This paper is a continuation of my reflection upon “neo-liberal entanglements of education” and an attempt to interpret Michel Foucault’s works with respect to selected aspects of youth policy in Poland. My focus here is on the relations between the issues of government and morality. I will begin with a brief examination of Foucault’s views on government and governmentality, pointing out some trains of thought that will be developed in the further sections. In what follows, I will present an attempt at the risk discourse analysis, focusing my attention on the regimes of truth employed in youth policy. Discussing the political and economic potential of realized risk used by the neo-liberal program, I will refer to some specific ideas of “technologies of the self” – from the Greek principle of care for oneself; then, the idea of getting to know oneself to the modern ethics of investing in oneself. Finally, referring to Foucault’s findings, I will place neo-liberal techniques within the context of two regimes: the discourse of threat (risk) and the discourse of civicness. I will examine how the production of the “threat” and “civicness” as educational practices of constituting of the self takes place within these regimes.

Too little attention has been paid to the school institutions intended to educate and socialize the children of the upper classes. Greece has a significant history of private educational institutions. Yet their history and role within the educational system and society has been consistently neglected. The study of elite private education and its relationship with the social reproduction of the upper and middle classes in Greece has been even more neglected. Through a study of elite private secondary schools, following the theoretical model of Pierre Bourdieu, we explored the relationship that the middle and upper social strata of Greek society maintain with specific private schools. In order to determine the above, we conducted a quantitative field survey at 13 well-known private schools in Athens, using a questionnaire. In these schools we find considerable over-representation of the social categories that are placed at the summit of the social hierarchy. A basic argument of our study was that different sections of the middle and upper classes develop different educational strategies to ensure their social reproduction and to increase their privileges. These different strategies adopted by traditional and more recently emerging social classes are reflected in the differences among the elite private schools as a “field” and they distinguished the very top private schools from the less prestigious one. Also, we have found that sections of the Greek upper and middle class provide their offspring, through certain schools and activities, with an international capital which is a necessary condition for their future participation in international educational and professional markets. The study’s central research methodology included geometrical data analysis such as correspondence analysis.

This paper focuses on the question whether the perceived distance between the low status of the school that is attended by the pupils, the high ambitions of these pupils, and the feasibility of achieving these goals could lead to the total evaporation of any motivation to do well at school. Is educational success of pupils in the lowest level of secondary education hampered by the realization that one’s chances to reach a highly respected social position are very limited? In this article, we, firstly, study how adolescents evaluate people in distinctive social positions and to what extent they are aware of status distinctions. Secondly, what are the expectations and ambitions of youngsters and how do they describe their own characteristics when asked to respond to questions, such as “who are you?” and “where do you locate yourself in society?”. Thirdly, we analyze their views on society, their self-images and career expectations. We want to investigate whether these images and projections differ in correlation with their level and type of education.

There are many misconceptions about what is called “integral education”. We propose an integral approach to education based on the historical thinking of John Dewey and on the more recent AQAL concept by Ken Wilber. At the centre of integral education, there is a Subject. Subject equals his/her perspective. Integral education is a process of constructing/creating perspectives in the subject. We propose that four main perspectives can be applied to the educational process and the Integral Education Matrix includes these perspectives. The matrix can be a useful tool for planning actions and outcomes in the process of education.

This study deals with burnout as a multifactor phenomenon, which is a state of complete mental, somatic, cognitive, and behavioral exhaustion. The aim is to provide an analysis of burnout, its causes, symptoms, developmental stage, and diagnostic methods. The study reported burnout as one of the manifestations of the contemporary developed, hurried, and consumer society, which is characterized by an increased pace of life and ever-growing economic and social demands. The first part of the analysis found burnout on a general level and in specific the profession of a university teacher. The first part of the study focuses on the characteristics of burnout, its reasons and various influencing variables, as well as the most vulnerable individuals. Another part of the study presents the different stages of burnout, which differ in various stages of development. In the next section, burnout relative to the profession of university teacher, which is characterized by specific forms and load requirements, is presented. At the conclusion of the study, the prevention of burnout, which should take place on a personal, organizational, and work level, is taken into account. Attention is drawn to the methods of diagnosing burnout. In essence, the study provides a comprehensive presentation of burnout, which creates potential and increasing threats to the form of the individual. The aim of the study was to develop a systematic approach to look at burnout as a gradual process with a set of cumulative and interrelated symptoms.

The thesis of this paper applies to the mediatization of politics process during American presidential campaign of 2008. It is entrenched in the theory of political communication. Because of the primary assumptions in the analysis below, political communication is considered mainly from perspective of the models of relations between the mass media and politics, which are treated as systems. It is justified because those relations influence the abovementioned systems and play the biggest role in affecting mass society and culture. In this thesis, the public is considered as having less influence on entire process of political communication. In order to clarify the subject of the research, the division into structural and functional mediatization was created. Structural mediatization, which is the main subject of the analysis, occurs when structures of the media and political systems come into dependence and subordination relation. Parts of the media system dominate over the analogical elements in the political system, internalizing media logic. Individual elements of the political world comply to the media logic and the media orders. Subjects of the political system implement political marketing methods to use the dominant role of the media in the process. Functional mediatization can be defined as a transfer of systemic relations at the smallest possible level – specific case in micro scale,when the medium controls a political actor. Here, the mediatization takes its most radical form. The medium on every stage of constructing the political reality can manipulate and deform a media political reality

Many members of a society deal with their everyday problems on their own, but there are people who look for and receive support from other individuals, groups and institutions. Social networks are considered important providers of resources accumulated in and of services delivered by the local community. The article is focused on social support networks of families living in big city in comparison with families living less urbanized communes. The first part of the analyses presents social support networks in various theoretical approaches. The main subject of empirical reflection are the resources available to these families as a result of informal social relations. The main conclusions are that informal social network of studied families is important for solving their every-day problems and the main resource of support for them are close relatives, then friends and the most rarelyneighbors, but the patterns of support expected and received within informal networks vary according to age and quality of residence. The paper is based on the results of the research conducted in 2008–2009 (the quota sample – 500 families living in Lodz and 1000 families living in less urbanized communes) within the project “Social network and local partnership in counteracting social exclusion and intergenerational transmission of poverty” (Nr H02E 021 29) coordinated by author.

This paper presents the chosen and initial issues relating to the potential of the historical gentrification in Nowa Huta – the part of Krakow that was erected as a new, perfect town of socialism in the 50s. In order to investigate the gentrification potential of this area, I take into account the important subject of urban changes present in the Polish conditions. In fact, I do it from a different perspective and in a different moment; I observe the gentrification process through the eyes of the new citizens and in its introductory phase.

The purpose of this paper is to present the analyses of the discursive strategies of constructing gender difference in the articles published in the Science in Poland bulletin. This bulletin is an important platform for the popularization of Polish and world science. It is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland. In the article, I assume that gender is a socially constructed structure (including discursive) level, about the difference between men and women, especially anatomically. Starting from the assumptions of the theory of discourse, which is understood as the process of producing and reproducing social meaning, the analysis includes articles published on the website between 2005 and 2010. In the first part of the paper, I introduce the definition of gender and gender beliefs, which are an important context for the analysis. Then, the content and the method of research (the analysis of discourse) are characterized. In the last part of the paper, the results of research characterizing the main discursive strategies reproducing gender in polarized, homogeneous, and universal categories are presented.

In our article we will try to answer the following questions: how do the teachers in the pedagogical centres and the primary schools cope with the negative emotions? What kind of techniques and strategies do the teachers use to manage their emotions in difficult situations? The theoretical background constitutes Arlie Hochschild’s theory and conception of Theodore D. Kemper. We consider whether teachers’ demonstration of emotions during their work (teaching process) is a method to achieve a fixed goal or rather a random behavior and whether an emotional expression is some instrumental operation or an accidental one? Can emotional work be considered by teachers? Do people who embody in the teacher’s role simultaneously accept the rules of behavior, including emotional behavior? Finally, whether the emotions revealed in the teachers’ work are the result of possessed power and status? As the result of conducted research, teachers employed in educational institutions revealed negative emotions more rarely towards educational reforms than the teachers working in the public schools. The basis of this regularity stems from the fact that employed staff fulfill firstly the pedagogical and later educational function in the Reformatory and Youth Detention Centres. In public institutions such as primary schools the situation is opposite. Generally, we conclude that the longer the occupational experience of the teacher, the better strategy to deal with negative emotions. Young teachers used to rely on their older colleagues experience and reflections or use a trial-and-error-method to cope with the negative emotions at work.

One of the broadly discussed issues, in particular in societies with poor infrastructure of formal care of dependent people (i.e. Poland), is the effect of the ageing process on the efficiency of informal care of the elderly by family members, friends, neighbors, and local communities. The complex situation of elderly care resulting from dropping fertility is further complicated when the emigration rate is high in a given country, such as Poland. The problem is often conceptualized in terms of moral panic. It needs to be emphasized that intergenerational transfers are not unidirectional and not always necessary, as exemplified by parents often helping their children working abroad, and not all elderly parents need care. In this article, I will emphasize the point of view of the parents of migrants, by focusing on the functioning of the transnational system of social security that consists of different actors (migrating and relatively immobile) in both sending and receiving societies. Quantitative and qualitative data from the field studies carried out from 2010–2012 will be used for the purpose of this text.