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Based on the analysis of the diaries written by the unemployed, the article investigates the relationship between the experience of unemployment and family relations of women and men. The authors argue that gender differentiates both the causes and consequences of unemployment. In the case of women, the following problems are indicated: the exit from the labor market due to child birth or child care, concomitant with the pressure for the care period prolongation, depreciation of housework, gendered ascription of the responsibility of care for the dependent, and the unequal economic resources. Four types of unemployed women are identified in the article: (1) the supported cohabitants in the waiting room, (2) undervalued housewives without a full-time job, (3) lonely super-women with children, and (4) childless family rocks. For men, the unemployment turns out to be a particularly difficult experience due to the loss of a breadwinner status and a privileged position. Three basic types of unemployed men can be distinguished on the basis of the analysed material: (1) housewives in trousers, (2) fallen fathers, and (3) prodigal sons.

The authors root their text in the traditions of memoir/diary research in Poland. They present the basic assumptions of collecting diaries through a competition in 2017–2018 and of research on this material. The authors review contemporary studies of unemployment. At the backdrop of the dominant perspective looming from these studies, they outline a new dimension of unemployment as a social issue stemming from the research of the diaries’ content. They focus on the authors’ of diaries exclusion from the labor market and their resistance against taking up jobs below qualifications. The authors of diaries commonly point to the past exploitation in the workplace and simultaneous aspiration to take up work tailored to their self-estimated needs, potential and competences. In the article, several dimensions of the unemployment experience among young educated Poles are outlined with the reference to the ‘quality’ of available work, experience in looking for a job, contacts with labor administration, mental health problems or relationship crises.

Innovations are the essence of the successful organization. The process of their creation is strongly based on individual and team commitment to create improvements in every organizational area. This commitment is triggered by innovation climate including employee positive relationships (PRW) and supporting internal communication facets. The aim of the paper is to defi ne causal relations among the aforementioned variables. We hypothesize that positive relationships at work are a prerequisite of the innovation creation process, i.e. they stimulate employee commitment to innovation creation regardless of the employee position in an organization as well as infl uence internal communication facets that support innovativeness. Notably, among internal communication elements we analyze open communication of both good and bad information and employee informal meetings. The analyses are based on the quantitative survey conducted on the sample of 200 Polish companies representing various sectors and selected from rankings of the most dynamically developing organizations in Central Europe. In each company we obtained information from a person involved in leading a team creating innovations, i.e. representing different functional departments. In the course of data analyses we used the hierarchical regression and the linear regression analysis. The results support the hypotheses of PRW key role in the innovativeness process, and the effect appeared to be linear. Specifi cally, positive relationships at work stimulate both employee individual commitment to innovations and internal communication supporting innovativeness. These fi ndings contribute to the research stream connected with the Positive Organizational Scholarship umbrella concept. Practical implications of the survey point to the need of positive relationships at work stimulation in organizations.

This article aims at verifying the findings of Wilkinson and Pickett (2009) which point to a strong correlation between the income gap and the escalation of social problems. Wilkinson and Pickett’s thesis states that all kinds of social problems are directly connected to the scale of social inequality in a given country. This article tests this concept by analysing the relation between the income gap in a particular country and the cultural activity of its citizens. The study assumes that low cultural activity can be defined as a social problem in modern European knowledge societies that are based on cultural industry. This relation is investigated in 22 European Union countries. The study demonstrates that there is a strong correlation between cultural activity and the scale of social inequality. In egalitarian countries the cultural activity is high, in highly stratified countries it is low.

Over the last decade researchers paid considerable attention to the conditions needed for innovation emergence and implementation. However, the issue concerning the influence of employee relationships in a workplace on the organizational innovativeness has received little attention in research. On the ground of the studies carried out in Polish companies we are trying to narrow the gap in the field. The correlation and regression analysis of the research participant opinions showed that positive relationships at work stimulate employees, regardless of their position and job description, not only to come up with innovative ideas but also to develop the innovations proposed by others. So the executives managing organizations should focus on all kinds of factors creating positive relationships at work. We assume that the results presented in the paper may be regarded as a contribution to both the Positive Organizational Scholarship umbrella concept and to the Research stream concerning the conditions for being successful at innovation creation and implementation Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00.

There are several analyses of the attitudes of Polish society towards refugees and Islam believers in Polish sociology; however, it lacks deepened qualitative consideration of its class dimension. The article presents results of the analysis of material collected by the research team of Maciej Gdula who in May and June 2017 carried out biographical and scenario interviews with inhabitants of a small town located in central Poland. In order to preserve anonymity of our interviewees the town was called “Miastko.” The article concerns the problem of diversity of attitudes towards refugees among people from working and middle classed. The material let the author analyse interviewees’ attitudes towards accepting refugees in Poland, their assessment of the European Union’s activities in the refugee crisis and ways of helping refugees and refugees preferred by respondents using analyses of class dispositions and the dynamics of habitus characteristic to working and middle classes. In the article the category of islamophobia is used. Islamophobia is a phenomenon occurring both in the working class and in the middle class, however, class ways of expressing it differ. The article omits the issue of the upper class due to the specifics of the study location. The reluctance of middle class representatives towards refugees is focused on their alleged refusal to accept the rules of host societies, whereas the representatives of working class justify their disagreement with accepting refugees with their reluctance to work and expectations regarding social payments. The biographical method and semi-structured in-depth interviews were applied in the data collection process. Biographical interviews in the analysis are treated as auxiliary material. They were analysed in accordance with the rules of biographical analysis. Semi-structured interviews were coded using the NVivo program and then analysed in a comparative perspective. In addition to class membership, gender and generation dimension were also taken into account. W polskiej socjologii znaleźć można wiele analiz stosunku społeczeństwa polskiego do uchodźców i wyznawców islamu; brakuje w nich jednak pogłębionego, jakościowego uwzględnienia wymiaru klasowego. Niniejszy tekst prezentuje wyniki analizy materiału zebranego przez zespół Macieja Gduli, który w maju i czerwcu 2017 realizował wywiady biograficzne i scenariuszowe z mieszkańcami małego miasta zlokalizowanego w centralnej Polsce. Miasto to dla celów zachowania anonimowości naszych rozmówczyń i rozmówców nazwane zostało „Miastkiem”. Artykuł podejmuje problematykę zróżnicowania stosunku do uchodźców wśród osób z klasy ludowej i klasy średniej. Stosunek badanych do przyjmowania uchodźców, ocena działań Unii Europejskiej wobec kryzysu uchodźczego oraz preferowane przez badanych sposoby pomocy uchodźcom i uchodźczyniom powiązane została w analizie z dyspozycjami klasowymi i dynamiką habitusów charakterystycznych dla klas ludowej i średniej. W artykule wykorzystana została kategoria islamofobii. Islamofobia jest zjawiskiem występującym zarówno w klasie ludowej, jak i w klasie średniej, odmienne są natomiast sposoby jej wyrażania. Niechęć przedstawicieli i przedstawicielek klasy średniej wobec uchodźców koncentruje się na ich domniemanej odmowie akceptacji reguł społeczeństw przyjmujących, przedstawiciele klasy ludowej natomiast uzasadniali niezgodę na przyjęcie uchodźców ich niechęcią do pracy i oczekiwaniami dotyczącymi wypłat socjalnych. W procesie gromadzenia danych wykorzystano metodę wywiadu biograficznego (Schütze 2012; Bertaux 2012) i wywiadu pogłębionego częściowo ustrukturyzowanego. Wywiady biograficzne w niniejszej analizie traktowane są jako materiał pomocniczy. Oprócz przynależności klasowej uwzględniono również wymiar genderowy i pokoleniowy. Artykuł powstał na podstawie danych zgromadzonych w ramach projektu badawczego Prawicowy zwrot w polityce a doświadczenie biograficzne prowadzonego pod kierunkiem dr hab. Macieja Gduli, realizowanego przez Instytut Studiów Zaawansowanych. Projekt zrealizowany został przy wsparciu finansowym Fundacji im. Friedricha Eberta Przedstawicielstwo w Polsce. Publikacja współfinansowana w ramach programu Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego pod nazwą „Narodowy Program Rozwoju Humanistyki” – projekt nr 11H 12 0305 81 (umowa nr 0027/NPRH2/H11/81/2012) pt. „Archiwum Danych Jakościowych przy IFiS PAN”, realizowany w latach 2012–2018 w Instytucie Filozofii i Socjologii PAN.