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In this paper, the author analyzes research results concerning visitors to the Museum of Warsaw. The creation of a new main exhibition at the museum was driven by a turn towards objects, which was a novelty in Poland. The study was conducted using the focus group interview method, with three groups: Polish students from Warsaw universities, Warsaw guides, and students from foreign countries who study at Warsaw universities. The paper presents what different visitors expect from the city museum and how those expectations correspond with the assumptions of the museum's curators. It also analyzes the role of emotions in experiencing a museum exhibition and the issue of the "authenticity" expected by visitors when they are in the museum. In addition, the author presents how visitors' expectations are divided between "knowledge" and "experience" categories and the consequences of this division for thinking about how the past is experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithms in information technology influence changes in contemporary organizations. They monitor business processes, support decision-making, and help to increase efficiency. The literature has described extensively the applications of algorithmic technology in new models of organizations but few studies have addressed the relationship between algorithms and organizational culture. This paper fills that niche by concentrating on black boxing to address the technological transparency in the algorithmic workplace. This paper uses the case study of the Amazon POZ 1 warehouse near Poznań, Poland. The findings show that algorithmic culture has a profound effect on how employees interact, how they see themselves at work, and how they perform their job responsibilities. As we show, algorithmic transparency influences not only employees' worklife but also the general positionality of the workforce in the wider political economy. We conclude by arguing in favor of greater algorithmic regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this paper is to study the role of books in the biographies of upwardly mobile academics from Poland. The interviewees, despite their working-class background, experienced a major change in their life--they managed to secure an academic post and by doing so, they broke the vicious circle of social reproduction against all the odds. Their biographies are thus examples of "wormholes" between different social classes. A careful analysis of the position of books and the library in these narratives brought the authors' attention to two interrelated findings. The first one supports Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, by emphasizing that having books at home (objectified forms of cultural capital) leads to acquiring the embodied form of cultural capital (knowledge and competence), and, in the case of our interviewees, also its institutionalized form (advanced university diploma). Furthermore, books at home created what Bourdieu referred to as a "familiar relation to culture." On the other hand, the empirical material suggests that reading is not universally recognized as a beneficial activity, and--as such--can be a source of interclass tensions. The second main finding points to the role of local libraries and culture-club centres as places where social capital can be acquired by the people who cannot otherwise inherit it. This finding is especially important in the (post)socialist context, where the library was one of the symbols of widening participation in education. The authors argue that the decreasing number of such places poses a threat to upwardly mobile individuals, especially from rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a sociological contribution to the literature on coping strategies on the labor market, with an explicit emphasis on the crisis context and the resulting job insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic has narrowed employment opportunities and worsened working conditions for many individuals who, in response, needed to cope with the unfolding changes. Based on a qualitative dataset comprising 70 in-depth interviews collected in 2021 in Poland, this paper sheds light on the two main types of coping strategies, namely emotional and problem-solving coping. Juxtaposing coping strategies with age, we discuss how younger and older workers in Poland handle work uncertainty. The paper contributes new data on coping strategies in the context of work-lives and offers evidence on the coping processes emerging in response to the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is the perceived relation of language (Polish) and religion (Catholicism) to the Polish identity and whether and how these dimensions of identity are employed in interpreting processes of social integration and mobility in Lithuanian society by research participants at schools where Polish is the language of instruction. This paper argues that the native language (Polish) is seen as an important dimension of ethnic (Polish) identity while both majority (Lithuanian) and minority languages are seen as helpful instruments in the process of social inclusion and social mobility since they are perceived as dependent on the social context. Polish-language schools reaffirm the interrelation of the Catholic religion and the Polish identity in discursive and practical ways (via various cultural means). Nevertheless, religion, an essential dimension of Polish identity, does not come to the forefront when discussing social integration or mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sociology has been developing since the 1970s; however, it only recently became institutionalized in Poland with the establishment of a respective section in the Polish Sociological Association. We argue that environmental sociology in Poland and the broader area of Central and Eastern Europe has made an important contribution to international research on relations between humanity and nature in the Anthropocene. This paper presents the current state of the art in Polish environmental sociology and discusses future research questions. Our contribution is based on a literature review and the results of a workshop with Polish environmental sociologists. Future research areas discussed in this paper emerge from the following five main thematic domains: (I) social aspects of nature conservation; (II) environmental groups and movements; (III) sustainable development and the participation of local communities in rural and urban areas; (IV) environmental risks and threats and (V) and energy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyses the neighborhood relations within late-socialist blocks of flats (LSBF) in contemporary Poland. LSBF were a response to the housing famine of the post-war years and were constructed with the ideas and tools provided by the followers of Le Corbusier's modernism. LSBF were part of latesocialist housing policy. They still constitute a very important element of the urban landscape and have served as a source of inspiration for subsequent development projects. This paper attempts to conceptualize neighborhoods in LSBF. It analyses the historical context of LSBF and presents the results of empirical studies conducted in three different-sized locations: a small town (Wronki), a large city (Poznan), and a metropolis and at the same time the country's capital (Warsaw). The paper employs comparative statistical analysis, considering variables that may affect neighborhood specificity. The results of our study indicate a relatively high degree of vitality in neighborhood ties among residents in LSBFs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the findings of research aimed at verifying Peter H. Kahn Jr.'s thesis on environmental generational amnesia. It was conducted in 2022 in a local community affected by environmental contamination. The settlement in Szopienice contained a non-ferrous metals plant, which operated for several decades and had negative impacts on the surrounding area. The consequences were particularly severe for local children, who suffered from lead poisoning. To verify Kahn's thesis, the researchers conducted 17 in-depth interviews with the inhabitants of Szopienice.During analysis of the interviews, the authors were mainly interested in the strategies the interviewees used to reduce the cognitive dissonance between the state of environmental contamination in Szopienice, as they remember it, and today's knowledge of the magnitude of environmental contamination. The theoretical framework for this analysis was the study of collective memory, with particular emphasis on exploring the concept of normality and with reference to the concepts of Alfred Schütz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more and more societies are transforming into cashless economies, questions about the social nature of this transformation are arising. With this paper we present specific insights into the process of the institutionalization of cashlessness in Poland. The process is analyzed from the perspective of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We advance the idea that the institutional field of cashlessness is emerging with similar pressures. In this field—as we argue using the concept of Powell and DiMaggio—SMEs experience a coercive institutional isomorphism. We show that the complex impact of interlocked social interactions, financial sanctions, narrations, values and norms are creating the matrix for SMEs’ decision whether to implement cashless payments into their business. The analysis is based on 74 individual in-depth interviews with SMEs owners. The paper is grounded in qualitative research design and the theory of neo-institutionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how an organization tries to restore trust after an organizational-level scandal by examining the trust repair process. The study adopts a qualitative research approach to analyze the case of the scandal at Temple University’s Fox School of Business concerning the submission of false data to the ranking body. This paper shows the importance of trust between education institutions and the society and how it is difficult to rebuild it after violation. While dealing with trust rebuilding at the organizational level, we should consider not only the prior reputation of the organization, but also appropriate timing of trust repair mechanisms and number of actors involved in the trust failure situation. This paper also presents the trust rebuilding actions in a novel institutional setting, that is, in case of the business school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interest in changing social ties in urban neighbourhoods has generated sociological debate for decades. This paper contributes to this debate by focusing on the relationship between community and neighbourhood formation in the development of an informal settlement. While informal urbanisation is widely researched, the attention is usually placed on urban planning and development rather than a socio-spatial aspect. Drawing on an ethnographic case study, this paper analyses the transformation of agricultural land to urban settlement following residents’ self-organisation in Mexico City. The case study shows how social ties developed alongside collaboration between residents, highlighting a relationship between the social and spatial processes. Collaborative processes from small neighbour groups to broader neighbourhood-wide projects that contributed to the delivery of basic services and urban infrastructure also enabled the formation of community support networks. The findings highlight the intertwined nature of community and neighbourhood formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terms "rural social movement" or "peasant movement" are used in many different senses and there is a need to systematize the theoretical concept of rural social movements (RSM) in the European, and especially post-communist context in order to understand the protest activity of agrarian communities. RSM have been present throughout the post-transition period in Poland, but the concept is applicable in other European contexts as well. This paper is an account of the origins and development of RSM in Poland. The focus is on Agrounia [Agrounion], understood as a social movement with distinct characteristics. Protest Event Analysis is used to collect information of rural protests in 2012-2022 and results are presented. Analyses indicate that there is a continuity in RSM goals, tactics and social base and Agrounia replicates the model adopted by Samoobrona [Self-Defence] in the 1990s. RSM are also considered as a political actors. They operate outside of the main established political blocs and avoid the cultural-historical cleavages determining Polish politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes current production practices taking place in the sound industry, concentrating on the process of implementation and popularization of Creative Commons. Existing studies have considered the role of classical copyright in the creative industries, pointing at its functions in regulating the creative process, but so far have not extensively examined its relationship to alternative intellectual property frameworks. This paper uses the empirical example of the largest sound repository to describe the change occurring in cultural production. The article posits that mass popularization of Creative Commons provokes transformation within three key and intersecting areas of production, including the subjects of property (creators), objects of property (creations) and articulation of usage (source information). The paper theoretically frames and expands our understanding of change provoked by open licensing and its relationship to the creative production process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing 2018 European Social Survey data in a multilevel framework, the paper aims to estimate the effect of working for low pay on a wide range of political attitudes and to explain the attitudinal differences between the Central and Eastern European (CEE) and Western European regions based on their differing socioeconomic and political background. The results suggest that it is mainly the lower living standard of inhabitants together with widespread wage inequality and not the specific legacy of the communist regimes that undermine the individual's perception of influence on politics, political confidence and satisfaction with democracy in CEE. The results also indicate that working for low pay has a significant positive effect on the individual's trust in politicians, but the relationship is moderated by the country's economic development and is only significant in rich countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we set out to understand the housing pathways of older people who live in precarious prosperity in rural Romania. The stratum of precarious prosperity (Budowski et al. 2010) is a rather invisible and heterogenous social category whose household strategies and biographies are particularly understudied. Our purpose is to describe and explain micro-events in the housing histories of older Romanians belonging to this stratum and to understand agency in housing strategies in time and space. The data we use comes from a qualitative panel study conducted in a rural community in Romania. The results show that the housing pathways available to older people in the village studied are strongly embedded in family ties, intergenerational support, and co-residence housing strategies, as well as in housing policies that provide inadequate institutional support for meeting housing standards and increasing the quality of housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 2020, the "new coronavirus", SARS-CoV-2, started one of the most significant health crises in the modern world. China was the initial source of the pandemic and the first country to deal with its broad consequences which, apart from medical concerns, included severe social and economic costs. The farreaching adverse outcomes of the pandemic meant a need for intensive educational campaigns, explaining the epidemiological aspects related to COVID-19. This paper studies Chinese materials educating children on health, and ways to protect against infection and further virus spread. It concentrates on cultural values, emotions, and means of expressions present in the analyzed resources. Among significant findings, notions of Confucian values, the Taoist vision of harmony, patriotic content, and nationalist ressentiment are identified. The study also recognizes unique forms of expression represented by metaphors, symbols, and specific local audiovisual themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The platform economy--a phenomenon attracting public and academic attention alike--is perceived as a tremendous novelty. The Internet and other IT technologies that bring such platforms alive are said to determine their innovative and modern label. This paper argues otherwise. The role of information infrastructure cannot be properly analysed without discovering the content of labour relations behind it. From the perspective of this paper, the latter is similar to the historical putting-out system. The system that arose in the 18th century and whose participants came from the ranks of formally free, home base labour was strikingly congruous with the modern work-on-demand system. The paper analyzes the features of the contemporary gig economy and points out similarities and differences between the historical putting-out system and its digital incarnation. In conclusion, the paper makes some predictions regarding work on platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the problem of the social output of the leisure running boom as a relatively durable phenomenon of nowadays global scope. The concept of the "social footprint" to describe the social consequences and impact of the phenomenon of interest, is proposed, developed and implemented. Analysis conducted is focused on Poland as an exemplary country under social, political and economic modernization. The first two decades of the 21st century constitute the time frame of the study performed. The collected and analyzed empirical data allow us to claim that the running boom contributed to the progress of Polish modernization in the form of reconstruction of social structure (macro-social level), generation of social capital, strengthening of the position of local government, modernization of rural and urban landscape in social and spatial dimension (mezzo-social level) and changes in gender roles (micro-social level). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on Grażyna Skąpska's theory of the constitution as a theory of the society, the paper considers the 'theory of the society' provided by the constitutions (public law) of illiberal political regimes, applying a socio-legal perspective. Illiberal democracies are understood as electorally endorsed regimes produced by populism. The present paper concentrates on EU member states, using Hungarian examples. The constitution is understood as a symbolic order with a vision of society that changes social and political realities. The paper argues that illiberal constitutions do not need to depart from mainstream liberal constitutions, notwithstanding the strong nationalist element. The constitutional reality is mostly sub-constitutional and it operates at the level of statutes. The emerging political structure is based on the primacy of the executive branch which in turn serves personalistic rule in the tradition of Weberian Caesarism. The rule is centralistic and creates and consolidates social, cultural and economic dependencies. Following Szelenyi and Max Weber, this traditionalist, and therefore antiliberal society (or the selection of these social structures among competing formations by the political management of the society) is described in terms of neo-feudalism. The emerging social relations are reflected in and enabled by public law. The illiberalism of the regimes is not imposed on society and it is greeted as liberation by a considerable part. This genuine sentiment, together with electoral and media manipulation is capable to sustain the illiberal personalistic regime through formally democratic processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While biobanks constitute an indispensable source of scientific data, they also generate many concerns related to the ethical, legal and social aspects of acquiring and storing of human biological material, particularly when it comes to the matters of privacy and confidentiality of data and commercialization of research results. It is important as social perception of biobanking may have a bigger impact on the donors than real scientific achievements, while negative images of biobanks may negatively influence the readiness to donate. This, in turn, may impede the functioning of biobanks. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the main social anxieties related to gathering and usage of human biological material. Beginning with the concept of geneticization, the paper will tackle the most important social concerns regarding biobanking: creation of a unique genohype, geneticization of diagnostics and identity, the risk of genetic discrimination and commercialization of genetics and gene patenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant notion of gender identity in Poland has been strongly influenced by essentialist concepts of gender roles. Consequently, transgender youths and their parents often experience social stigmatization, with the latter having their parenting skills called into question by people in their surrounding social environment. This has caused self-accusation among many parents, which may have influenced their own attitudes towards their children’s gender identity. The following paper details the subsequent outcomes of a qualitative research study conducted in Poland among the parents of transgender youths. The results of this research show the attitudes of trans youths parents towards their children’s gender identity; the initial reactions to their children coming out; their personal feelings; the process of reframing and reworking their stances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Western world, the “Stonewall Inn riots” of 1969 represent a turning point in the history of LGBT (urban) rights claiming. They gave a contribution to a morphological transformation of the Western cities, where there has been a gradual “homo-colonization” of different metropolitan districts, through the creation of the so-called LGBT neighborhood. Adopting a territorial perspective, the paper aims to examine the levels of inclusion of sexual minorities in Europe and if they can imagine expansive possibilities for a life beyond the “gayborhood.” Examining the relationship among the level of social acceptance of gender and sexual minorities, their civil rights and the formation of LGBT communities in cities and the social functions they perform in Europe, the sociological analysis offers a classification of all European countries into 4 classes. The work concludes with some critical reflections through which the authors consider the implications of their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our conceptual paper argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has created conditions for the constitution of a new historical generation in Mannheimian terms. Current attempts in the sociology of youth to reconcile structure and agency with the concept of generation provide good starting points for interpreting a historical event such as the COVID-19 pandemic. While generations are not to be understood as homogeneous groups, constituting events can be compared to an asteroid that changes the trajectory of each social group. Thus, the concept of asteroid-effect helps us to overcome oversimplifying generational interpretations and to examine the effects of generation-forming events with an eye on structural inequalities. Our study provides an overview of the classical generational theory of Mannheim in light of some contemporary approaches. Based upon existing information, we illustrate how the generation-forming events can be interpreted and how structural inequalities can be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contrary to a longstanding tradition of associating the attractive force of the modern economy with its unbridled materialism, I claim in my paper that the power of capitalism lies in the transfer of human desire into the realm of the abstract. Our passionate attachment to the capitalist system stems from its money-mediated capability to organize the infinite: money is a special form of structuring infinity, which I term the "count to infinity." The paper develops this concept, drawing on three in-depth analyses offered by Georg Simmel in his The Philosophy of Money: first, the infinite structure of value, or, money as bad infinity; second, money as the pure vehicle of life; and third, money as the "absolute means." It is my main contention that by moving human desire into the realm of the abstract, money has provided life with a vessel to elevate itself to a higher plane of energy, thus transcending the bounds of the human species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the welfare states in the post-Communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe, which are members of the European Union. It applies the welfare regime typology methodology, partly developed by Esping-Andersen, as a framework for this research. The paper examines the two main predictions that emerged from the literature on the future of the welfare states in Central and Eastern Europe. Firstly, was the thesis that these welfare states would not fit easily into any of the existent models in Western Europe. Secondly, that these welfare states would gradually converge with one or more of the welfare regimes existent in the West. We have used hierarchical cluster analysis to check the extent of this welfare convergence/divergence over the first ten year period after the eastern expansion of the European Union (2004 and 2014). We discovered that in 2004 the postcommunist countries were divided between two clusters, although by 2014 all of the post-Communist countries (apart from Slovenia) had grouped together in one separate cluster. Therefore a process of divergence from the western European welfare models and a convergence between the post-Communist welfare states had actually occurred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author interprets the changing role of mass media in social processes over recent decades. Society's perception of mass media is also investigated, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. The author explores mass media's position in the societies of the region, asking how these societies interpret media messages. He analyzes the context of people's reservations about media messages (people's misgivings, conditioned by social history). One of the key arguments of the paper is that the majority of audiences in the countries concerned have grown more sceptical of mass media messages than have the audiences of Western European countries. According to the author, various social groups consider that the mass media is heavily politicized and that its construction of reality has little in common with their own interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether socio-economic status influences residential outcomes (e.g. proximity to Whites) equally across minority groups. Using tract-level data from 2000 U.S. Census for Los Angeles County, California, this paper investigates the relationship between high income status of a neighborhood and proximity to Whites by mapping residential distribution of major racial groups in comparison to residential patterns of affluent minorities in Los Angeles. The findings have implications for theories of residential segregation and locational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the micro data of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2017, this paper analyzes the logical relationship between intergenerational care, intergenerational support and subjective well-being of the elderly. The study found that intergenerational care can significantly enhance the subjective well-being of the elderly, and there are age and income heterogeneity. Further analysis found that there is a partial mediating effect of intergenerational support in the effect of intergenerational care on the subjective well-being of the elderly. Based on this, it is necessary to build an elderly care service system that is coordinated by home-based community institutions and combined with medical care and health care, vigorously develop an inclusive nursery service system, establish and improve the nursery policy and mechanism, and promote the professional and standardized development of infant care services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature and effects of party identification in post-communist democracies have been an object of disputes, as the existing research does not lead to conclusive results. The present paper contributes to the discussion with analyses of four-fold typology of partisans (Rose, Mishler 1998), who either have a positive or negative party identification, or both, or none. We embed this typology in a contemporary Polish context. Using the PNES data for the 2005–2019 elections, we examine the proportions of each type of partisanship and their stability in time. We also verify what their determinants are and what their influence on electoral participation is. Our results demonstrate that positive and negative party identifications are of rational origin, although since 2015, expressive partisanship is also developing. We also prove that positive, negative, and combined motivations make Poles more prone to vote, contributing to the stability of democracy on a behavioral level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of this paper is the acknowledgement that the DNA of populism is democratic. At the same time, it may bring undemocratic or even counter-democratic consequences when it questions and contests liberalism and pluralism. This paper maps the key arguments on the relations between populism and authoritarianism and discusses the risk of democratic backsliding as a result of authoritarian populism gaining power. This topic is critically important and growing urgent with the rising wave of populism across the Western world. Due to its chameleonic nature, populism (as a "thin-centered" or "empty-hearted" ideology) manifests itself in various (re)incarnations and intertwines with nationalism, libertarianism and also radical left-wing ideas or any other ideology from across the wide political spectrum. First, the author reconstructs the historicity of populism as well as the most important ways of defining it. Second, he reflects on the major arguments about the consequences for democracy of populist politics. Finally, in conclusion, he discusses the threat of authoritarianism that populism brings to liberal democracy and democracy as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyse the media coverage provided by two Polish daily newspapers (Gazeta Wyborcza and Przegląd Sportowy) during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games according to the athletes' gender. The paper makes reference to agenda setting theory and media framing and it is based on an analysis of photographs of the games on the front pages and the sporting articles' main themes. The analysis reveals that the press focused mainly on the Polish medal winners and did not reveal significant differences between women's and men's press coverage. Results show that the discourse of nationalism overrode the discourse of gender, the newspapers' coverage being mainly based on the success of the Polish athletes, regardless of their gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a conceptual framework for interpreting the process of rural gentrification in Central and Eastern Europe. It highlights the commonalities and differences of the phenomenon as they relate to its dynamics, trends and spatial patterns. The analysis shows two trajectories of rural gentrification: seasonal interest in rural areas and related to suburbanization, in which endogenous and exogenous factors of rural gentrification can be distinguished. The author sees the reasons for the uniqueness of the process in the socio-historical specifics of the region: its agrarian character at the beginning of the 20th century, the specific ethnic composition of the middle class in the interwar period, under-urbanization in the period of real socialism and the process of post-communist transformation creating a "capitalist class without capital." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study on participatory budgeting in Poland, analyzing participatory budgeting procedures. We apply the typology of participation models proposed by Sintomer, and based on the previous research we investigate which model of participatory budgeting is characteristic for Poland. This study covered 49 cases of participatory budgeting implementation in Western Poland, mainly in the Wielkopolska Province and the neighboring provinces. The results show that none of the municipalities covered by the study had a relatively pure participatory budgeting model, as proposed by Sintomer. The procedures in the analyzed municipalities can be characterized as the patchwork participatory budgeting model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper relates the results of the latest one of a series of municipal surveys concerning European funds' influence on local development to economic and public opinion evaluations of the effects of EU policies in Poland. The research conducted in 2019-2020 and gathering the views of local governments is confronted with general economic and sociological evaluations in the field of the impact of EU funds in Poland. The study captured the perceived effects of two programming periods (2007-2020) as well as barriers and obstacles in their implementation at the local level. An ambiguity in perceiving supply-side effects still needs further studies, while the aspect of improving the quality of life is visible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze the phenomenon of parents' managing the stigma of their child's disability. Using Erving Goffman's concept of stigma, I point to its usefulness in understanding the management of stigma by parents of children with intellectual disability. I also stress the usefulness of the category of stigma in the context of how the parents work on their identity. The results of research indicate that the parents of children with a disability live with a sense of stigma in regard to their children. Parents adopt various ways of managing this stigma in connection with whether their child's disability is visible or not. Managing stigma may involve revealing or concealing a child's disability. In the research, qualitative techniques were used, with special emphasis on an unstructured interview. Data analysis was performed in accordance with the procedures of grounded theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on intergenerational mobility and explores the role of social origin in ending up in various class locations. Latent class analysis was applied to mapping the class structure based on economic, cultural and social assets. Parental education and occupation are used to examine how social origin operates in accumulating the various forms of capital and in getting into different class positions. Out of the forms of capital, economic resources, high cultural capital and prestige of social contacts depend particularly on social origin; these are the main channels affecting mobility into the best class locations. If coming from low educated worker class background, one may get only into one of the bottom class locations, while members of the top class positions come from families where parents hold tertiary degree and have high occupational status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the extent to which religiosity entails special choices of values, the differences between the values of religious and non-religious people and whether there are significant dissimilarities in the ways they relate to politics in Hungary. The results derived from our representative sample have shown the dual nature of the value orientations of people who consider themselves religious. The attitude of religious people is characterized by a duality of leader cult and secularised belief. Predominantly religious people hold secularized values, but their personal life worlds reflect an inherited traditionalism concerning their viewpoint on their political leader. Consequently, they have a positive attitude towards governmental measures which result in restrictions on constitutional and parliamentary government, as well as on the Western system of democratic institutions, while at the same time they are drifting away from their Christian values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the past few decades have been marked by a rapid development of biotechnologies, it significantly precedes the social understanding of genetic phenomena. At the same time, as biotechnologies have become an object of public interest, popular culture, particularly movies, plays an increasingly important role in shaping the public attitudes towards biotechnologies. Thus, by stressing the impact of popular culture on the social understanding of science, this paper aims to describe the dominant genetic tropes portrayed in the cinema. By analysing 175 movies that relate to biotechnologies produced between 1953 and 2018, it analyses seven main themes: 1) the general image of genetics, 2) genetic procedures 3) mutations, 4) DNA, 5) genetic essentialism, 6) the nature versus nurture debate, and 7) biofears generated in the movies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic research in 28 young middle-class households in Warsaw, this paper examines the money practices of couples living together, including how they set rules for budgeting, spending, and saving money. Drawing from practice theory and working with evidence gathered among young Poles, the paper shows how the couples jointly create a financial arrangement and then ground it in daily practices, transform it, and adjust it to changing circumstances. As the partners share a practical understanding and the rules are intelligible to each of them, this arrangement reflects the current order in the given household. By reconstructing the explicit or tacit beliefs as to why certain money practices are appropriate, desirable, acceptable, or completely inadmissible, this paper argues that everyday money practices are moral in nature and that a financial arrangement requires moral justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the five East-Central European states have a common historical trajectory as a region, in which Poland fits to both the conceptual framework and to the average data, being on some issues somewhat better, on some other issues somewhat worse than the ECE average. Therefore, the paper denies the thesis of Poland's "singularity" that presupposes the special situation of Poland, very different from the ECE region based on a particular success story in the last Quarter-Century and/or during the EU membership. It means also that the latest developments in Poland can push the country to more divergence from the EU mainstream as it has been the case in the 2010s with Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of some of the main theories of the welfare state. It builds upon Polanyi's theory of the double-movement and relates this to Bourdieu's concept of multiple capitals. It argues that the welfare state can be understood as a form of public capital, both in an economic and sociological sense. The welfare state emerges and is maintained due to a social countermovement that at least partly removes areas of socio-economic life out of commodity relations. In turn this creates public capital, which is both economic and social. In the post-Communist countries most of this public capital was created during a period when almost the whole of economic and social life was controlled by the state. Once the Communist system collapsed, so the accompanying policy of full-employment and system of social welfare organised through state enterprises disappeared. This was met with a large rise in unemployment and labour deactivation, meaning that many social benefits were created during the initial years of the transition. Also, the post-Communist systems inherited large amounts of public capital in the form of public services such as health and education. Through the example of Poland this paper analyses how this public capital was initially maintained and even developed during the early transition period, but then how a process of commodifying it was later begun. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic premise of the paper is that the study of formal and informal processes has moved beyond the formality-informality debate. Forms which may be termed as hybrid formalities and hybrid informalities are more and more often encountered in the literature. However, these hybrid types are pretty much under construction, and they occur in a rather disparate manner. So that, there is need of a systematic approach which would conceptualize them within a broader typology. The paper advances such a typology of hybrid formalities and informalities. For the sake of conceptual unity, these are drafted in the same theoretical framework--the structuralist perspective on informal economy. Eventually, the systematization of this typology of hybrids leads to the formulation of some general findings about the manner in which sociologists relate to formality and informality in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the paper is to analyze how members of Polish society perceive young people (around 30 years of age) and old people (over 65), their social and cultural capital, their position in society, and the roles they should play in private and public life before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Polish society is aging and the birth rate is low. Analysis demonstrates that certain opinions about the old and young are common among Polish citizens and the factors that in other countries differentiate opinions in this regard do not do so in Poland. The image of older people is based on stereotypes. Young people in particular believe that seniors should not be active on the labor market or in politics but should provide informal help to the young generation in the private sphere. The young generation is more individualistically oriented, while older people are more concerned with the collective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Values Study (EVS), which has been conducted in Poland since 1990, allows changes in attitudes to ethnic diversity to be examined. This text will analyze changes in Poles' tolerance of "the new others" in the context of uncertainties related to the political, economic, and socio-cultural transformations of the past thirty years, with a focus on the last decade. The paper aims to unpack and understand attitudes to Poland's new ethnic diversity as well as to analyze the dynamism, relationality, and complexities of these changes. Rich empirical data from the European Values Study, focus-group interviews, and individual in-depth interviews are originally analyzed in relation to the concept of (super)diversity, the notion of (in)security, and the theories of complexity and individualization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the meanings attributed to work in contemporary Polish society in the context of Inglehart and Welzel's claim regarding the passage from survival to self-expression values. Research has documented a systematic decline in the position of work on the list of the most important values. However, work is also documented as being of fundamental importance for identity, self-esteem, and the delimitation of social categories. The authors offer a mixed-methods approach to the issue of work. Based on quantitative data gathered through the EVS, they place Poland in the context of European trends pertaining to the significance and centrality of work. Using qualitative evidence, the authors identify and reconstruct the key social representations employed to think about and discuss work-related issues. In conclusion, they point to structural elements of the social imaginary of work that result in the coexistence of different (often contradictory) perceptions of this sphere of social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of historically shaped sociocultural factors and economic resources on the quality of governance and bureaucratic efficiency in Central East European regions. Eastern Europe's economic heritage is of greater significance for social capital than is affiliation with Catholic or Protestant cultural circles. The impact of individualism on the quality of governance is indirect. Individualism favors trust and self-organizing, and the rivalry and pressure of interest groups contributes to the quality of governance at the national and regional level. In EU regions as a whole, social capital is more important for the quality of governance and bureaucratic efficiency than GDP. In CEE regions, the administrative entities involved in spending EU funds work with greater efficiency than might be expected given the regions' low economic resources and social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the way democracy is perceived and understood in Poland and other European societies. Citizens usually assess political systems from the perspective of their everyday experience. This experience is then reflected both in their expectations of democracy and in their evaluation of the system's performance. The present article focuses on the conditioning of citizens' commitment to democracy. Is the notion of democracy understood in the same way across Europe? Or, if it has some regional flavors, what are the key dimensions of the differences? Additional attention is paid to Poland, where a two-dimensional pattern of perceiving democracy is described. Each dimension is connected with a different level of important resources--economic, social, and cultural--and related to a separate set of values and expectations. The universality and specificity of the Central European perception of democracy is discussed. The analyses are based on the data of the European Values Study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to bridge the gap between contemporary scholars of democratization and researchers studying the political history of Ancient Greece. Although these two subfields already share important commonalities, they have remained indifferent to each other's work. I argue that the dēmos can serve as yet another area of convergence between them. The increased dialogue between these two research traditions should enrich scholarly debates in both subfields and it also offers an opportunity to address their methodological drawbacks. Specifically, contemporary democratization research tends to undervalue the significance of ordinary people in the democratization process. Conversely, scholars of the ancient Greek world have a tendency to be enigmatic about their use of research methods, which potentially perpetuates the perception that political theorists engage in anachronistic research. Thus, bridging these two camps offers a real opportunity to enrich them individually, as well as the democratization paradigm that underpins both of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the analysis of changes in perceiving subjective determinants of success in Poland, including implicit attitudes towards the idea of meritocracy. On the basis of factor analysis, we have prepared two scales for the 'meritocratic' and 'family and friends' dimensions of opinion about path to success. We investigate how support for these scales is differentiated and influenced by socio-demographic characteristics and social class. We accompany in the paper the analysis of 'meritocratic' and 'family and friends' scales with the analysis of the changing support for individual determinants, such as for example 'hard work', 'good education' and 'knowing the right people'. We examine how the opinion of the same group of people on path to success changes over time and to which extend radical changes have occurred in the perception of certain determinants. Our analyses are based on data from the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN, 1988-2013), where the question as to what conditions success in life was asked in every survey wave. It provides an opportunity to compare attitudes towards success from just before regime transformation and every five years thereafter. We place in the paper a particular emphasis in the paper on previously unanalysed data from the years 2008-2013. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature by showing that discrepancies in leisure time Physical activity between transition and non-transition countries are mainly due to lower activity by persons, who are in relationship, are older, reside in rural areas and/or have a lower income. Unlike existing studies our results of logit models show that, controlling for all other variables, females are equally likely (in transition economies) or more likely (in non-transition economies) to be regularly active in their leisure time than males. We believe that the reason for differences in results is omitted variable bias, since papers that find women to be less active do not control for person's income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]