Questions of citizenship and nationhood have increasingly gained prominence given the internationalisation of employment, especially with respect to the free movement of workers within the EU. Scholar Rogers Brubaker has suggested that an absence of a strong identity as a nationstate and the lack of an established national citizenship have contributed to “the confused and bitter politics of immigration and citizenship during the last quarter-century” in Britain. This legacy continues to this day. For instance, on the fi rst of January 2014, migration and employment restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians were lift ed, provoking mass public outcry in the UK. In a recent poll, three quarters of respondents expressed concern about the possible infl ux of Romanians and Bulgarian migrants. Playing on populist fears, London mayor Boris Johnson quipped: “We can do nothing to stop the entire population of Transylvania – charming though most of them may be – from trying to pitch camp at Marble Arch”. British ministers have even considered launching a negative publicity campaign in Bulgaria and Romania to dissuade migrants, highlighting the dreary weather and lack of job opportunities in Britain.

The model of deliberative democracy poses a number of dificult questions about individual rationality, public reason and justification, public spiritedness, and an active and supportive public sphere. It also raises the question about what kind of civic involvement is required for the practices of democratic deliberation to be effective. The aim of this article is to examine the last question by looking at the role and value of citizenship understood in terms of participation. It argues that deliberative democracy implies a category of democratic citizens; its institutional framework calls for the activity and competence of citizenry, and consequently, the participatory forms of deliberative democracy come closest to the democratic ideal as such. Also, the model of participatory-deliberative democracy is more attractive as a truly democratic ideal than the model of formal deliberative democracy, but it certainly faces more dificulties when it comes to the practicalities, and especially the institutional design. This problem is raised in the last section of the article where the possible applicability of such a model to post-communist democracies is addressed. The major dificulty that the participatory-deliberative model poses for the post-communist democratization can be explained by a reference to the cultural approach towards democratization and to the revised modernization theory presented by Inglehart and Welzel. The problem of the applicability of such a model in the post-communist context seems to support the thesis presented here which suggests that active citizenship, civic skills and civic culture are indispensable for the development of deliberative politics.

Article „Languages – a tool in the hands of nationalists and globalists – the current situation in Europe” is going to present the current problem that appears on the Old Continent in the area of using the case of knowledge of languages to present the political situation. In the current times nationalistic tendencies are staring to be more visible – by in example rising of popularity of conservative and right-oriented parties or growing up of nationalist movements that are using xenophobic slogans. By focusing on the procedure of applying for citizenship of one of the European Union’s country, and on the position of languages in he European Union it is possible to understand some processes that are appearing in the political area. By taking into account these tendencies it is also possible to take attention on the fact of development of position of the languages in the Europe.

REVIEW

Many suggestions have been presented for solving the Israeli – Palestinian dispute. As for now, none of those suggestions, presented during more than thirty years of negotiations, have been accepted by both sides. As for this, some new ideas have to be entered into the arena. Here some new, “out of the box”, geographical proposals are presented, based on actual events and geographical realities which exist in other areas. These proposals could be seen as un-human or politically wrong suggestions but as all other proposals were rejected, the decision makers of both sides, as well as the leaders of the world, can use the presented suggestion as a base for future negotiations.

The modern world is opening up to a series of innovations, differences and broadly understood diversity. The pace of changes becomes a peculiar substructure of creating patchwork nations. The variety of races, colors, religions and cultures. All of the above contain a point which, like an electron, resembles an omnipresent “variant”. This constant value is a human being. We are accompanied by a sense of belonging to a specific place, culture and values. On this basis, we expect something (e.g. having rights and freedoms). Citizenship seems to be a binder that puts us in a clearly narrowed community with certain values and often allows us to distinguish our own “self”. Created by history, absorbing presence, citizenship is an important element of our affiliation to the country, to culture and to the values hidden behind them. In the world of diversity, it seems to be a desirable and important element. The purpose of this article is to discuss the contemporary role assigned to citizenship, as well as to show the citizenship as a factor shaping the position of the individual and justifying the distinction made in specific areas of human functioning in the state.

The main goal of the article is to show the possible ways of thinking about the relation between multiculturalism and liberal democracy. Author of the article tries to present some troubles with reconciliation of such political culture and elements of multicultural ideology which supports rights of member of foreign (nonwestern) communities to manifest their cultural convictions freely. In his opinion that would be a little bit naïve to think that all elements of political culture connected with liberal democracy can be accepted by members of the communities in questions. That is why he articulates the thesis that some conflicts between them and people faithful to the ideas of liberal democracy are inevitable and that it cannot be found possible solution of these conflicts which can be gladly accepted by all sides. Someone will have to give up some parts of cultural heritage of a given community if we are supposed to live in peace together. Although the author of the article believes that this resignation should not be limited to only one side of the potential conflict he argues that a political culture of liberal democracy is so precious that its defenders should not abandon it for the sake of ideas of multicultural society even if this brings about some pain on the side of their interlocutors.

Autor wyraża niepokój, wskazując, że paradygmat współistnienia kultur jest coraz częściej podważany mniej lub bardziej świadomymi wypowiedziami i działaniami. Przedstawia je w tekście, analizuje i wartościuje w kontekście działań edukacji międzykulturowej. Podkreśla, że edukacja międzykulturowa zawsze uczestniczyła w procesie przeciwstawiania się dehumanizacji i infrahumanizacji, i podaje przykłady jej działalności, jak też przykłady radykalnych tendencji ograniczających człowieczeństwo Innych oraz degradujących godność i wartość człowieka. W tekście pyta i podejmuje próby odpowiedzi, w jakim zakresie zatraciliśmy wartości humanistyczne i postawę wrażliwości. Analizuje, ilustruje, poszukuje przyczyn i wskazuje na znaczenie tych zjawisk w kontekście funkcji edukacji międzykulturowej. Zwraca uwagę na problem ideologizacji narodu i nowe zadania edukacji międzykulturowej wobec przedstawianych zjawisk i zachodzących procesów społeczno-politycznych.

Współczesne dyskusje o problemach państw europejskich przyjmujących rzesze migrantów stanowią wiodące wątki namysłu nad humanitarnymi rozwiązaniami problemu masowego napływu obywateli różnych narodowości i kultur do Europy, a także współczesnego rozumienia idei wielokulturowości, tolerancji oraz przestrzegania praw człowieka. Celem artykułu jest ukazanie pomijanego dotąd wątku obywatelskiego działania w społecznościach lokalnych na rzecz integracji i inkluzji migrantów i azylantów. Przykład XIX projektu Hull House z Chicago (USA) ukazuje, jak próbowano ten problem rozwiązywać lokalnymi siłami społecznymi w czasach, gdy migrantami byli Europejczycy. Autorki zadają w tym kontekście pytanie, czy i w jakim stopniu w czasach współczesnych rola obywateli jest i powinna być bardziej znacząca w debatach polityki społecznej i międzynarodowych dyskusjach międzypaństwowych. Ukazują szereg współczesnych inicjatyw lokalnych, będących odpowiedzią zwykłych mieszkańców na to, jak widzą możliwości i realizacje działań przyjmujących i włączających nowych przybyszów do społeczeństwa.

This article is devoted to the presentation and analysis of the „Democracy in Education” all-Ukrainian study results aimed at highlighting the challenges arising in Ukrainian teacher education on the way to its democratic transformation. The analysis revealed the following challenges: The ambivalence of the definitions of democracy and its reduction to a „thin” understanding, the presence of rudiments of the Soviet system, distinguishing between active citizenship and political participation, lack of knowledge of the methods of integrative learning and cross-cutting skills among teacher educators. The research findings are significant for educational policy-making at the institutional and state levels.

Economic and political changes in Europe, particularly in the last decade have led to an increase in the cultural diversity of its citizens. Latvia, which received a troubling legacy from the former Soviet Union – a diverse ethnic mix, also found itself EU. In 1989, after nearly fifty years of Soviet domination it regained its independence and stood on the way of reform and transition from a totalitarian to an independent style of governance. Among the many problems that appeared in front of this small country in 2004, there were also those that are lively debated in contemporary Europe. Some of them are laws for immigrants and minority rights. Analysis of past and present situation in Latvia seem to be particularly important to the events which have recently been seen in Ukraine which is an another country of the past Soviet Union – and after 1990 also the Russian – sphere of influence. Article deals with the integration process, with Latvian law regulating issues of citizenship, minority rights and the status of the state language as conforming to international standards. It also deals with the education of national minorities in Latvia. Bilingual education proposed to the minorities has goal to integrate the Latvian society as a whole, to build a multicultural state based on unity. Bilingual education also enables the acquisition of language skills allowing the free movement on the labor market. This ensures both the protection of ethnic and religious identity by providing the understanding of the language and culture of the country of residence. Problems of this young state are still waiting for a solution by the future government in Latvia. This small Baltic country, for ten years, is integrating multinational community of its own country into the tissue of Western Europe to which it was a stranger till the year 2004.

Citizenship Patriotism as a New Model of Patriotism: Theoretical and Methodological Basis

Based on a sociological survey conducted within the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian project, the article analyses the state of citizenship of Ukrainians through the prism of developing their patriotic attitudes. The authors make a theoretical attempt to combine the notions of «citizenship » and «patriotism» with a view to their mutual informative reinforcement in the new model of citizenship patriotism. It is determined that the most integrative potential for the successful completion of democratic transit in Ukraine is a model of citizenship patriotism, based on a high level of citizenship competence of individuals (which implies a well-grounded positive assessment of the national realities, the attitude of conscious fulfilment of civil duties and active position of citizens in the field of protection of public interest).

Citizen Extradition in the Light of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and Selected International Agreements

The article deals with the issue of extradition of a Polish citizen in the light of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and selected international agreements as well as the nature, scope and significance of citizenship in correlation with a potential extradition. It presents the methods of presenting the issue of citizenship of the person covered by the application for the issuance by the constitutional norms of selected states and regulating the extradition turnover of representative international agreements. The aim of the article is to analyze binding norms in the scope of the indicated issues, both those which qualify citizenship as an obligatory obstacle to extradition and those which give it an optional character. As part of the work, the research methods traditionally used in legal sciences were used, namely the formal-dogmatic metod, the comparative metod and the historical-legal metod.

The article presents the issue of patriotic discourse in school textbooks for teaching Polish for grades 4–8 of primary schools. At the same time, this issue is placed in the aspect of recent changes in education made and announced by the minister of science and education. The analysis of the textbooks carried out using the KAD method shows that, although we constantly deal with a romantic vision of patriotism due to the canon of reading, it is sometimes broken through reflection on historical events and the past. The martyrdom tendency, formed in the period of Romanticism, is still the dominant one, the presence of which is part of the paradigm of the long duration of Romanticism. The article also addresses what patriotic education at school should be today. Not only today, but for a long time now, we have been dealing with a tendency to produce and reproduce a conservative discourse and be closed within a martyrological narrative. This way of understanding patriotism today may lead young people to consider any form of patriotism as anachronistic and inadequate to our times.

“Voluntas” – Voluntary Service as a Job – Transgressive Forms of Voluntary Service. Continuity and Termination

This paper describes the problem of voluntary work in the historical context. Author proposes a soft reconceptualisation of the theoretical concept of voluntary action based on etymological and semantic perspectives of voluntas. The semantic background is useful for the reinterpretation of the logic of the evolution of voluntary work from the concept of classic charity to the contemporary sport volunteerism, voluntary action in the time of “big sport events”, and so on. This evolution is significant for the late modernity and for the crisis situation in the labour market at the beginning of the 21st century. Finally, “voluntary” nowadays means something close to work in various labour sectors, but the classic motive of voluntas is still noticeable. The author, finally, introduces the results of an empirical investigation carried out in 2011 in Poland (Poznań, Wrocław, and Gdańsk).

Gloss to the Decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of February 16, 2022, file ref. no. II OSK 128/19

In the commented order, the Supreme Administrative Court held that the state is obliged to grant Polish citizenship to a person whose parents are of the same sex, which results from the birth certificate submitted by them, and that the implementation of this obligation does not threaten the public order of the Republic of Poland. The use of the public order clause in such a case is not legally justified and constitutes a form of discrimination against the child on the basis of the content of international instruments.

The aim of the survey was to find out what attitudes young people aged twelve to seventeen maintain towards adult civic qualities and virtues as compared with their demands for changes in civic behaviour. The objective of the study was to find out whether, based on their perception of adult behaviour, the critical youth wish for changes in civic behaviour and which aspects of citizen life they should be linked to. The survey tool used was a questionnaire investigating attitudes and behaviour in various situations of citizens’ everyday life. There were 33 Likert-type question items in the questionnaire (e.g. They are proud of their country.). The questionnaire showed a high level of reliability. The survey sample consisted of 533 adolescent respondents (aged 12–17). There were four factors generated through factor analysis from the collected results: 1. Respect for traditional social norms and roles; 2. Tolerance and respect for other people’s rights; 3. Patriotism and trust in public institutions; 4. Application of constitutional civic rights. The adolescent respondents were asked to mark the statements which should be changed. The outcome confirmed the hypothesis of high criticality in the respondents, which we consider a significant social challenge: adolescents demand a major change in civic behaviour described by the total of 14 items (42.7%) in all four factors. The highest number of proposed changes falls into the factor of “Respect for traditional social norms and roles”, while the fewest proposed changes concern the factor of “Patriotism and trust in public institutions”. According to the respondents, traditional social norms and roles and tolerance and respect for other people´s rights should be strengthened as well. The attitude towards active civic virtues implies a need for better and more sophisticated civic virtues education, both within the family and in schools. The results obtained from this survey will be used in generating civic education programmes for primary and secondary schools.

New citizenship and patriotism at the cultural frontier: a cross-cultural context

The cultural diversification of states deconstructs the model of a homogenous national community, yet it requires the maintenance of the stability of democratic institutions in a situation where culturally different citizens are increasingly resistant to forced assimilation and subjugation. A multicultural state must actively protect the cultural identities of its citizens. Some dilemmas arise in the understanding of citizenship and patriotism, for which state multiculturalism and interculturalism at the level of an individual citizen become contextual references. Therefore, the subject of this article is the different types of new citizenship and patriotism, with model approaches to them. The author exposes multiculturalism, revealing the new citizenship and intercultural connotations of patriotism. She looks at these categories from a cultural borderland perspective. With reference to the pillars of coexistence identified on the basis of empirical research in this borderland, the author conceptualizes intercultural citizenship and patriotism. She also points to their multidimensional nature with an intercultural connotation. The author sees them as integrating factors of a culturally diverse society. Their national-cultural, identity, and community provenance gives an intercultural character to the integration process. Integration conceived in this way fosters the evolution of the nation-state into a heterogeneous national community operating within its borders.

Migration from the new European Union (EU) Member States to the United Kingdom (UK) has been identified as one of the most significant social phenomena of recent times and Accession 8 (A8) migration to the UK has been studied extensively particularly since 2004. Even though gendered studies of migration are now attaining recognition, there is limited literature in relation to Polish migrant women. What is more, there is now much evidence to support the view that migrant women constitute a large proportion of international migrants. In fact, when considering migration within the European context, migrant women now outnumber their male counterparts. Drawing on a review of secondary literature and preliminary findings from new fieldwork research undertaken in Poland and the UK in 2012, this paper explores how Polish migrant women exercise their rights as EU citizens to better their own and their families’ wellbeing. As the consequence of their newly acquired rights as EU citizens, Polish migrant women appear to be active agents who make use of the resources and opportunities that migration offers. It is concluded that migration within the EU presents positive opportunities for Polish migrant women to actively engage with and exercise national and EU citizenship rights.