Research project Life careers: an analysis of the professional careers of Warsaw University student government leaders in the 1990s

elective courses

(in Polish) -zaliczony kurs metodologii badań społecznych

- elementarna znajomość teorii socjologicznych

Classroom

The workshop will be devoted to the study of further professional careers of student leaders from the 1990s.

Career research is a classic topic in sociology. Professional careers are most often studied as the basic dimension of the phenomenon of social mobility. In this project, the emphasis will be on analyzing the careers of student activists at the University of Warsaw in terms of the issue of shaping professional elites in Polish society. We expect that people who were student activists at the University of Warsaw gained higher professional positions than their peers who did not undertake such activity. In particular, we expect to find many former student activists among the broadly understood political elite. The study will cover several dozen activists who in the 1990s were members of the executive body of the student government of the University of Warsaw.

The workshop will be devoted to the study of further professional careers of student leaders from the 1990s.

Career research is a classic topic in sociology. Professional careers are most often studied as the basic dimension of the phenomenon of social mobility. In this project, the emphasis will be on analyzing the careers of student activists at the University of Warsaw in terms of the issue of shaping professional elites in Polish society. We expect that people who were student activists at the University of Warsaw gained higher professional positions than their peers who did not undertake such activity. In particular, we expect to find many former student activists among the broadly understood political elite. The study will cover several dozen activists who in the 1990s were members of the executive body of the student government of the University of Warsaw. The distinguished method will be a biographical interview through which the entire professional path of the respondent will be reconstructed. Respondents will also answer the question: the role of their personal experience from activities in the student government for their professional career.

Detailed general topics:

-Main determinants of professional careers in Poland

-Theory of democratic political elites (Higley; Pakulski, Etzioni -Halevy)

- Review of research on recruitment mechanisms for political elites in Poland

- Student organizations and youth parties: a survey review

- Theories of social capital (Bourdieu, Putnam, Sztompka)

Report topics:

- The main professional trajectories of student leaders in the twenty years since graduation

- Collective aspects of careers of individual student leaders

- A detailed analysis of the ways of generating social capital within a student organization

- Experience of activity in a student organization in the subjective assessment of the respondents.

K. Szafraniec, Pokolenia i polskie zmiany. 45 lat badań wzdłuż czasu, Warszawa 2022, fragmenty

B. Mach, Transformacja systemu a trajektorie życiowe młodych pokoleń, Warszawa 2005

J. Raciborski (red), Elity rządowe III RP 1997 -2004: portret socjologiczny, Warszawa 2006 (wybrane rozdziały)

S. Chase, Wywiad narracyjny. Wielość perspektyw, podejść, głosów, w : N.K. Denzin, Y. S. Lincoln (red), Metody badań jakościowych, Warszawa 2009

P. Bielecki P., Rola studentów w zarządzaniu szkołą wyższą, Wyd. Oficyna Wydawnicza SGH, Warszawa 2010.

W. Wesołowski, Teoretyczne aspekty badania elit politycznych, Studia Socjologiczne nr 4/2000

M. Prawda, Biograficzne odtwarzanie rzeczywistości. O koncepcji badań biograficznych F. Schuetze, Studia Socjologiczne nr 4/1989

J. Pakulski, A. Korosenyi, Toward Leader Democracy, London-New York 2012

P. Sztompka, Zaufanie. Fundament społeczeństwa, Kraków 2007 (fragmenty)

K_W07 Has in-depth knowledge of selected methods and techniques of social research, their limitations, specificity and areas of application

K_W08 Is aware of the importance of a reflective and critical approach to the results of social research, analyses and research procedures

K_W09 Knows how to plan and carry out complex qualitative and quantitative empirical research; is aware of the consequences of methodological choices

K_U01 Can identify causes and predict potential effects of past and current social events; can form critical judgments about current and past social events

K_U02 Can critically select information and materials for academic work, using various sources in Polish and a foreign language as well as modern technologies

K_U03 Can independently form and verify judgments about the causes of selected social phenomena

K_U04 Can use theoretical categories and research methods in the description and analysis of social and cultural changes in modern societies, as well as their consequences

K_U05 Can plan and carry out a social study using advanced quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques of social research

K_U10 Can prepare a presentation of a selected problem or study in Polish and in a foreign language

K_K01 Can initiate, plan, organize and manage work of a task team

K_K03 Can gather, find, synthesize and critically assess information about social sciences

K_K04 Can argue a thesis using scientific evidence

K_K05 Can undertake independent activity in public or personal interest

K_K06 Actively searches for new ways and sources to broaden his/her knowledge and improve professional competences

K_K08 Is aware of the existence of social dilemmas related to the work of the sociologist

K_K09 Is open to various theoretical and methodological perspectives of social research

K_K10 Takes responsibility for planned and performed tasks

Participation in the discussion, preparation of a research project, written work - research report