The article concerns the space identity as a dimension of the regional identity. The theoretical aspect refers to sociological ideas of regional identity. The empirical data come from research projects which were conducted in the Silesian Province in 2007—2009. The basic conclusion refers to the fact that the existence of the space identity on the regional level is hard to observe in the heterogenic Silesian Province. However some aspects of space identity exists on the local level.

The aim of this article is to present the sociological problems of migration from Upper Silesia to West Germany connected with the Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and Poland in 1970, the Gierek‑Schmidt agreement from 1975 as well as an organized family reunion and a discussion about the German minority in Poland. The paper attempts to broadly present the background, historical context and matters of the legal regulations related to the migrations and the consequences for both countries. The article is based on German and Polish researches and statistics. Stanisław Ossowski’s theoretical concept of a private homeland and an ideological cradle, according to which the motivations for the migration of Upper Silesians to the Federal Republic of Germany are presented, is examined in the article.

Civil society has been a widely-discussed ideal during the recent years. Both engaged and responsible community seems to be the best solution to contemporary problems. The other important phenomenon is a renaissance of the idea of regionalism. What appeared to be interesting is the combination of both the above-mentioned issues is the research of influence of regional identity on the process of civil society building.
Upper Silesia is an exceptional region, characterized by concurrently existing strong identity and social engagement. Regional identity may be a tool of civil society building. Provided that regionalism means conscious participation in being co-responsible for creating the face of the region, reinforcing regional identity has a direct influence on the development of civil society. The strong sense of identity encourages the citizens to actions for the common welfare within the confines of inhabited space.

The article presents the question of the functioning centres for foreigners (asylum seek-ers) run by the Office for Foreigners in Upper Silesian cities Katowice (2008—2009) and Bytom (2008—2010) in the media discourse at the local, regional and national level. The analysis concerns the texts and articles and comments from online forums related to the presence of foreigners — mostly Muslims from northern Caucasus, mainly from Chechenya — applying for refugee status in Poland. It was also analysed how the media created the image of these foreigners as well as the naming strategies and attitudes towards this group of the "Others".

An attempt to draw factors which affect the crisis of patriotism is a main purpose of the article. Starting from the modern understanding of the concepts of nation, homeland and national identity, the author tries to show the evolution of the concept of patriotism. The crisis of patriotism results from the processes of globalisation and the homogenisation as a result of the accession of new states to the European Union. This crisis is undoubtedly a very significant relationship with a new approach to the understanding of nation, homeland or national identity. The article is there-fore an attempt to draw up a new place and a new definition for patriotism.

The paper analyses the process of reception of the Polish national opera Halka, which was written by Stanisław Moniuszko during the times when Polish statehood did not exist. The author attempts to present how the socio-political and cultural context of reception can transform its national/social content. The musical piece in question has been also added new meanings, important for Silesian ethnic group that inhabited the region of the Silesian Opera’s cultural impact. Reviews, papers, as well as brief newspaper mentions, were the main object of the analysis. The specificity of the material under the analysis necessitated the usage of the QDA Miner software.

The article aims to present selected concepts of man in scientific discourse of Economy, Sociology, Philosophy, Social Doctrine of the Church and their subdisciplines. Based upon current research in scientific literature of those disciplines author tries to answer the question “who” a man is and “what place” in the economic and social life does he take. To achieve this goal author analyzed the concept of economic man (homo oeconomicus) deriving from classical economy, concept of social man (homo sociologicus), socio‑economic institutionally embedded man and originating from personalism concept of man as a person.

The article (the starting point which is sociological problems of social role) outlines specific region of Upper Silesia as a region encouraging traditional division of roles between genders, especially until 1989, as well as Upper Silesia seen from today’s perspective in which the traditional boundaries give way to an egalitarian relationship between husband and wife (or partners).

The term groupism is derived from the Japanese cultural model of collectivism, and it describes the behaviour of group-oriented individuals. In this meaning, it refers to both the national and organizational culture, being the natural element of the latter. In the author’s understanding, groupism in organization means high degree of internalizing by employees of collectivistic features as well as ritual practices stemming from them. Those practices can also be implemented in companies with foreign Japanese capital, which originally functioned in an environment with different behavioural patterns. Can thus understood groupism be spotted among the Polish companies with foreign Japanese capital? Based on her own research, the author demonstrates that the answer to the above question is affirmative, however, under condition of fulfilling certain assumptions. Groupism may be displayed on the level of employees’ attitudes, since they reflect different types of adapting by Polish personnel of the phenomenon in question.

The issue of ethics is a concept that affects human life from thier earliest years. Ethical rules largely regulate human relations and determine which behaviour is socially desirable, acceptable and which behaviours are not allowed. A special type of ethics is undoubtedly professional ethics which determines the behaviours and activities of the various professions. The importance of deontology seems particularly important in the case of the professions of public trust. Work in police is an example of such a profession and requires a number of formal and moral orders and bans for police officers. Professional ethics is an important part of the daily work and sets a definite direction of activities of police officers. This article presents the opinions of police officers about the rules of professional ethics in their work and assessing the relevance and feasibility of compliance with these rules.

This article presents selected entities and conditions of social rehabilitation on the example of a remand centre in Lublin. A brief analysis of rehabilitation and an outline of the issues related to prison was performed. Then the role of the prison service and the society in the social rehabilitation of prisoners was presented, as well as the importance of family ties and culture in the lives of prisoners.

In the years 2011—2012 the Institute of Environmental Protection — National Research Institute (in Polish: Państwowy Instytut Badawczy (PIB‑IEP)) completed the study of environmental awareness among the inhabitants of protected areas Natura 2000 in Poland participating in the consultation meetings. This research is one of the stages of a research project funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education: “Models of social conflicts in protected areas Natura 2000 in Poland”. The intention of this article is to present the methodology and current results of the environmental awareness of inhabitants of Natura 2000 areas in Poland.

Western societies are now in the information age and take part in knowledge-based economy. This transformation influenced also our country, including Silesian region, which was transformed from industrial region into region where service sector dominates. According to the above the development of Silesian Province is highly dependent on endogen factors referred to abilities of regional actors to cooperation. Now the key is ability to common learning, self reflection and openness to changes, which are important factors of generating innovation and have a decisive role in gaining competitive advantage in the scale of country, Europe and whole world. Innovations are important issues but the question is whether they really come to being in Silesian Province or is it just a part of nowadays discourse and cursing the reality? What are the sources barriers of innovations? Which brands in Silesian regions are the most innovative? These and others questions were given during the sociological researches to Silesian decisionmakers, whose general optimism is weaken by proper for them consciousness of functioning barriers, restrictions and distances from the desired state.

This article attempts to support the opinion that design is one of the essential elements influencing competitiveness of companies in current free market economy. Therefore, the issues directly connected with the idea of market competitiveness were specified. Moreover, the issues connected with the very idea of design were described, taking into account various and ambiguous definitions of this concept. This formed the basis to analyse the application of design and its influence on the functioning of companies, particularly its influence on market competitiveness of the companies which apply this concept. The theoretical analysis was supplemented with the results of empirical research, connected with the demand for design, which was carried out among 352 businessmen from Silesian voivodeship.

The article deals with the aplication of Schwartz theory of human values in a sociological research. The Schwartz theory of human values is a psychological theory of motivation in human behaviour and acting. The article is a critical introduction to a research of human values comparing research approaches of M. Rokeach, G. Hofstede, R. Inglehart and S.H. Schwartz. The “youngest” one — Schwartz’s has an aspiration to be universal. This theory has a common ground with a number of sociological theories. Basically, it is possible to apply this theory in empirical investigation of spectrum of nowadays sociological themes, topics and theories. The article is an attempt to step toward empirical investigations of values in sociology.

The article presents reflections connected with onomastics of the streets — the constitutive element of city space. In the first part of this text there are shown schools of sociology of the city — culturalistic and humanistic. Different looks at street — sociological and urban are also put forward. Because the aritcle’s attention is focused on the names, there are Polish law and linguistics presented too. Among possible angles of undertaking research on onomastics of the streets, the author shows one which is new — gender. But the problem of cultural sex is not the main issue of the article. It is the question how we can look at the city and research only into it. The author brings back acts of trying to join gender to city space. In the last part of the article, there are showed own research findings of names of Katowice and Cracow streets.

In the article New York is analysed as a city not in the terms of urbanism but culture. The City became inspiring for many artists such as Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Janusz Głowacki, Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Woody Allen, Roman Polański etc. and also for a number of social‑scientists like Claude Lévy‑Strauss, James Clifford or Jean Baudrillard. The author of the essay tries to present different points of view of above quoted on the same area — New York and especially Manhattan, and proves that it was described, painted, photographed or filmed so many times that people round the world have their own mental image of it even if they have never been to the USA. This image comes from high and pop culture, popular knowledge and scientific analysis. In the essay both literary and scientific texts blend to show the way the image of New York City is constructed and how it is displayed to the audience.

The article presents partial results of qualitative research conducted among the counselors of public employment services from Silesia region. The empirical analysis was conducted based on the dispositions of the semi‑structured interviews. There were presented the opinions of guidance counselors and the social perception of the profession in the article. Respondents indicated the main objectives of their work, the opinions expressed on the future of their jobs. Respondents also talked about the prospects for the development of vocational guidance in Poland, generally stressed the need for greater cooperation with secondary schools.

Mass migration from Poland to the UK since EU accession is a new phenomenon in the history of both countries. This paper presents the results of indepth interviews with Polish migrants and key informants, participant observation and analysis of newspaper articles. The aim of the research is to show how Poles adapt to a new life in the UK in terms of socio‑cultural, economic, political and spatial dimensions. The focus is pud on connections within their own ethnic community, with members of the host society and with institutions of the host country, along with position in the UK’s labour market and language and cultural competences of Polish migrants. Integration is not possible without a friendly environment. Therefore this research also considers whether the host society creates positive conditions for successful integration of Polish migrants. In this way, it was possible to indicate whether we can talk about integration or segregation in the case of Polish migrants in the UK.