Pogranicze jest kategorią, która doczekała się wielu rozstrzygnięć teoretycznych, zarówno na gruncie filozofii, jak i socjologii czy pedagogiki. Na potrzeby prezentowanych analiz przyjęłam kategorię pogranicza w ujęciu terytorialnym, w którym jest to obszar, wspólna przestrzeń, na której funkcjonują dwie lub więcej grupy etniczno-kulturowe. Formy współżycia ukształtowane są poprzez bycie obok – styczność z sobą i wzajemne kontakty. To przenikanie się, mieszanie kultur sprawia, że jest bardzo specyficznym terytorium. Przestrzeń, na której w sposób naturalny mogą zostać wypracowane normy warunkujące życie blisko siebie – mimo dostrzeganych różnic. Relacje na Pograniczu są zależne od wielu czynników. Część z nich związana jest z działaniami podejmowanymi indywidualnie przez poszczególne osoby, inne są inicjowane, promowane i realizowane przez różnego rodzaju instytucje, organizacje, związki i stowarzyszenia. Na Pograniczu polsko-czeskim w sposób bardzo intensywny rozwija się współpraca transgraniczna. W przygotowanym tekście prezentowane są analizy uzyskanych wyników badań prowadzonych wśród nauczycieli. Autorkę interesowało, czy badani angażują się w działania transgraniczne i jak je oceniają.

The contemporary socio-economic reality generates the need to create a life project that determines the direction of implementing important goals as well as of developing new competences. This inspires the individual to look for ways of thinking and behaving which can serve as protection against various risk factors. This applies to the factors which enhance socio-professional ambivalence, the difficulty of taking advantage of life opportunities and performing new social roles. The study introduces the subject of designing the future by academic youth. It is a group that, at the stage of entering adulthood, takes up the challenge of adequate learning about their own needs and confronting them with the value system, in order to realistically determine their capabilities, both at the emotional and behavioral level. Then they will be ready for their internal and external exploration. In early adulthood, developing a plan for life turns out to be both an important protective factor and a manifestation of proactivity. In this context, creating a plan for life can also mean taking care of oneself and one’s self-development.

Euroregions, their influence on the development of the Polish and Czech border The Polish-Czech borderland is a system of characteristic social realities and a place where two different cultures meet. The emergence of Euroregions creates opportunities for faster development of border areas and their integration. Cross-border cooperation is located in various frames of the borderland life that affect the everyday life of residents, i.e., in the spheres of the economy (cooperation between entrepreneurs), communication (expansion of the infrastructure and infostructural network), culture, sport and tourism, ecology, education and science (research, joint implementation of EU programmes), combating all crime, and warning and assistance in states of disasters and crises (e.g., in case of a flood, fire, epidemic threats). The research presented in the publication shows that there is still a need for a lasting good functioning of the Euroregions existing on the border of Poland and the Czech Republic. Keywords: Euroregion, borderland, cross-border cooperation, attitude, lifestyle

Threats to the Tri-City border area

This article is devoted to criminality related to exploitation of the state border. The focus in on threats that are its effect and have a negative impact on the frontier zone, taking as a reference the frontier zone of Tri-City. The border crossing on the area od Tri-City is depicted, as well as border traffic that takes place within it, with the division into border, land, aerial, overland and maritime crossing. In addition, the theoretical phenomena of migration is described through introducing related concepts. In the crucial part of this article border criminality that occurs in the board area is presented and characterized.

Kirkenes city as the capital of Barents Region and a symbol of Russian-Norwegian cooperation

The present paper is dedicated to small multicultural Norwegian city of Kirkenes, which because of its history and geographic location became a symbol of Norwegian- -Russian trans-border cooperation. The text is dedicated to the history of this Arctic city and the beginning, idea and realization of cooperation in Barents Region, which was initiated there in 1993 and the role played by the city in Norway-Russian bilateral relations.

Stress management strategies, a sense of perceived stress and assessment of depression risk in a group of students of the “Borderland University”

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between coping strategies, perceived stress and depression risk assessment in a group of students in the Polish-Czech borderland. 173 students from the University of Silesia participated in the study. The participants completed the Perceived Stress Scale, the Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale and the Multidimensional Inventory for Measuring Coping with Stress. The correlation analysis showed that strategies described as adaptive (e.g., active coping, positive reappraisal and development) are negatively related to the perceived stress and severity of depressive symptoms. In contrast, strategies that can be described as non-adaptive (e.g., disengagement, denial) presented opposite (i.e., positive) relationship effects with the perceived stress and depressiveness. In the light of the obtained data, it seems that the repertoire of coping methods presented by individuals to deal with stress may be reflected in their perception of situations as aggravating and in their assessment of the risk of depression. Thus, future psychopedagogical interventions should focus on building personal resources by shaping adaptive (and minimizing those nonadaptive) coping strategies to improve mental health among borderland students.

The basic notional category and the leading motif of the presented study is social experience of candidates for teachers. The reflection is grounded on the social psychology of development in the context of the reality experienced by the individual, the meanings applied to experiences (Tyszkowa, Przetacznikowa, Brzezińska), and in the perspective of intercultural education (Lewowicki, Nikitorowicz). In the undertaken discussion, the author refers to the results of extensive multivariate research conducted in 2011–2012 in several academic environments which differ in location (the centre – the borderland) and in socio-economic potential. This constitutes the background against which the determinants are indicated of preparing future teachers for work in multicultural conditions.

Education concerned with the intercultural “borderland effect” (a panorama of humanistic tropes and profiles in a retrospect)

The text comprises a normative concern for the educational “borderland effect”. Within the hermeneutical circle, there are: (1) M. Bakhtin’s semiotics of culture and the idea of “borderland effect” as a developmental mechanism increasing the polyphonic dynamics and value of the Other; (2) an analogy to the “decentration” mechanism according to J. Piaget and J. Habermas and the idea of dialogue inspired by H.–G. Gadamer; (3) M. Buber’s idea of two types of faith and difficulties of ecumenism; (4) H. Hesse’s idea of spiritual awakening and inner transformation; (5) the types of adaptation to the complexity of interactions and the vision of identity as “the third value”, following D. Mostwin’s analysis of the Polish emigration in the USA; (6) difficulties with the borderland effect in creating Polish schools in Latvia in D. Urlińska’s experiment; (7) F. Znaniecki’s concern to eliminate intercultural antagonisms; (8) normative strategies towards tradition, freedom and change, as diversified attitudes towards differences and the “borderland effect”; (9) the coupling of interests of the disabled in integrated schools as a borderland problem; (10) the concept of the “borderland order” as a mechanism of sustainability and oscillation in dual integration with shifting the local dominants; (11) B. Skarga’s cultural attitude open to irony, withdrawing cultural persuasiveness. The “borderland effect” brings change of the cultural “meta-pattern” for education. The analyses conducted by M. Mead and F. Znaniecki imply the intercultural education open to differences between the young, against the pressure of antagonisms of the world of adult people.

Adaptation strategies of borderland youth – a report from generational studies

The conducted discussion is embedded in pedagogy of youth, Robert Merton’s theory of social adaptation, the concept of intercultural education and the concept of “intercultural identity” by Jerzy Nikitorowicz. In the article, the strategies are presented of the adaptation of young inhabitants of the Polish-Czech borderland to school conditions and the requirements of social life. The results of some diagonal studies among secondary school learners, conducted 13 years apart, indicated two dominant strategies of conformism and innovation, revealed a slight decrease in the average value of conformism (3%) and a significant increase in the average value of innovation (22% change). In that context, the features of permanent socialization taking place in the conditions of the Polish-Czech borderland were indicated: dynamism, bidirectionality, functioning/being “in-between”, cultural pattern, the principle of continuum. Empirically determined adaptation strategies of youth show how young people handle a complex reality and how they can join the mainstream of social life.

Identity and attitudes of academic youth – a Polish-Czech comparative study

The article is a report on comparative studies carried out in the PolishCzech borderland in 2022–2023 among pedagogy students of Polish and Czech universities. The research was placed in the objectivist paradigm and the survey method was applied. The study was aimed at determining the sense of identity of young people, at learning about values, attitudes towards other nations and types of intergroup interactions taking place in the borderland. In order to check whether there are statistically significant differences between the groups in the responses to individual questions, the Mann-Whitney U test was used. In the context of the obtained results, it can be concluded that academic youth from the Polish and Czech parts of the borderland attribute significant importance to belonging to one biological species inhabiting the earth (no statistically significant differences between groups). Polish youth are similar to their peers living in the Czech Republic. The similarities pertain to identification in the system: person – gender – nationality, to positive attitude towards other nations and to values. There are statistically significant differences between the two cohorts in their attitudes towards individual nations and in their assessment of the types of social interactions occurring in the borderland. The specificity and differences have their sources in the sociocultural, political and economic situation of the country in which the young live and in the educational system to which they have been subjected. The future is a never-ending project that is constantly changing. Borderland research is the analysis of contexts in which the construction of the vision and the use of the realities of the existing social space take place. Research on academic youth provides information not only about its condition and the image of contemporary borderland, but also about its desired shape.