In the first half of 2001 the US Department of State, following a request from the National Security Archive (a US non-governmental organisation), declassified documents relating to the Round Table negotiations, the presidential elections, the crisis over choice of a prime minister and the creation of government (coalition) in Poland in 1989. Those documents, highly confidential until their release, allow us to look at the most important events in the transformation in Poland from a different perspective, which has not yet been extensively analysed. In essence, they indicate the role of external factors which have influenced the political situation of Poland – the transformation and actual decomposition of communism. They include cables detailing the US embassy’s participation in, and its analysis of the events during Poland’s ‘revolution’.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of students’ teams – achievement divisions, team assisted individualization and traditional instruction on students’ conflict resolution and empathic tendencies. 240 5th grade students from three different schools participated in the study. To investigate the effect of different teaching approaches on 5th grade elementary school students’ conflict resolutions and empathic tendencies, conflict resolution (CRS) and empathic tendencies scales (ETS) were applied to the groups as pre – and post-tests. Students who experienced students’ teams – achievement divisions and team assisted individualization showed significantly higher mean scores in the dimension of problem solving in post-CRS and for post-ETS and low scores in the dimension of aggression in post-CRS than students who experienced traditional instruction.