The contemporary debate on multiculturalism began at the beginning of the 1970s., but only on the territory of Canada and Australia. The failure of assimilation ideologies in the USA was the major cause of publication of many papers on multiculturalism, which was perceived as a panacea to any ethnic and cultural issues. In the study of Western European societies multiculturalism as the subject of a study was used in the 1980s. and 1990s. A lively debate on the world’s cultural diversity which started at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries generated in social studies a serious and reasoned discussion about global multiplicity of cultures and interference of axiologically separate and normatively social spheres.

Author proposes constructing cultural diagnosis of Poland after 1989 using anthropological and sociological concepts of cultural diversity, multiculturalism and intercultural encounter. The multi‑stage research project aiming at critique of the monocultural vision of Poland is outlined. The first stage is discussed in the detail by reference to two cases of intercultural encounter: 1) historical reconstruction i.e. encountering the past and 2) encountering the otherness as in the international folk‑music festival. The both types are described and compared using the Victor Turner’s theory of social drama (spectacle). The cultural unity of Polish culture is described as based upon the intercultural contact and pluralism of types of culture.

This article is devoted to the analysis of images of cultural diversity, conflicts and coexistence of nations in the real life and cyberspace. Visual culture, symbols and images present in both mentioned spaces create the context for interpreting and understanding the sings of collisions or peaceful meetings between different national cultures. In the real space borderland could be the good „laboratory” of cultural identity, ethnicity and group solidarity. The first part of this text deals with the above topics. The next part is focused on the answer to the question how the boundaries between nations and cultures can be constructed in the virtual space of the internet? This research is only an introduction to the future studies of the changes in mutual perception of cultures which have occurred lately due to the role of the Web in the public life.

The aim of the article is to discuss the issues of exclusion and inclusion in relation to the urban space. The exclusion and the inclusion are analyzed as the socially constructed terms. The authors assume that the sense of those terms starts to be reality through the spatial context of the local community life. So the meanings of the exclusion and inclusion are constructed in the process of defining the “normality”, functionality, attraction of the life space. In the article there are the references to the results of the empirical research which confirm the complex and ambiguous — for various social categories — way of perceiving and defining social change. Moreover, the manifestations of change seen by some as leading to the inclusion (e.g. revitalization of the space), for others are becoming the excluding factors. In the process of creation of the meanings of the urban space, its (less or more) exclusive or inclusive character, the important factors are: the knowledge of the place, the place attachment, the sense of security, the sense of influence on the particular place.

Moreover, the paper explores rarely realised problem of xenophilia. Xenophilia is treated as a phenomenon, opposed to xenophobia, involving uncritical fascination with some form of alienation. The author tried to distinguish different types of xenophilia. He wonders about the causes of this phenomenon as well.

The purpose of this article is to show the differences in value systems of the three neighboring nations. The value theory of Ronald Inglehart, which states that with the increase in welfare of the people there is a shift from materialistic to post‑materialistic values, was used in the research. Since 1990, there has been sociological studies carried out in third societies within the European Values Study based on this theory. The latest edition of survey results from 2008 was published in Slovakia and Czech Republic. At the same time the author conducted her research, using some of the questions of EVS. Research related to the values of work, family and religion. Firstly, the systems of values of both societies were presented, followed by religion as a value. In analyzing the family as the value, attention has been focused on two specific issues, the question of whether marriage is an outdated institution and the norms of marital and family morality. The analysis highlighted the similarities and differences of each of the values existing in the awareness of the three neighboring nations.

The aim of the article is to investigate the cultural diversity of rural communities in the Świętokrzyskie voivodeship, which are experiencing the influx of new residents coming from cities: suburbanites and members of the new settlers movement. On the basis of the individual and family in-depth interviews with the new and established residents, as well as the leaders of social activity in three villages (two of which are facing suburbanization, and two are destination for the new settlers), four cultural types were distinguished. They are based on the interviewees’ rural or urban origin and their attitudes toward the heritage of the folk culture. Two types are related to the category of immigrants:
1) suburban‑consumer — represented primarily by the middle class residents of suburbia, still maintaining a strong professional and educational links with the metropolises, focused on achieving success in the market economy;
2) alternative — whose representatives are primarily the new settlers, tied with countercultural groups, characterised by the critical attitude toward the modern capitalist order and materialistic way of life, fascinated by the traditional folk art, ecology, communitarianism. The other cultural types are associated with the native residents:
3) traditional — continuing the old peasant way of life, typical for the people attached to traditional farming and Christian values, poorly integrated with the contemporary labour and trade market;
4) modernist‑materialistic — represented by the fraction of the rural population abandoning, or even rejecting the traditional peasant economy and the values associated with it, oriented towards prosperity, material development and upward mobility in the economic hierarchy.

The main topic of my article is symbolic conflict. I intend to present symbolic conflicts which have appeared in the area of Góra Świętej Anny (the highest peak of Silesian Highland, Poland) and its neighbourhood in the last quarter‑century. Administratively it belongs to the Opole Voivodeship, Strzelce County, and Gmina Leśnica and is inhabited by Poles, Germans and people who identify themselves as Silesian nationality. Conflicts between them generally involve such venues as sanctuary (Calvary), museums devoted to local history and historic monuments. I implemented Lewis Coser’s theory of conflict and elements of Claus Offe’s field of ethnic conflict.

The article discusses the temporary migration when one contextually (does not) meets the culture, what is in turn visible in the migrants’ experiences. The consequences of (not) meeting the culture depend on occurrence and the strength of the mechanisms that anchor the migrants here and there. The aim of the article is to explain how the cultures interpenetrate in the context of economic migration. The temporality constitutes the central category and it is discussed in three contexts: (non) usage the language, (non) leisure time and (non) returning of the migrants. The paper is based on research data and is based on qualitative analysis of the interviews conducted in a research and artistic project “Opole Odysseys” carried out by the sociologists and artists of Opole University in 2013—2014.

The aim of this article is to present different patterns of interaction between Polish national culture and local culture in the context of activities of the “Gazeta Polska” Clubs. The aforementioned Clubs are nonregistered associations that regularly organize events of patriotic character: marches, demonstrations, discussions with politicians and other figures of public life, and all kinds of activities whose main purpose is to promote the “Gazeta Polska” weekly. Since the middle of 2005, when the first club had begun its activity, 392 associations have been established out of which 341 is active in Poland. The author of this article analyzes selected media releases created by members of the Clubs. The article focuses on documents available on the Internet which is used as a principal tool in the process of popularization of the Clubs’ activities. The objects for the analysis is, therefore, selected content of the Internet sites comprised of announcements of the meetings, as well as reports from them, articles and short texts created by the members. All the texts are dedicated to the commemoration of historical events. The material has been supplemented with data gathered by the author during field work. Theoretical framework of the considerations falls within the context of the contemporary studies of locality, which allows to grasp certain specificities resulting from the meeting of the two cultures: national culture and local culture.

The paper presents Maghreb with its Mediterranean countries as a meeting place facilitating contacts with great civilisations and religions. Culture encounters have been taking place in different dimensions and contexts since medieval times. The text outlines relations at the language level (Berberic/Arabic/French); it also touches upon the influence of Andalusian and Ottoman music on local rhythms, and the specificity of Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan cuisine tastes. Another special dimension of culture discussed hereby is the one presented by the people born in Algeria with French or European roots, described as Pied‑noirs (Black Foot). Their traces prove the crossbreeding of specific Mediterranean cultures.

Fleeing the dangers of war, refugees leave behind their social and physical worlds of home. While in exile, they face economic hardship, insecurity and estrangement, trying to adapt themselves to a new, often very different, reality. In the case of those staying in refugee camps, the situation of forced cross‑cultural contact can be analyzed on two levels, in regard to: (1) interactions between refugees and members of the host population, understood both locally and nationally; (2) relations between refugees themselves within the emergent camp community, most often composed of people coming from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. The article describes the such‑defined situation of cross‑cultural contact as lived by the inhabitants of Al‑Am‛ ari, a Palestinian refugee camp established in 1949 in the vicinity of Ramallah, West Bank. The unique situation of the researched community, pertaining to both the length of their exile and the fact of being “refugees in their own land”, allows to address matters that are rarely reflected upon in the literature on refugees, i.e. the cosmopolitan aspect of the refugee condition and the formation of a hybrid camp identity.

(Upper) Silesian cuisine is the research field where the mutual permeability of the culinary cultures is demonstrated. The typology of basic analytical concepts opposing popular practices to the official normative cuisine. Culinary practice is reduced to the triadic structure composed of (a) ingredients, (b) procedures and (c) functions in the wider context of a meal. Cultural marking might be proved for each of these elements. As the departure the officially recognized elements of Silesian cuisine had been chosen that appear however also in the other cuisines. Nevertheless the specific seems rather the general structure of the festive dinner that is perceived in the area as distinctively Silesian. This is however more regional/ethnic distinctiveness than purely culinary one.

In sociological theory, there are several concepts in which it is possible to look for the impact of education on transmission of poverty and social inequality. We would like to point to educational system as integral and major part of the reproduction of society. The article shows how education largely affects the life chances and participation of the individual in society, which is closely related to unemployment and poverty. In sociological theories we can meet with several authors that respond to the question why society and social structure are reproduced from one generation to another. The article deals with education as an important factor of intergenerational reproduction of poverty. Based on significant authors dealing with these issues, such as Louis Althusser, Melvin Kohn, Pierre Bourdieu, Basil Bernstein and John Goldthorpe, the article aims at highlighting the idea that the strongest defence against the reproduction of poverty is education.