Percepcja przemian ustrojowych przez studentów: Śląsk a Małopolska

Abstract

The subject of the study is the striking difference in the evaluation of the systemic changes which took place in Poland after 1989, as made by analogous groups of students from Silesia and Małopolska, observed in 2002-2003. The study was not conducted according to any assumptions made a priori - the applied method can rather be described as a natural experiment, because only the differences noticed ex post induced taking up the subject. Students from Małopolska, similarly to the majority of young people entering conscious social life in the conditions of the new system, were inclined to criticize first of all the inefficient reforms of education and health care. As far as other systemic changes are concerned, they rarely revealed autonomously formed opinions. Whereas, students from Silesia received all of the systemic changes with greater pessimism. They were inclined first of all to point out negative phenomena, including unemployment at the top of the list (although the rate of unemployment in Silesia at that time was among the lowest in Poland). They were also inclined to recall the times of PRL (Polish People’s Republic) with a certain nostalgia. Explanation of those differences is related to the sense of frustration pervading the whole region, observed by many researchers, resulting from economic and prestige-symbolic degradation which Silesia was experiencing after the plight of the mining industry, which played the leading role in PRL.