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The article presents new research tool for measurement of conspiratorial anti-Semitism and characteristics of the phenomenon nature. The idea of the method was based on weighing separate aspects of Jews’ activity by the conviction of their secretiveness. The study was carried out on the national sample of adult Poles (N=800). Two groups of explanatory variables were measured: (i) characteristics of the individual social position, and (ii) features of socio-political mentality. The analysis revealed that the research tool was highly reliable (Cronbach’s α coefficient was .91). The subsequent analyses show the method to meet the requirements of theoretical validity. Factor analysis gave highly satisfactory onefactor solution. It was established that conspiratorial anti-Semitism was not directly related to social position. It turned out however that conspiratorial anti-Semitism correlated with negative affect (depression, relative deprivation, resentment, and negative assessment of situation in Poland), social anomie, political alienation. It was also found out that conspiratorial anti-Semitism was accompanied by authoritarianism, xenophobia, and political paranoia. Path analysis showed that conspiratorial anti-Semitism indirectly depended on cultural capital, authoritarianism and political alienation. However its direct and the strongest predictors turned out to be resentment and political paranoia. One can say that conspiratorial anti-Semitism appears as a consequence mainly of “embittered Polish soul” and generalized conspiratorial thinking.
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The article addresses the issue of changes that take place in the life of a physically disabled person, which is caused by his/her engagement in sport activity. In the article I make an attempt to prove that practicing sport through body work may provide conditions for self-discovery of a person with physical disability, and for transformations in perceiving oneself. At the same time, I try to demonstrate that sport practiced by the disabled supports changes of the manner, in which they are perceived by able bodied persons, effectively leveling such phenomena as exclusion or social marginalization. The qualitative data used in the research were collected through an in-depth free interview and observation conducted among the disabled who practice sport. The analysis and interpretation of research are of ethnographic character and are based on the procedures of the grounded theory.
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Turbulent social changes such as revolutions, mass movements or processes of democratization were major topics for the classical historical sociology. Its leading proponents such as Charles Tilly or Theda Skocpol were generally receptive towards paradigmatic shifts in social sciences and the humanities. However, their receptions of linguistic and cultural turn were limited if not flawed. This article attempts to rethink classical research questions of Tilly’s historical sociology from the perspective of discourse-oriented epistemological and ontological shift. The paper presents relevant insights from various research disciplines concerning discourse theory and historical discourse analysis and offers a way of their cross-fertilization. It is also an attempt to reconstruct and rearticulate historical sociology as a discourse oriented theoretical and methodological perspective.
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The present paper analyses and empirically verifies a classical theory of a French political scientist, Maurice Duverger, which explains the relations between electoral and party systems. The Duverger’s theory being often discussed, interpreted, verified, criticised and at the same time corroborated, entered the canon of knowledge and for many decades set the directions of empirical studies on the relations between electoral and party systems. Duverger proudly named his theory a “true sociological law”. The aim of the paper is to evaluate Duverger’s assertions on the methodological and theoretical basis. To boot, it confronts predictions of the theory with the results of empirical research. Consequently, it will be possible to answer the eponymous, fundamental research question: Are the Duverger’s laws still valid?
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The article is focused the issue of non-discursive knowledge and its transmission, which is marginalized in Polish sociology. A starting point is the assumption that beyond discursive knowledge, there is also non-discursive knowledge that is universal, because it is used every day by everybody. Paradoxically however, it rarely becomes a subject of analysis. The article begins with enumerating the reasons for this exclusion and suggests that a field of sport is an appropriate area for the research on non-discursive knowledge transmission. At the same time the article emphasizes the usefulness of the analysis in this field for the entire sociology due to its potential of providing the answers to the questions such as what are the limits of our knowledge concepts or how to study non-discursive knowledge. The second part of the article presents the notions of (1) embodied knowledge and (2) know-how, which are assigned to the two currents of analysis. It is suggested they can become the theoretical basis for empirical research. The last part describes the research methods which seem to be most useful and adequate in the studies concerning a transfer and acquisition of nondiscursive knowledge.
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review of: Jednostka po nowoczesności [Individual after modernity] by Mirosława Marody
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Using the example of shale gas exploration in Poland, the article brings up the problem of public participation in decision making on controversial energy innovations. Based on theoretical approaches from science and technology studies, sociology of risk and participatory technology governance, the authors present an analysis of a pilot dialogue programme on shale gas, conducted in a small community in North Poland, Mikołajki Pomorskie in 2013. The goal of the article is to study how the participatory approach works in social practice: to what degree is the inclusion of various stakeholders groups possible in decision making processes regarding innovative technological investments. The conducted analysis shows that although in the theory a shift from informing to making decision together has been made, participatory activities may in social practice make a loop and come back to “information and education” as main goals of communication with the public.
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review of: Wiejska Polska na początku XXI wieku. Rozważania o gospodarce i społeczeństwie [Rural Poland at the beginning of the XXI century. Thoughts on economy and society] by Maria Halamska
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The objective of this paper is to explain the mechanics of gerrymandering and also to show how gerrymandering influence an electoral competition. In this article I describe the determinants of gerrymandering, as well as I try to assess whether gerrymandering is a threat to the quality of political competition in Poland. To show how gerrymandering works, I analyze the empirical examples of the partisan redistricting that has been observed in the USA, e.g. in Illinois. In my studies I used Geographic Information System (GIS) data to investigate the examples of gerrymandering. The article answers the following questions: What is gerrymandering and what is the impact of this phenomenon on the quality of democratic electoral competition? What are examples of manipulation of electoral district boundaries? How does gerrymandering influence the results of the elections and what are the reasons for using this tool in democracies? Is gerrymandering a threat to the quality of electoral competition in Poland?
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review of: Ossowski z perspektywy półwiecza [Ossowski viewed from a half-century perspective] by Antoni Sułek ed.
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Body – Inscribed Social Knowledge and Experience
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The aim of the paper is to present the way in which hand transplant recipients experience their reconstructed bodies in the context of their work on recreation of corporeal unity in it. The empirical basis of the paper is the author’s sociomedical research study of a group of 6 hand transplant recipients who underwent the transplantation procedure in Poland in the years 2006 – 2014. The main question which the study sought to answer was how the upper limb transplant recipients experience their reconstructed body in terms of visual impression and the transplanted limb dexterity. The scope of the study comprised: 1) experience of the reconstructed body as a material being; 2) experience of the reconstructed body in relation to the recipient’s “ego”; 3) experience of the reconstructed body in relation to objects and people. The research material was gathered using the grounded theory methodology. The collected empirical material comes from 33 in-depth interviews (IDI) conducted in the aforesaid group of transplant recipients. The analysis of the empirical material showed that the most important problem for the research subjects in the experience of their own corporeality was the adjustment to physical changes in their body resulting from the limb transplantation. This process determines the recipient’s distancing of his/her identity from his/her body.
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review of: Literatura polska po 1989 roku w świetle teorii Pierre’a Bourdieu. Raport z badań [Post-1989 Polish literature from the viewpoint of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory. Research report] by Grzegorz Jankowicz, Piotr Marecki, Alicja Palęcka, Jan Sowa and Tomasz Warczok
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