The purpose of this article is to analyse the relations between students’ cultural and social capital and their competence test results in the field of the Polish language. The data come from the research carried out in 2013 in 60 middle schools in 5 provinces of Poland. Students filled in survey questionnaires regarding their school and family environment and 3 competence tests. Two types of socio-cultural capital were distinguished – soft and hard capital. The hard socio-cultural capital affects approximately 10% of the students’ results. If the soft and hard capital resources and the extent of identification with school were increased by one level, this would result in an average increase in the 1st form students’ results of the test regarding cultural texts analysis and interpretation by 21.4%.

The article is aimed at presenting the category of science capital as a new category in the field of pedagogical research. Science capital as a construct was proposed in the second decade of the 21st century by the team of Louise Archer from King’s College. This category consists of: (1) scientific forms of cultural capital, (2) behavior and practices related to science, and (3) scientific forms of social capital. The text presents the development of this concept together with a discussion of its elements and their meaning. Scientific capital can be one of the greatest wealth of society, and its use depends on the future development of not only individual units, but also the country and the possibility of high achievements in the fields of science. This is a very current issue, therefore it is important to better understand the shaping of the science capital of young people. The text also reviews the previous empirical studies devoted to the analyzed category. On this basis, it was concluded that scientific capital as an educational variable is still subjected to reconceptualization, requires refinement and further exploration.

The right to education is at the heart of the notion of cultural rights, established in basic laws and international treaties. Meanwhile, outside the official educational system, the phenomenon of tutoring is becoming an increasingly influential factor contributing to the deepening of inequalities in access to education. This article presents the results of research carried out using the survey method - auditorium questionnaire, on the total population of the first-year students of first-cycle programme and long-cycle Master’s programme at the University of Rzeszów. The aim of the article was to indicate the cultural and social factors that determine the use of private tutoring by the surveyed students. The University of Rzeszów is the largest public institution of higher education in south-eastern Poland. The research provided interesting conclusions for the discussion on the development of informal education in the form of additional paid lessons and their impact on the formal education system in Poland.

The hallmark of French thinker undoubtedly is worthy of critical attention. To make this task feasible, the paper focuses not on the secondary literature, but on Bourdieu’s work itself. Thanks to what follows, one is able to establish whether the conception of various capitals stands up to analytical scrutiny. And an outcome of this examination has even broader relevanceBourdieu is the most prolific exponent of an entire trend, much in vogue in social science recently. It would be difficult to indicate a field of inquiry in which this or that unorthodox, extra-economic concept of capital has not been deployed as a research tool. The result of this critical analysis are not encouraging; Bourdieu’s framework is plagued by economism or economic imperialism, and suffers from other limitations as well.

Education and mobility. The role of education in the migration process as exemplified by the study of Poles living in Scotland

The paper is an attempt to answer the question about relation between education and mobility in condition of changing society. For this purpose was used survey research conducted amid post-accession migrants form Poland actually living in Scotland. The research was conducted in two stages, and participated in this 627 respondents living in varied part of Scotland. The first step was to conduct face-to-face interviews (258 respondents), while in the second stage was used CAWI method (Computer Assisted Web Interviews) (369 respondents). Collected empirical data has permitted to establish relation between degree level of education and migration motive of respondents. We can assume that factor explaining of that relation is cultural capital of man, which is collected during education process, in an institutionalized and embodied form. A ready-to-mobility attitude is a resource transmitted in socialization process. The longer individual attends to institutionalized form of education, the more often they manifested migration motivation focused on post-material values – willingness to meet a new challenge in live or assembling a new live experience connected to personal development.

This text is an attempt to reconstruct how emigrants from Poland adapted to the living conditions in Scottish society after Poland acceded to the European Union. Using the functional perspective, four potential forms of migrant adaptation were defined according to their relations with the social system of the host country. Assimilation, integration, marginalisation, and isolation were distinguished as four essential types occurring with different intensities and frequencies. The adaptation of migrants to new living conditions was analysed using these forms concerning the following three critical dimensions of human existence: the material, the cultural, and the social. It makes it possible to show the diversity of the adaptation strategies according to gender and the problem of working in jobs below one’s skill level. On the other hand, the analysis of the cultural and social dimensions made it possible to identify issues related to the accumulation of family social capital and difficulties in transferring cultural capital between the two countries. The survey also showed that Polish migrants have a high integration potential. However, situations where unfavourable or negative experiences of migrants intensify, may constitute a fundamental basis for developing an adaptation strategy that will result in the marginalisation of this group.

The study examined two types of parenting and their relationships with the parents’ involvement in the education of their children. A s mall-scale study1 of one classroom at a urban public school in the Czech Republic suggests that children from families with different backgrounds and different attained education perceive distinct types of parental upbringing styles in relation to their education achievement: the article discusses helicopter and submarine parenting. The main interest is dedicated to helicopter and submarine parenting in their weak and contradictory forms since the research revealed these two forms to be the most prevalent in the studied classroom. As the research data indicates, these two parental models are associated with specific dimensions of emotional capital. The survey revealed that the children of helicopter parents clearly benefit from parental involvement since their parents effectively transform their emotional capital into cultural capital.

The Role of Cultural Capital in Labour Market Positioning. An Empirical Study

The aim of this paper is to analyse selected conditions of professional achievements of young polish employees with higher education degrees. The number of graduates has raised significantly in the last twenty years and they are employed not only as the professionals, but also on the positions, which do not demand academic qualifications. The author makes the hypothesis that the amount of cultural capital (in Pierre Bourdieu comprehension) has influence on the position on the labour market. On the basis of the qualitative research, there are the premises to acknowledge the influence of cultural capital on professional achievements. The conclusion from the analysis of polish graduates’ biographies is that occupational position of the employees equipped equally in cultural capital in the institutionalized state (diploma) may depend on the competences acquired during socialization process, which refers to the cultural capital in the embodied state. The paper presents a typology of young employed graduates in terms of their work expectations. The typology reveals how the primary socialization and acquired cultural capital influence the young employees’ attitude to their work and career – if they are preservative and focused on safety guarantees, or creative, looking for their professional development and self-fulfillment.

One especially relevant key theme in Sociology of Education is to what extent parents’ cultural level has significant implications in students’ educational achievement and, as a consequence, in the social mobility inherently linked to level of education and professional training – that is, how far the so-called cultural capital has a meaningful influence on current Spanish society. In order to investigate this aspect, our purpose has been to make an analysis based on data coming from public opinion surveys carried out by major sociological and statistical Spanish institutions. Since recently, these data are freely available to researchers, what makes possible the access to viewpoints of large samples of respondents. In short, with a view in the two-generation transit throughout the Spanish educational system, we will observe the validity of patterns of social and cultural inequality still influencing – though not determining – the educational achievement of Spanish population and, therefore, its professional development.

On the basis of these analyses, we cannot say that cultural and social resources have no role to play at all in the process of individual educational decision-making. What this study shows is that these do not enable us to explain the effect of parental SES on educational choice. In the absence of such evidence and in the light of the patterns found in the pupils’ accounts, we think to find some support for a view of educational decision-making as being the result of rational calculation. In this calculation parents take their own situation as a point of reference, considering the (educational) resources on which they can rely