The paper presents findings of the comparative study on relationships between remembrance story-telling and the transitional reconstruction of political identities. It identifies in which areas and fields of impact governments tend to use interpretations of the past to promote new leadership visions of society. Moreover, it verifies theoretical hypotheses related to the politicised remembrance and its role as a political asset during transformations, as well as it considers the theoretical framework of democracy-building (and a common prediction of its universal character). As a result, the study offers a detailed picture of the way remembrance narratives are transformed into explanations, justifications or legitimisation of new, post-authoritarian identities based on qualitative-to-quantitative analysis of the intensity of story-telling and its links with transitional identity politics. In the conclusion, the Authors present their consideration of research findings, and they discuss it with reference to the nature of transitional government’s remembrance policy as a sphere of social influence. 

The contemporary border crossing is said to have become progressively more automated and faster. Automated devices and surveillance systems in border control generally are to enhance security of the state. However, this perception of innovations in border control represents more of a developed countries’ perspective than a universal rule. An acceleration of technological development maintains or deepens inequalities between countries, regions, societies or generations and the change (progress) does not occur worldwide and does not apply to all societies. This paper presents different systems of border control using new technologies and their consequences in social and human dimension. A transition of state’s border from a physical line to territorially dispersed points, linked with international information and data sharing, is analysed. The impact of the automated border control of travellers on interactions between developed and less or developing countries is on the main interests of the author in this paper.

In his article, the author outlines the values preferred by teachers and those aspiring to the profession. The presented data point to a very broad convergence between what teachers and students indicated with regard to their attitude towards values. Although one can observe certain, rather subtle, differences (related to, among others, the socio-demographic characteristics of those surveyed), they are of secondary importance and do not cause the axiological bases for the functioning of both groups to differ. What is significant is also the placement of such values as safety, responsibility and children. These values have a static character, connected with necessity and, at the same time, with the need to maintain one’s property. They proved to be slightly more appreciated by teachers than by students. The research shows one essential yet weak correlation: two values, wisdom and honesty, find a slightly wider acknowledgement among teachers than among their future colleagues. The same can be said of the case when the same values are chosen as primary. In this context, referring everything that takes place in the social space to distant, better times seems to be justified. No matter how it was in the real historical dimension, it appears justified to assert that it is undoubtedly better to live in an environment where the majority of those representing a given professional group (especially one as important for the social structure as teachers) recognise the importance of wisdom and honesty.

In this article three separate, but connected studies are presented. The first and second studies conducted on two large samples of teachers (N=610&N=200) were realized to find an answer to the question about relationship of some personality characteristics (study 1.) or creative attitude (study 2.) and feeling of being a man/ woman of success in teachers’ case. The results showed statistically significant correlations between achieved success (in self-assessment) and such personality traits as: extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness (all relations are positive) and a negative correlation with neuroticism. In the second study significant differences in nonconformity, algorithmic behaviour and heuristic behaviour were found between teachers who think about themselves as people of success and those who did not achieve success. Successful teachers (in their own eyes) were more conformist and intellectually rigid (higher algorithmic and lower heuristic behaviour levels) than those who did not achieve success. The third study deals with the problem of teachers’ success source definitions and elements which could help to achieve success. The analysis of the data conducted in the Polish General Social Survey between 1992 and 2002 shows that teachers, similarly to the rest of society, see success sources mainly in individual abilities and activity (ambition, hard work), but one can see an interesting phenomenon of a growing number of factors which could be associated with social stratification – mainly family income and parents’ education level.