Beyond Ideological Entanglement. The Hidden Agenda in the Contemporary Educational Debate

The purpose of this article is to reconstruct a state of the debate ongoing for over a half of the century on the so-called the hidden program. The different theoretical positions are compared and presented – from those who take the hidden program as a central concept and category, to those denying its presence in social sciences. Contentious issues have been outlined, above all in the views of the nature, sources and results of this phenomenon. Vigorous discussions ongoing in the English literature, often having the ideological roots, are used by the author to present the own perspective of the hidden program as an important educational category, but ignored in Polish science, that may become an inspiration for theorists and practitioners and also may become a tool for diagnosis and critique.

Mathematical Failures of Girls and Members of Ethnic Minorities. Causes, Explanations, and Remedial Measures in the Light of Educational Ideologies

In this article I discuss the question: „What is mathematics really all about?” How mathematics is viewed is significant on many levels, especially in education and society. For many years, sociologists of mathematics education, have stressed that mathematics acts as a gatekeeper: mathematics more than any other subject, has been cast in the role as an ,,objective” judge. The main purpose of this article is to conjoin several sets of problems such as the mathematical underparticipation of women and ethnic minorities , the sense of cultural alienation from mathematics felt by many social groups, mathematics in the process of transmission of social and political values, its role in the unequal distribution of power and the social nature of mathematics as a discipline.

The Directions of Contemporary Debate about Civic Education in Germany in the Context of Deliberations over Model Citizens, Maturity, and Competences

In German concepts of education until the end of World War II was the trend dominant to interpret the notion of „good citizen” through the prism of state and its political characteristics. In the late sixties of the twentieth century one began to challenge this understanding. But it was the political transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, and above all the integration processes in Germany and Europe in the early nineties, which led to a redefinition of the concept of „citizen” and modified the idea of his patterns. That’s when the idea was ultimately rejected the „good citizen” as a guarantor of stability of the political agenda, and the goal of civic education was superior to „civic maturity”. In connection with the change of paradigm, a „citizen” was discovered again (Rückkehr des Bürgers) in the public debate. Defining the essence of the concept of „good citizen”, the German authors began to identify them as „democratic” and started a new discussion complemented the existing conceptualization of the citizen to demand his maturity as the overarching objective of civic education and the need to strengthen its competencies. The aim of the article is to present the key directions of the German debate on civic education in the context of civil practice, as well as the positions of the features characterizing the normative notion of the citizen, which should be its „maturity”. Particularly important for strengthening the cognitive aspect is to enter the foregoing, in the current discourse related to competence as a result of the learning process, but it will be important to draw attention to democratic competence.

Evolutionist Perspective in Empirical Aesthetics. Premises, Traditions, Problems

The article presents the main assumptions, traditions and problems, which make up the evolutionary perspective in studies of human aesthetic taste. Article begins by describing the main assumptions of evolutionary aesthetics and presenting the aesthetic theory of Ellen Dissanayake, which is regarded as the most general approach to this problem. Then the article discusses the natural evolutionary adaptations, distinguished by evolutionary scientists. Evolutionary theory assumes that as a result of development of the human makeup in the course of evolution have developed some universal aesthetic predispositions (e.g. a penchant for of the representations of certain animals or preferring images of a day over images of a night). The final part of the article discusses some difficulties, which evolutionary aesthetics has to face. The objective of this article is to draw attention to social scientists on this research perspective, as in the author’s opinion it can enrich the classical studies based on the paradigm derived from the works of Pierre Bourdieu.

A Cathedral or a Market? Textbook as an Open Source Project

For over twenty years school books have been accompanied by digital resources – once stored on attached CD-ROMs, lately also in the Internet services of publishers. But only since the launch of the program „Cyfrowa szkoła” („Digital School”) conducted by the ministry of education has widespread access to free educational materials become possible. Changing the carrier makes the current model of preparation and sharing the content, which lets the publisher control every step, go out of date. It will most likely be replaced by the model typical for the digital world, where the information wants to be free, accessible instantly, ready for modification and further distribution. In the article the relationship between Ministry of National Education and educational publishers after 1989 has been presented. The stages of the development of the publishing market, as well as their technological and social aspects, enhancing the intensity and the speed of changes, were taken into account. To describe the situation on this market the metaphor of the „cathedral” and the „bazaar”, drawn from Eric Raymond’s text on the open source phenomenon, was used. Acknowledging the „bazaar model” of working on textbooks as the natural consequence of withdrawing from the traditional model makes it necessary to ask questions about the effects of these decisions and especially – the future of textbooks. The significance of the issues analyzed in this paper is proven by the discussions ongoing lately in many countries.

The Limits of Creativity. Discourse of Mary Sue Characters in Fan-Fiction and the Rules of Fan Communities

Some participants of popular culture do not confine themselves to a one-time contact with a favorite book or movie. Instead, they return to fictional worlds, creating literary texts based on original works and sharing these texts with other followers of the same popproducts. A number of these fan-made pieces contain idealized characters whose mentalities tend to be very similar to the personalities of their creators. Such characters, who are known under the name of Mary Sue, frequently become an object of harsh criticism on the readers’ part. The paper presents various forms of so strong a negative reaction and describes its possible causes, basing on the analysis of a discourse created by the users of Mirriel Literary Forum (a message board which attracts people who are interested in amateurs’ literary pieces). The main goal of the paper is to demonstrate how the information obtained in discourse analysis may shed new light on the rules which govern the lives of all kinds of fan communities – most importantly, the rule of staying faithful to the object of one’s passion, that is, to the worlds created by professional authors. Apart from that, the paper demonstrates a concise discussion of the strong and weak points of the method employed.

Stressed-out Youth – Participants of Music Festivals and Stress (Evaluation of the Phenomenon among Teenagers and Young Adults)

Purpose: Stress is inseparable part of life. It is an occurrence which influes on individual life, both on health and family and social aspects. Stress is apply to everyone, independently on age, so important is recognition main stressors and ways of copy with stress, especially on young people, and that was the purpose of questionnaire research during music festivals. Method: Author’s questionnaire. We researched 1131 visitors music festivals: Festival name R.Riedla bad Przystanek Woodstock. 45% of them were women and 55% men; medium age +/ – 20 years. Results: Researched people declared their level of stress on 3-4 points in 6-points scale. 2/3 of them claimed that surroundings is a couse of stress. 2/3 young people said that their knowledge about stress is not enough, and only 2% of them use specialized help. In difficult life situations, if they want to cut down their level of stress, they the most often use alcohol. Conclusion: Knowledge about stress is not enough. Women and men have different ways of copy with stress. The most often young people exert passive methods of liquidate everyday difficulties.

Contemporary German Printed Media – Chosen Aspects

The paper draws on selected examples of the structure and working of the contemporary German print media, pointing to the most characteristic features of the matching process in the German press to the rapidly changing socio-economic environment, that is, the marketing of media coverage. German quality newspapers and magazines found their niche in this rapidly changing media market and have become media entities that provide broad services to the public, including that which requires in-depth analysis and information from the international space. Press despite its tabloidisation retains its influence nationwide and targeted, albeit to a limited group of customers (mostly elite) in these segments is trying to counter the general mediocrity of communication and provide not only emotional but also a fair comment and free of information and knowledge.

Economic and Social Conditions of Demand for Cultural Goods and Services and Their Consumption

The paper contains the demand side of the market for cultural goods and services, with a focus on performing arts especially the analysis of their consumption from the demand theory, which attempts to explain the motives and consequences of consumers’ decisions. The consumption of cultural goods and services is determined by many factors, and their identification is the purpose of this study. Among them there are social determinants, including education and age of consumers and economic, such as price and income. The starting point for the analysis is fact that cultural goods and services in the economy are normal goods, so the demand for them increases with increasing consumer income and decreases with the demand decrease. They are also luxury goods, which means they are purchased only when the amount of income will satisfy customers’ basic needs. The paper contains also review of results of research conducted by foreign authors to demand determinants for cultural goods and services. Selected determinants are presented using statistical data on participation in culture of citizens of the European Union. However it was not possible to present an insightful analyzed of determinants and their dynamics because of limited availability of data.

„Croaking Reality” – (Small) Cultural Consumption in the Light of Objective Data and Subjective Justifications

Representative surveys, carried out by the Central Statistical Office reveal how low is in Poland the scale of participation in culture: expenses connected with culture represent about 3% of household expenditure, and 1/3 of this amount is spent on television. Almost half of householders didn’t buy a book in year, 60% of Poles didn’t go to the cinema and 90% didn’t go to the theatre. In the same time, participation in culture is shown as a condition for social and economic development. The gap between absence of participation in culture and promoting culture is depicted in more detail in terms of statistics illustrating the scale of absence and in diagnosis of barriers. But this analysis leads to next questions – on the one hand about the apparent shallowness of these barriers, on the other – about the need for different way of task posed questions, new methods which break with the traditional questions about the museum visit or buying newspapers. As the culture changes, we should change tools of researching culture. Perhaps the picture will continue to indicate the dominance of absence, but maybe will penetrate beyond the enigmatic „I did not feel the need” to participate.

Regional Cultural Observatory in the Podlaskie Voivodeship – Conditions and Development Trends

At the beginning of the XXI century, there are significant changes in relations of work and leisure time. The development of creative economy is also recognized along with emergence of a new social stratification and changes in developmental factors. Increasingly important in the socio-economic transformation is cultural sector as well as promotion of culture and creative industries development including their linkages with dependent sectors such as tourism, architecture and industrial design. The aim of this article is to refer these processes and phenomena to the conditions of Podlaskie Voivodship and to discuss the main reasons of Regional Observatory of Culture establishment. Article indicates the need for and potential benefits of knowledge management on culture at the regional level by conducting theoretical and methodological work within the observatory. Essay based on an analysis of existing data and own research results highlights the main features of the region, information needs of cultural and art institutions, culture observatory possible models, potential activity areas of the regional observatory and the arising benefits from its activities.

Digital Distribution in Local Cinemas

In the last 20 years the digital revolution has brought a number of changes in the methods of dissemination of cultural works, particularly in the distribution of audiovisual works. An integration of electronic devices and content brings new opportunities for the development of cultural activity. An important example illustrating the range of changes in the domain of cultural management is the Malopolska Digital Cinema Network. It was created in part with funds from MROP 2007–2013 and exemplifies the use of technological innovation as an indicator of cultural mobilization. This text is a case study of local digital cinema network and attempts to define the scope of the impact of the use of digital tools in cultural and viewing practices in the cities belonging to MSKC.

Forums and Literary Portals, or the Web as a Place for Writing Initiatives

The following paper will discuss selected literary forums and portals as environments in which users can attain, develop and perfect creative writing skills. They will also be examined as spaces enabling the introduction of innovative literary concepts that would be impossible or difficult to put into practice off-line or before the advent of computer networks. Due to these qualities, a description of such forums and portals could balance out the perception of the Internet as a medium promoting profanity and graphomania. The paper will describe the functioning of literary portals, which can be seen to initiate and promote creative writing on the Internet not merely by constituting hubs for on-line literary activity but mostly through various activities stimulating and encouraging literary production. Examples of such online activities will be provided, and demonstrated to encourage writing activity. They include relay writing, literary slam, and other practices providing non-material, non-financial gratification to writers. Finally, the paper will examine some problematic issues in the functioning of such literary environments.

Stanisław Krawczyk (rev.): Ilona Iłowiecka-Tańska, Liderzy i działacze. O idei trzeciego sektora w Polsce [Leaders and Activists. On the Idea of the Third Sector in Poland], Warszawa 2011

Jowita Skrzypaszek: Pointillism or Monochrome? How Sociology “Paints” the Polish Countryside (Stan i zróżnicowanie kultury wsi i małych miast w Polsce. Kanon i rozproszenie [The Condition and Diversity of the Culture of Villages and Small Towns in Poland. Canon and Dispersal], Izabella Bukraba-Rylska, Wojciech Józef Burszta (red.), Warszawa 2011)

Sylwia Grochowina (rev.): Antoine Vitkine, „Mein Kampf”. Biografia książki [Mein Kampf. History of the Book], Warszawa 2013

Joanna Piechowiak-Lamparska, Anna Ratke-Majewska: The Contemporary Dimension of the Politics of Memory