Obraz młodzieży polskiej z przełomu lat pięćdziesiątych i sześćdziesiątych XX wieku w świetle badań pedagogicznych
The Image of Polish Youth at the Turn of the 1950s in the Light of Pedagogical Research

Summary/Abstract: The communist leaders from the years of the Polish People’s Republic (PRL) used every occasionto declare that the hope for the ultimate victory of socialism in Poland was tied to youth. The confirmationof that was the propaganda slogan: “You are the future of our nation,” directed towardthe younger generation by every subsequent first secretary of the Central Committee of the PolishUnited Workers’ Party (KC PZPR). However, just a simple look at everyday reality revealed thatPolish youth were not ready to fulfil the dream of communist leaders. Doubtless that was the reasonthat the new leadership of the PZPR with Wladyslaw Gomulka at its head made the decision tounblock the current educational trend of the study of social reality in Poland. The revival of scholarly research on young people completed during the second half of the decade of the 1950s by academicstaff of the Department of Pedagogy of Warsaw University attained results which quite strongly differed from the propaganda message and above all from the expectations of the communist authorities. It revealed that young people whose socialization occurred during the Stalinist years only superficially accepted the values imposed on them by socialist schools. Furthermore, the norms taken from so-called communist morality were not internalized. At the same time, theyounger generation drifted away from the traditional norms transmitted by family and the Roman Catholic Church. The research also signalled that the personalities of many young people are dominated by emptiness and discouragement for all kinds of ideas.

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