What Does Identity Mean for Young People in Poland?

This article focuses on young people in Poland and their ways of constructing identity. The research is based on fieldwork conducted in 2013-2014 among (605) Polish secondary school students. The respondents were asked to answer the “Twenty Statements Test” and, later on, to write down their own associations related to the notion of identity. The obtained data comprises answers provided by the respondents, whose places of residence are characterised by a high num- ber of people declaring nationality other than Polish (according to the Polish National Survey of 2011) and whose places of residence are homogenous in terms of national affi liations. The collected empirical data was suffi cient to indicate six milieus in which human identity is constructed: personality, gender, family, religion, language, and “space” (i.e., people’s identifications with a region, state, or nation). The first four milieus were very frequently placed in statements produced by the secondary school students. When confronted with the question “Who are you”, the secondary school students were no longer willing to say “I’m a Pole/ German/Silesian”. Perhaps the 21st century marks a time when nations or states are no longer relevant spaces of domestication and people are more willing to refer to cities or regions in their quest for identification.

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