involvement and tremendous amount of work in Królikows-ka’s study of the world of the English poor and institutions helping them.

As far as methodology is concerned her work is even excellent – meticulously ar-ranged structure of successive centres cre-ates order and ease of moving among them and comparing them. All the most impor-tant aspects of institution operation have been discussed and the information sources have been provided along with every insti-tution she mentioned. Unfortunately the author penetrated this world too deeply and forcefully and by doing so she lost her sci-entifi c objectivity. All of this can be con-fi rmed by the fact that in the part devoted to Exeter, the town where she had spent less time, her discourse is more matter-of-fact and Królikowska uses her moralizing tone on fewer occasions, thus she presents the causes of poverty and specific problems more diligently. When she manages to maintain a larger distance then one can re-ceive and understand the issues she deals with much better.

Th e Sociology of Charity despite its bril-liant empirical research, despite the author’s involvement and valuable descriptions of the activity of social services is not a good title. Królikowska squandered the chance of an interesting analysis by adopting suitable theses, which she could not entirely defend. Non-objectivity and partiality she allowed in her work irritate and bring on reluctance towards the signifi cant, delicate and requir-ing a thorough analysis cause of the poor and the aid directed to them. And even the


issue of charity has turned out to be very interesting, the way it has been presented is inapt.

Aleksandra Zienko

Jadwiga Królikowska: A Comment on the Review of the Book "The Sociology of Charity"

Th e review of the book ‘Th e Sociology of Charity’ has been written in a very effi cient way; one may not fi nd it diffi cult to believe the Reviewer that she has written it when being irritated, and at the same time, she does cope with keeping the proper review form, especially as for matching the lan-guage and text technique. As far as the for-mal side is concerned, the text could be also (or maybe above all) written by a professor, the reason being that it diff ers, to a high ex-tent, from the ones written by IV year stu-dents.

One can notice that there are two com-ment levels outlined in the review. In the fi rst one the Author makes an analysis of the substantial quality of the work, the method-ology, the depth of the researched institu-tions analysis, etc.

Th e Reviewer’s evaluation seems to be completely positive. As for the background, the work is analysed in the perspective that can be named ‘the only right ideology of the correct moderation’. Th e student claims that the work has been written in an incorrect perspective, and, this is the reason why, in spite of ‘the excellent empiric research, the author’s involvement, and very valuable de-

scriptions of the help centres operations, it is not a good work’. Furthermore, the Re-viewer accuses the work that ‘it is not objec-tive, which is, as for the research works which the text is supposed to be, unaccept-able’. Th e student may not be aware of the fact that in the west science today there is no the only ‘objective paradigm’ in social sciences, and if anyone thinks there is, he or she is in the minority. Th e postulated by the student methodological ‘gold centre’ may be of a meaning for a young man who wants to make a career, especially in politics, but for sure not in science. Nota bene, if the young career maker could force his scientifi c thesis in the public life, a thesis on ‘the only right’ vision of the social development, it must have had an infl uence on the fundamental re-shaping of the democratic debate and the dawn of several public disagreements. Th e west science, from time to time, undergoes some crisis of ‘paradigms’ in single disci-plines, however, one cannot talk about ‘the only right perspective’, of which acceptance would infl uence our understanding of the scientifi c research freedom.

Th e student may be unaware of what re-ally is ‘the safe introduction’ to the work in the PRL state, a work written from an incor-rect (in those days bourgeois) perspective. In such an introduction one could some-times fi nd some published work of a west policy supporter, work including several pages and written according to a form, toutes proportions gardees – one which was accepted by a Reviewer in an effi cient and spontaneous way. One should also praise several detailed thesis, pay attention to the


fact that the work broadens our knowledge on the searched reality, is of a high meth-odological level, etc., otherwise, there would be no use in publishing the novel. Further-more, a considerable part of ‘the safe intro-duction’ was written in a perspective, so-called, ‘meta’- methodological one which was criticised, in spite of the fact that it was oft en justifi ed, to a high extent for its being disagreeable with the Marxists thesis, or, at least with its applying in the countries of real socialism on the given transformation level (which was described as the level of socialism development).

One may be surprised by the form of the presented review to the concept of the given ‘safe introductions’. If the review of the work ‘Th e Sociology of Charity’ was written with the aim of its contradiction to the social policy of Charles Murrey or others, then one can say that it is senseless. Th e theses depicted in his works have become a subject to numerous discussions; the same has hap-pened with other writers’ works, and funda-mental criticism. Similarly, one can find very extreme evaluations of Margaret Th atcher’s social politics in social sciences. Th e theses that in the sociology of charity one does not accept libertarianism, neo-conservatism, or the fact that neo-liberalism theses are not an accusation, but at least an information on the perspective of which the work has been written, a perspective which is close to Stanisław Ossowski’s policy, a person second to Florian Znaniecki Polish sociologist that infl uenced the west sociol-ogy, and is still present in all important old-English encyclopaedia elaborations, a soci-

ologist who is thought to be the classic of the sociology policy. Th e student has the right to be irritated with the accepted by me perspective. If it is to help her start the sci-entifi c work so as to create some theoretical bases for generalisations of diff erent direc-tions than ‘Th e Sociology of Charity’, than I could be satisfi ed with the work results.

I cannot leave out the fundamental for science ethical issue. In spite of what the reader may think, the ‘safe introductions’ do play a very vital and positive role. Although they had to be written in the agreement with the present ideology, they helped neu-tralise the censorship. Th ey enabled scien-tifi c perspectives pluralism to develop, and support, though in a limited scope, the pub-lication of the most important elaborations, notwithstanding the ideological option they would be qualifi ed to by a watchful censor. However, what is the aim, in the present times, of the student’s professor review, one which warns us against the improper ideo-logical understanding.

Jadwiga Królikowska

Piotr Skuza (rev.): Jerzy Dudała, Fani-Chuli-gani. Rzecz o polskich kibolach. Studium soc-jologiczne [Fans-Hooligans: On Polish 'Ki-bole' A Sociological Study], "Żak”, Warszawa 2004, pp. 234.

When reading a book of a journalist and supporter, a graduate of the Political Sci-ences of Ślaski University and the doctor of humanistic sciences in sociology on the sport spectacle, I was accompanied by one


question, whether the phenomena of sport supporting has any signs of the emancipa-tion movement? Above all one should start with the question, whether the amorphous mass of supporters of the quasi-tribal struc-ture is a social movement? Th e existence of a social movement means the common-wealth of targets. It is a movement “from” towards something, above all, from the op-pression towards freedom, from the chaos towards the structure of a new institution. Whereas a sport supporter seems to show the most animal human side, and his soul the anthropoid one1 – using the words of Karol Gustaw Jung – it shows the matter of miserable time, that is the social anomy. It is, obviously, about the fall of the social structures, and the incapacity of the new ones, or relatively, their little infl uence. Is the pseudo fan marked with ‘the social crea-tion of the reality’2, deformed subject pro-duction and peculiar enculturation? A sport supporter seems to be a wild person creat-ing his/her own subculture. Th e question, whether the sport supporting is throwing

1 "Th is is the anthropoid soul (underline P.S.) that does not enter or enters with the gre-atest unwillingness and not to the very end in the rational culture forms, and if it is possible, is op-posed to the culture development. It is a situation as if libido all the time missed to the primary and unconscious state of unlimited wilderness. Th e way back, that is regression, goes back to chil-dhood and even to the mother’s body” (C.G. Jung, Symbole przemiany. Analiza preludium do schizofrenii, translation R. Reszke, Warsaw 1998, p. 421).

2 It seems to be an allusion to the publica-tion: P.L. Berger, T. Luckmann, Społeczne tworze-nie rzeczywistości, translation J. Niżnik, Warsaw 1983.

oneself in the whirlpool of amorphous cul-tural creature, one that is spontaneously grown like a cancer on a society, fi lled deep-ly with the anomy of transformation, stays open, however, Jerzy Dudała does not an-swer the question in his publication.

Th e suggested here reading contains an interesting exposition of complex social problems, it is also the voice of the support-ers’ emancipation, it is also a project of sec-ondary socialization, and contains the germ of the nation pedagogy of a new face, con-sisting of supporters. Th e problem of sport supporting seems to be of a wider subject, that is the footballisation of the contempo-rary society. Th e footballisation is a sign of transformations and global processes. It is also a phenomenon derivative of the regen-eration of a specifi c religiosity in peculiar forms, such as the cult of a football club, or the worship by the nation expressed by a strong identifi cation with the national rep-resentation in the football world champion-ship. Sport supporting is not only a stadium phenomenon. It is also a way of life, experi-encing and instinct canalizing. Th e stadium liturgy, that is the match as a spectacle, is the only apogee of the phenomena. Its ecstatic character and the fact of infecting the crowd with emotions has got far-fetching eff ects. Th e conformation may be the words of Pi-otr Kowalski3: “If one day all the theatres in the world were closed, nothing would hap-pened, but if one Sunday there was no

3 P. Kowalski, Popkultura i humaniści. Dale-ki od kompletności remanent spraw, poglądów i mistyfi kacji, Kraków 2004, p. 263.


match transmission on TV, it would start a revolution. Maybe it is football that is our theatre?”4 And this is the way it is, of which example may be the numerous declarations of such authorities as Jerzy Pilch or Wo-jciech Kuczok, who with a great involve-ment talk about sport supporting. They confi rm the fact, not fully conscious one, that sport supporting is a part of male ha-bitus.

However, coming back to the discussed publication, one must say that the book of Jerzy Dudała is written with a use of a very informal language, one which is full of col-loquialisms. Th e whole is divided into two parts. Th e fi rst part is entitled: “Th e Th eo-retical Considerations on the Stadium Hoo-ligans’ Problems”, whereas the second part is under the title “Th e Problem of Hooligan-ism on the Stands of Polish Stadiums on the Example of Zagłębie Sosnowiec Fans" and seems to be a research exposition of the Au-thor. In the fi rst part the Author has taken into an consideration issues such as: attempt to analyze stadium hooliganism (pp. 19–65), where one should especially pay attention to “The Calendar of Some Arguments Caused by Pseudo Fans.” (pp. 51–64). Fur-ther one can fi nd a pseudo fans analysis as one of the youth subculture (pp. 66–80). Next we encounter a review of theories ex-plaining the fans’ behaviours, where the Au-thor discusses six of the theories (pp. 81–94). Th en Jerzy Dudała makes an analysis of

4 F. Marotti [taking part in a discussion:] Misteria, inicjacje. Text from years 1999–2000, Kraków 2001, pp. 14–15.

the contemporary spectators during sport competitions (p. 96–125) and in the fi ft h subchapter one can see an important issue entitled “Media and the Problem of Stadium Hooliganism” (pp. 126–143). One should remember that the Author’s look is a trial to consolidate the three viewpoints: of a soci-ologist, journalist and fan. Th is is why the subchapter is a kind of a trial for the Author, who must protect the interests of various social groups. In the last subchapter he points out – according to the intention in-cluded in the title – the “Methods of Over-coming and Preventing the Stadium Hooli-ganism” (pp. 144–171). Th e second research part of the publication is more modest, and I think it has been reedited for the benefi t of the book created on the basis of a doctor thesis. Keeping the continuity of subchap-ters numeration, in spite of the distin-guished second part, the author explains: “Methodological Research Basis” in the sev-enth subchapter (pp. 175–182) so as to make “Th e Presentation of the Research Results” in the wide eight subchapter, the ninth subchapter is: “Th e Conclusions and Obser-vations Resulting from the Researches” (pp. 217–225). The interesting bibliography, where I found twelve foreign positions, crowns the published book in the publish-ing house “Żak” with a photo on the cover presenting sport fans in the smoke of pe-tards with scarves in their hands, which they keep up in the stadium euphoria. On the back of the book one may fi nd a photo of the author, and a bibliographic note, and a part of a review of the publication by the author Zbigniew Krawczyk. Th e title indi-


cates an attempt to make a dialogue with the fans, and shows respect to them. Th e use of the word ‘kibole’ I understand as a conscious acceptance of the language of the subcul-ture. Th e question is whether it refl ects any group self-consciousness, maybe the eman-cipating consciousness? – it is hard to un-derstand it on the grounds of the book. Th ese kinds of words are, undoubtedly, a kind of a manifestation of some linguistic capital introduced to the social and antiso-cial capital. However, such a formulation of the book title – maybe dissuaded by the publisher – somehow corresponds, but not very well, with the used ‘pseudo fan’. Th e defi nition destroys the suggested strategy of conscious sympathizing with those who are tested, it is also not a descriptive notion – rather a normative one, and above all, con-tains the paternal connotation from the newspaper discourse, which means that the Author is not consequent in his point of view. I have a feeling that he gets lost be-tween the neutral research perspective as a sociologist and the feeling as a sport fan and the look as a journalist. In my opinion there is no division into ‘fan’ and ‘pseudo fan’. Th ere is no substantiation for the division, and this is only a way of domestication of young men who want to avoid it. Th ey want to experience the emotions regardless the social eff ects. One can talk about diff erent states which a fan experiences, which is analogical to the interactive states distin-guished by McLaren in the relation to a stu-dent, that is, the street state, student, home, and loft y one, and these are the styles of re-acting by an individual as for the events and

they are of ideal type of character5. Some of the states in a very special way infl uence the basis and way of valuing of a given person. Th e advantage of the book is the fact that it is filled with examples of fans’ attitudes which could be thought to be antisocial. And this is a discourse on the subject of sta-dium hooliganism. Aft er an introduction to the topic, which is an analysis trial of the phenomena and aft er qualifying the pseudo fans to the youth subculture, the Author makes a review of the theory explaining the behaviour of a crowd. He refers to the theo-ry of ‘plague’ by G. Le Bon, referring to the work of the psychologist entitled: Psycholo-gia tłumu [Crowd's Psychology] (Warsaw 1997), and points out the process, when ‘an individual being in an anonymous crowd, undergoes mutual (…) stimulation, or ex-periences the hypnotic state of excitement which induces some feelings, stimulus and actions” (p. 81). Th e thought is being devel-oped by Wanat, which the Author mentions in the footnote (S. Wanat, Socjologia zacho-wań chuligańskich w sporcie, “Kultura Fizy-czna” [Sociologyal Hooligan Behaviour in Sports, "Physical Education"] 1992, No. 7–8, p. 17). Next the Author describes the theory of convergence, in which the theory sup-porters can see the reasons of arousal to

5 L. Witkowski, Wokół teorii i praktyki rytu-ałów szkolnych (studium recenzyjne) [in:] Nie-obecne dyskursy, Z. Kwieciński (edit.), Toruń 1992, part II, p. 126, reviewed position is: P. McLaren, Schooling as a ritual performance. Towards a political economy of educational sym-bols and gestures, Foreword by Henry Giroux, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London–Boston–Hen-ley 1986, p. 326.


take some action under the infl uence of un-expected incidents. It is thought that people possess common beliefs and feelings. Th e Author indicates a related theory of frustra-tion – aggression, that is, that the frustration of individuals can always fi nd an escape in the crowd. And here we can fi nd the refer-ence to the above mentioned publication of Wanat. Th e Author presents the next theory – so-called the normative theory or the theory of emergentive norms, but he does not describe it in details and the explana-tion is not very clear. Surely, this is about the situational norms in a crowd in spite of dif-ferent viewpoints of the individuals who feel forced, as if ‘pushed to the wall’, to make the same activity and experience the same emotional state. What seems to be surpris-ing, the discussion with the theory is in-cluded in an extended foreword and not in the very narration. Th e Author points out the prolonged state of experiencing the feel-ings by the fans. Th e next theory referred by the Author is the theory of added values re-ferring to the conception of the group be-haviour by N.J. Smelser. “Structural Pres-sures”, for example religious, ethnic or po-litical antagonisms break out when there is “the structural alliance, which is the con-solidation of group power in order to com-pensate the harm, and take revenge with a use of illegal methods, because the ones which are accepted seem to be inadequate, not very effi cient. Finally one notices the conception of catharsis, which is relieving the emotions gathered during everyday so-cial interactions, mainly at work or at home. The Author refers here to the work by

G. Schilling, entitled Agresja i przemoc w spor-cie, [Agression and Violence in Sports] Wrocław 1976. Th e two ascertainments made by the Author on the margin of discussing the conception are important. Th e fi rst is that when relieving the negative emotions, “blowing out the steam” – according to the Author’s description – there take part not only the people from the social margin, but also people who perform vital social roles. Th e second is that the hooliganism manifes-tations are described in the categories of the youth opposition of the lower classes as for the commercialization of football. I think that the opposition is described as it should be, but there are several events which are the subject of the opposition, not only the commercialization of a sport game. Th e last conception which attempts to explain the stadium hooliganism is M. Smith model. Th e researcher using two criterions: beliefs’ legality level and their scope, distinguishes six confl ict-causing situations encouraging disturbances. Th ese are the structural fac-tors, that is, the confrontational ones (the race, nation diff erences), and demonstrative (of political nature), as well as situational factors: failure in the competition, ban on entering the stadium, celebrating before the match, and victory celebration.

In the fi rst parts of the work, that is, in the next chapters, in the fourth, fi ft h, and sixth we fi nd deep considerations of the Au-thor on the topic of sport fans behaviours. Some of the ideas are worth thinking about, and would require a separate reading. Above all the Author highlights the essential factor of fans’ hooliganism, which is the territory


defence. Th e next thing is that these are sport spectacles, not the theatre or opera ones, that cause the aggressive feelings. One may com-ment on it that sport supporter expects the states being more or less conscious. Th e next issue is that any match is treated deadly seri-ous as if it was some liturgy. Th e supporters’ engagements is very serious as well and au-thentic at the same time, and brutal, and never stays in the convention of a game (pretending). It is, according to Jerzy Pilch's words found in the very book, “that football needs madness. You cannot support the team a little” (p. 193, note 16).

A very important note included in the position is the description of supporting as “living in the sport suburbs” (p. 102), which becomes the substance of life, also the one outside the stadium. Th e emotions experi-enced by a sport fan are irrational, which the Author explains that “they are not a conse-quence of the cognition processes” (p. 112), and are similar to those experienced by fa-natics. Moreover, the identifi cation of sport supporters with the team is very strong, leading sometimes to suicides in case of fail-ure of their favourite team. Th e last sentence may be a proof of the existence of fans group identifi cation. However this is not the point of the Author, he attempts to oppose the stereotypes that being a sport supporter means automatically being a hooligan. Th e stereotype – according to the author – is kept by the media who is only waiting for sensations. In order to support his observa-tions, he mentions the words of Jerzy Pilch, a very loyal Cracovia fan (p. 139, note 30). Th e important thing that is included in the

book by the Author is the fact of showing the lack of young people's preparations for being a sport supporter. Th is is a very im-portant topic for pedagogy. Presenting the point in the process of education becomes a petition for stopping the ignorance of sport supporting in educational practice. In my opinion it is not about the social role but about being in the state of supporting, espe-cially in the street state being responsible for one’s actions. Th ere is a vision, owing to the analysis and opinions of sport supporters which are included in Jerzy Dudała work, of Th omas Hobb, a man who always struggles with everybody. Although the vision is par-tial, undoubtedly it does contain a part of truth on some aspects of human nature. A realistic attitude towards the phenomenon of sport supporting should take into account the existence of confl icts and disturbances of fans. Th e ones which are inevitable and ir-removable. Th ere is also a category of some boredom as a tool explaining the aggressive fans’ behaviours. Th is is another pedagogical topic mentioned on page 168 and on the fur-ther ones. It occurs to be a very important reason and even furor pedagogicus in the face of the fact of Lech Witkowski’s “grumblings”6 that the category of boredom is not elaborated on, and in consequence not an appreciated pedagogical category.

However, the substance of the book, for sure a penetrating research work, is the ex-

6 L. Witkowski, O zaniedbaniach kategorial-nych i teoretycznych pedagogiki w Polsce [in:] Pedagogika u progu trzeciego tysiąclecia – mate-riały pokonferencyjne, A. Nalaskowski, K. Ruba-cha (edit.), Toruń 2001, p. 272.


position of a subject, place and time of the tests, hypothesis and the research results. The Author explains that the tests were made in the period 1998–2000 on the popu-lation of Zagłębie Sosnowiec (GKS Zagłębie) fans. Th e aims of his research he presents in the form of seven groups of questions (p. 177–178), whereas the general hypothesis (four) and the detailed ones (eight) one may fi nd on page 179. As a sociologist – empiri-cist he did use a survey method but the questionnaire of the survey consisted of 17 closed questions and 7 opened ones. Th e questionnaire was fi lled in by 318 people. He did not shorten his research to the number strategy because he made several interviews, which is a very valuable advan-tage of the work. What is interesting is a characteristic of sport fans taking into ac-count the type of attendance in the sport spectacle. And the situation is that all the supporters are the football supporters, they take part in supporting other disciplines, for example hockey. The research of Jerzy Dudała confi rmed the total engagement of the fans in their passion also outside the matches. Th e identity of a sport fan seems to be the central identity, whereas their pas-sion is continuously fed by various rituals and practices such as all the notes on the walls. The observations included in the book fi nish with the chapter entitled “Th e Conclusions and Observations Resulting from the Research”. Th e included thesis, es-pecially the highlighted with the spaced-out writing are exceptionally essential. And in this way the thesis that: “the majority of the sport supporters initiating the stadium dis-

turbances are young people of lower educa-tion” needs some specifi cation. Th ere was the word used “education” and because of the kind of the sentence it is too general and unclear. Th e correlation of the hominisation level (the result of home and school educa-tion) and the aggression of stadium behav-iours is, undoubtedly worth pointing out. Th e next thesis: “Among the most fanatic supporters there are more people who take part in stadium disturbances” is quite inter-esting because under the epithet ‘fanatic’ there is hidden the whole psychological space, the content of the individual, and group consciousness, and it is worth a sepa-rate exploration. Th e next thesis saying that ‘the sport results achieved by the team do not infl uence the number and activity of the most fanatic sport fans” confi rms the au-tonomy of experiences, of which source is not necessarily situated in the watched spectacle. A note summarizing that the ref-erence system for a supporter is the club and that the relation exhausts the whole set of being worth paying attention to by the supporter, is a paraphrase of the thesis of Stanisław Wanat and a conformation of protoscientifi c observations. At the very end the author makes an inclination that “pseu-do fans are better and better organized, use the Internet and mobile phones”. Th e state-ment results in asking the question on the level of sport supporters emancipation. Th e issue is not taken into consideration by the Author and the only thing that he wants to achieve through his researches is to change the stereotype as for sport supporters.

Piotr Skuza


Joanna Maria Piechowiak (rev.): Zygmunt Bauman, Praca, konsumpcjonizm i nowi ubodzy, [Work, Consumerism, and the Underclass], Wydawnictwo WAM, Kraków 2006, pp. 212.

You cannot leave the world as it is.Janusz Korczak

In every era, in each society, in all econom-ic and political systems there are some peo-ple who are poor. Who are they, and what kind of people are they in the post-modern society? Th e development dynamics forces social studies to make a continuous actuali-zation and close reference to the issues of the moment and contemporary practical problems. Zygmunt Bauman’s publication, in spite of its editing in Great Britain in 2004, and in Poland two years later, still concerns one of the most ponderable prob-lems, which one may encounter. Th at is pov-erty, and even the dramatic lack of job, and, in consequence, rising in a high speed pov-erty of all nations, as well as single social groups.

Zygmunt Bauman’s biography, his previ-ous publications, and scientific achieve-ments1 make him one of the most noble authorities as for the issues of postmodern-ism and considerate nation, so-called, Wel-fare State. Th e book was published by WAM, one which is the oldest Catholic publishing house in Poland. Th e author bases manly on a sociological analysis, but comes to the conclusions, one which is similar to those

1 He has been awarded prestigious prizes several times, among others the Adomo prize.

we fi nd when reading John Paul II. What seems to be surprising is the fact that simi-lar conclusions reach the Head of Church and the laic scientist. Th e adhesive occurs to be highlighting, in both of the cases, the fact of non-humanitarian globalization proc-esses, and the place of an individual in the out-of-humanitarian world as well as de-served dignity. What is it Praca, konsumpc-jonizm i nowi ubodzy [Work, Consumerism, and the Underclass]? Maybe – according to Andrzej Wojtasik, a translator into Polish – it is calling for taking care of those who are forgotten by the world.

Th e post-industrial epoch has generated new meanings of the notion work, consum-erism and poverty. Th e authors writes in the notions into a complex multidimensional process of the increase as for the interna-tional division of work, growth of the turn-over in the international trade, capital trans-fer increase, as well as the transfer of people, technology, and goods, culture interweav-ing, and the growth of dependency between countries, that is globalization. Th e book consists of three parts to make easier for a reader the topic understanding and placing. The first part includes the relation, one which is a reason-eff ect relation of the de-scribed events, as well as it becomes a sub-ject analysis attempt. The second part presents the infl uence of the events on soci-ety. Whereas the third part is a personal and original attempt to answer the previous questions.

Th e very clear division into parts and chapters allows one to follow the author’s understanding. Th e fi rst chapter concerns


the meaning of work etiquette, the next one is on the transformation from the manufac-turers society into consumers society, that is from the work etiquette to the consumption aesthetics. Th e third part consists of a de-scription of the considerate nation evolu-tion, its further deformation and fi nally the failure and the close relation between the changes in society and the attitude towards the problem of the poor, and poverty itself. Subsequently the fourth and fi ft h chapter present such social categories as new-poor, underclass or even unemployment in the globalized world. At the end Zygmunt Bau-man takes into consideration the theoretical consequences of present poor people treat-ment and their role in the society.

Th e history and work etiquette depict it as a normal state, whereas non-working as something abnormal. Th e very issue conclu-sion proves placing the employed higher in the social hierarchy than the unemployed. Considering work as one of the most essen-tial values at the same time out-values peo-ple who, owing to several reasons, do not take it. At the beginning of the industrial epoch the existing pressure of work became the reason of human instrumentalization depriving him or her of any freedom. Th e work etiquettes is in fact the slogan: "work very hard, day by day, and hour aft er hour, even when you cannot see any reason to make such an eff ort, and when you cannot perceive the meaning of the eff ort” (p. 26). What were the aims of the work etiquettes? Bauman points out two major ones: fi rstly, it was to meet the needs of factory workers, secondly, pay for the unemployed, that is the

greatest problem of post-traditional society. Work was worth respecting and paying glory, but at the same time, it became a lim-itation and burden, not only the physical one.

Presently we live in the era of consumer-ism, which means using and damaging ob-jects. As previously the productive society, the consumer society now occupies itself with consumerism, however the diff erence seems to be the attitude to it, and to work as well. In the post-industrial epoch each man is an individual being, who takes care on their own of meeting one’s consumer needs. People seem to be out-rooted and do not feel like possessing roots, nations become more and more scattered, and the awareness of living in a global village gives the feeling of freedom of choice.

Who are the poor people in the given reality? The author highlights social and psychological issues, not the obvious ones, that is the material ones. "Poverty is equal to exemption form something which is de-picted as normal life” (p. 77). What is the reason for that? We deprive poor people, that is those who cannot come up with the consumer society standards, of the right to live without stress, suff erings and humilia-tion. We make them experience shame and fault. Moved to the social margin they are treated like out of order and under-con-sumers.

However, as Bauman points out, the poor and the rich live in the same world. When there is the an economic growth or a recession, the poor become even poorer, and the rich richer. Th ere is no limit for the


rich, sky is the limit, however the poor seem to become more and more restricted. Th e greater the poverty, the more the welfare is contrasted with it. But what shall one do when the poor are too lazy to meet their lives’ needs?

Th e answer to the dilemma could be a nation of welfare, a considerate nation, which is responsible for providing a citizen with worthy existence. Th e requirement of taking care of the poor by the state in sev-eral countries, occurred to be a contempo-rary utopia and resulted in an economical breakdown and crisis. Even in the last bas-tion of the system, one which may be situ-ated between the modern and post modern country, that is among others in Sweden, the government seems to resign from the aid programmes. Presently the majority of citi-zens is satisfi ed with the independence and the state of relying only on themselves. Th ey are responsible for their status.

Th ere is a short line between being un-employed and useless. Th e useless are un-necessary, unnecessary are needless. Th e rest of society think that it would be better if they did not exist. Th ey are completely useless and became a fi nancial and social problem. Th e poor, underclass are the inner enemy, who infringes the values which are thought to be proper, and who becomes a risk as for the safety. Poverty, in a natural way, is associated with crime, which allows the extermination and isolation of those who are not sure to be people. still

The production of human remains is growing, there are fewer and fewerperspec-

tives for the underclass. Th e low position of those who were exempted from society is only their fault, and no one else should be blamed for that. In the very moment there appears the most vital question: Should we leave the problem of the poor, and let them be on their own? Th e author can see for them a possibility of their creation a new quality of work etiquette, one which would be suited to the conditions of the post-in-dustrial society. Th e separation of the right to fi nancial means from the job sale could occur to be a chance, if not for the liquida-tion of the unemployment and poverty problem, but at least for the limit of the rise of the human remains.

Is this a next kind of utopia, similarly to the considerate nation? One cannot work it out right now, but it could be taken into consideration as one of the solutions. Th ose who possess more should share it with those who are poorer. What is more, they should do it on the ground of some noble reasons, and not because of the duty imposed on them by the country.

Th e book by Zygmunt Bauman is, above all, an example that we can still refer to hu-man feelings and social sensitivity. It is a val-uable and actual transfer, which is to make the reader think over not only the problem of poverty, but also the quality of life concen-trated on consumerism and receiving more and more without giving something back. At the very end there appears one more ques-tion: Can we trust people?

Joanna Maria Piechowiak


CONTENTS 2007

Kultura i Edukacja 2007, No. 1 (61)

ARTICLES–STUDIES

A D A M D U B I KGaston Bachelard’s Th eory on ”Cognitive Obstacles” in the Context of the Question

on Conditioning of the Scientifi c Knowledge Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

U R S Z U L A K U S I OTh e World is Moving: A Sketch on Intercultural Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

W O J C I E C H S R O C Z Y Ń S K IValues in Social Pedagogy: Overview of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

A G A T A K A P L O NPsychoanalysis in the Writings of Jürgen Habermas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52


S T A N I S Ł A W B U R D Z I E JA Dispute on Evolution in the American School: On the Social Causes

of Antievolutionism in the USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

J O A N N A G Ł U S Z E KTh e Socializing Specifi city of a Working-Class Family in the Perspective of a Question

on Social Promotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

M I E C Z Y S Ł A W S P R E N G E LChanges in the Attitudes, Actions and Behaviour in Australian Society

since World War II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

R O M A N T O M A S Z E W S K IWacław Tokarz – Janusz Jędrzejewicz – Marian Kukiel (Between Education

and Politics) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

175

J O A N N A D Ą B R O W S K AA Forgotten Element of Polish Culture: Editorial Work of the Second

Polish Corps 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116


Honoris Causa Doctor’s Degree for Professor Wincenty Okoń . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Half a Century of Academic Work: Anniversary of Professor Andrzej Piskozub . . . . . . . 128

REVIEWS–DISCUSSIONS

Piotr Skuza (rev.), Jerzy Dudała, Fans-Hooligans: On Polish “Kibole” A Sociological Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Kazimierz Wieczorkowski (rev.), Jean Baudrillard, A Pact of Clearness: On the Intelligence of Evil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Patrycja Przywara (rev.), Grzegorz kowal, Friedrich Nietzsche in Polish Publicist Activity and Literature in the Years 1919–1939 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Marceli Kosman (rev.), Grzegorz Łukomski, Bernard Chrzanowski 1861–1944 152

Michał Bogacki, “II International Academic Session of the History of the Baltic Sea Peoples” and “XII Festival of Slavs and Vikings”, i.e. How to Link Entertainment with Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Alina Szwarc-Adamiuk, Monika Zińczuk, A Report from the Fourth Education in Dialog and Perspective Academic Meeting in Augustów . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160


ARTICLES–STUDIES

J A N C Z E C H O W S K IFunctions of Didactic Childern’s and Youth Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

M A R T A K A R WA C K ASocial Marketing in Service of Business and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

176

P I O T R WA S Y L U KPhilosophy of History as a Philosophical Refl exion on the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

T O M A S Z K A L B A R C Z Y KLiberalism and Education: Philosophy of Education by Richard Rorty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

W O J C I E C H S R O C Z Y Ń S K ISocial and/versus Environment Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

I W O N A S T A C H O W S K ADiscussions on the Material Status of an Object: Rene Descartes, Maine de Biran

i Emmanuel Lévinas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

COMMUNICATES-REPORTS

A N N A B O S C HText Communication and the Alienation Phenomena among Young People . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Z O F I A R E M I S Z E W S K AYouth and the Public Sphere: Eco-teams in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

M A G D A L E N A S I A T K O W S K A , D O R O T A K O Z Ł O W S K A , A N E T A B A R A N O W S K AA Teacher: A Friend or an Enemy? How Students Perceive Teachers in Various

Schools: A Study Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

C E Z A R Y M A R A S I Ń S K ITh e Saragossa Manuscript by Jan Potocki as a Literary Example of Culture

of Laughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

SPECIAL COMMUNICATE

Honoris Causa Doctor’s Degree for Professor Zbigniew Kwieciński . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

REVIEVS

Joanna Maria Piechowiak (rev.): Zygmunt Bauman, Work, Consumptionism and the New Poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Helena Ciążela (rev.): Yehezkel Dror, Th e Ability to Rule: A Report for the Roman Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

177

Mirosława Michałek (rev.): Ewa Domagała-Zyśk, Autonomy or Separation? Th e Role of an Important Person in Life of Youth with Educational Problems . . . . . .136

Agnieszka Popowska (rev.): Th e Horisons of Th eatre II: Th e Way of Kazimierz Braun: Sketches Edited by Justyna Brylewska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139

Marcin Żynda (rev.): Iwona Urbańska, Cultural Life of the Prisoners of KL Auschwitz Relying on Reports and Diaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144

Katarzyna Grabianowska: A Report form the Sixth National Conference: Media in Education – Chances and Th reats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146


ARTICLES–STUDIES

S T A N I S Ł A W K A W U L AA Discourse on Pedagogy and Family Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

H E L E N A C I Ą Ż E L AEthics of Responsibility (From the Point of View of Global Responsibility) . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

K A T A R Z Y N A S U WA D AHow to Call the Modern Times? Th e Issue of Conceptualisation of Fluctuant

Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman, the Second Modernity by Ulrich Beck and Late Modernity by Anthony Giddens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

M A C I E J D O M B R O W S K IStanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz – “Problematic” Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49


J A R O S Ł A W D O M A G A Ł ATh oughts on Music in the Work of Henryk Elzenberg “A Problem with Existence –

Aphorisms” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

K O N R A D S T U D N I C K I G I Z B E R TTadeusz Matuszewski – a Scholar, an Individualist and an Extraordinary Man . . . . . . . . 73

178

M A R C I N L U T O M I E R S K IOn the Functioning of Emigration Literature among Modern Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

M I E C Z Y S Ł A W S P R E N G E LTh e Development of Education and Education Ideology in Australia

of the 19th and 20th Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95


The Sixth National Educational Convention of Polish Pedagogical Society in Lublin (17–19 September 2007)

D A R I U S Z K U B I N O W S K ITh e Idea and Organisation of the Sixth National Educational Convention . . . . . . . . . . 108

Z B I G N I E W K W I E C I Ń S K ITh e Need for Critical Alphabetisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

T E R E S A H E J N I C K A B E Z W I Ń S K AA Report from the Sixth National Pedagogical Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

N A T A L I A S O K O Ł O W I C ZFrom the Debate of the Discussion Group “Th e Methodology of Practically Oriented

Pedagogy and the Functioning of Education in the Public Sphere” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

A L I C J A S A D O W N I KFrom the Debate of the Discussion Group “Integration or Segregation? Domination

or Dialogue?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Th e Atitude of the Members of the Sixth National Pedagogical Convention towards the Condition and Perspectives of Development of Education in Poland . . . . . . . . . . 135

REVIEWS

Aleksandra Zienko (rev.): Jadwiga Królikowska, Th e Sociology of Charity: An Outline of the Problem of Poverty and Help on the Basis of English Experience . . . . . . . . . . .141

Jadwiga Królikowska: A Commentary on the Review of “Th e Sociology of Charity” . . . 147

Maria Emilia Nowak (rev.): Aniela Dylus, Globalisation. Ethical Refl ection . . . . . . . . . 148

179

Stefan Konstańczak (rev.): Peter Singer, One World. Th e Ethics of Globalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Katarzyna Buczek (rev.): Sources for the History of Home Education of Polish Children in the Nineteenth and the Beginning of Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158


ARTICLES–STUDIES

P I O T R WA S Y L U KCategories of Philosophy and History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

P I O T R S K U Z ASelf-respect: Final or Primary Good?: Ruminations on the Basis of the Concept

of Justice by John Rawls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

A L E K S A N D R A N O WA K O W S K AInternet Communities: Real or Unreal Social World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

E D WA R D H A J D U KWhat Sociology Students Should be Taught? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51


J O A N N A J Ó Ź W I C K ASciences Po and ENA: Functioning and Importance in the Process of French Political

Elite Enrolment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

A G N I E S Z K A R A N I S Z E W S K A W Y R WAEuthanasia in the Public Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

B O Ż E N A O W E R C Z U KImage of a Woman in the Intergeneration Cultural Message: Grandmother –

Mother – Daughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

E L Ż B I E T A S Z E F L E REnriching Children’s Knowledge on the Structure of a Book on the Basis

of Midtextual Illustrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

180

SPECIAL COMMUNICATESThe 13th National Convention of Polish Sociological Society,13–15 Sep 2007

E WA N A R K I E W I C Z N I E D B A L E CA Year of Preparation and Th ree Days of the Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

P I O T R G L I Ń S K IPolish Sociology and Polish Sociological Society in 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

B A R B A R A W O R E KTh e 13th National Sociological Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

B A R T O S Z P I L I T O W S K I , R A D O S Ł A W S O J A KTh e First in the History of National Conventions of Polish Sociological

Society Subject Session Devoted to the Sociology of Back-Stage Activities . . . . . . . . . 141

A L E K S A N D R A N O WA K O W S K ATh e Subject Group “Images in the Net”: Sociology and Anthropology

of the Iconosphere of the Internet: A Report from the Discussions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

N A T A L I A K R Z Y Ż A N O W S K ATh e Subject Group “Women of the 21st Century: New Roles, New Challenges” . . . . . . . . . 149

REVIEWS

Leszek Pawelski (rev.): Kazimierz Denek, Education Today– Tomorrow . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Helena Ciążela (rev.): To Understand Loneliness: An Interdisciplinary Study, edited by Piotr Domeradzki and Włodzimierz Tyburski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Agnieszka Kleina (rev.): Elżbieta Trubiłowicz, Students and Th eir World: From the Martial Law to the European Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Michał Bogacki: “Th e 3rd International Academic Session on the History of the Baltic Sea Peoples” and “Th e 13th Festival of Slavs and Vikings”: Where Education and Fun Meet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

· Kultura i Edukacja 2008, No. 5 (69) ISSN 1230-266X CONTENTS Leader

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