Identity in the age of globalisation (a report on Manford Kuhn’s Twenty Statements Test taken by the students from Poland and Zimbabwe)

The global reality, and in particular the extensive network of economic, political and also strategic interdependencies, especially over the past several years, has led to a significant conversion of the educational model. As a result of the real changes taking place, whole social categories can be observed, whose life, work and also study are completely uprooted from a specific place and the concept of “we” goes beyond the borders of the local community. This raises the question of the factors that shape the “self” in the changing global world of the 21st century. The aim of this article is to compare the categories within which young people from Poland and Zimbabwe define themselves and to identify the dominant elements of a description of the “self” concept. The research tool is the Twenty Statements Test designed by the symbolic interactionist Manford Kuhn. McPartland’s (1959) codification key is used to interpret the test results.