This paper brings up the issue of population aging and its influence on designing and construction of buildings in Poland. It also touches the problem of adaptation of existing facilities to the needs of the elderly and the disabled. Moreover, current trends in Polish demographics and possible outlook for the next 45 years has been presented. The author presents the current legal state concerning rules and regulations on the aspects of adjusting the buildings and their parts to the needs of the disabled. Additionally, the dimensions and the areas of movement for the disabled as well as the primary functional and requirements for bathrooms have been described. In the next paragraph, a concept of Ambient Assisted Living with examples of sanitary equipment for use in residential buildings has been propose.

The paper demonstrates that blind people localize sounds more accurately than sighted people by using monaural and/or binaural cues. In the experiment, blind people participated in two tests; the first one took place in the laboratory and the second one in the real environment under different noise conditions. A simple click sound was employed and processed with non-individual head related transfer functions. The sounds were delivered by a system with a maximum azimuth of 32° to the left side and 32° to the right side of the participant’s head at a distance ranging from 0.3 m up to 5 m. The present paper describes the experimental methods and results of virtual sound localization by blind people through the use of a simple electronic travel aid based on an infrared laser pulse and the time of flight distance measurement principle. The lack of vision is often compensated by other perceptual abilities, such as the tactile or hearing ability. The results show that blind people easily perceive and localize binaural sounds and assimilate them with sounds from the environment.

In her book Anna Ziębińska-Witek deals with a question of displaying and interpreting the experience of communism in various historical exhibitions in Central and Eastern Europe. The book enables the readers to get acquainted with analysis of historical discourses concerning contemporary history conducted neither in form of sophisticated monographies, nor in form of superficial press commentaries, but basing on such an unique media as historical exhibitions. Ziębińska-Witek stresses here the fact that museums are more often than not instruments of the politics of memory than a method of disseminating objective historical knowledge. Therefore she analyses and deconstructs various types of exhibitions: those stressing heroism, those underlining martyrdom, and, finally, those with a gadget-focused sentimental approach. Although it is hard to speak about one single interpretation of communism in historical exhibitions in Central and Eastern Europe, Ziębińska-Witek points out that in all Central and Eastern European countries the dominant role is played by large, stateowned museums.

Prof. Hanna Bogucka, head of the Department of Wireless Communications at the Poznań University of Technology, discusses unnecessary inhibitions, the usefulness of microphones, and the links between people and technology.

Language interprets the world, shows us what’s going on in people’s minds, and it can affect how they behave – says Dr. Monika Łaszkiewicz from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin.

The author analyses a history of research on culture in communist Poland and the USSR (later Russian Federation). She finds similarities and differences. During the time of communist Poland a tendency was to standardize the supply of culture and make the access to it more democratic. The basic task of the sociology of culture in communist Poland was to control the advancement process of culture dissemination and research into the various forms of participation. However, in the second half of the 70s attention was more and more focused on the directions of cultural sociology development and functions. Following the fall of communism this discipline was faced with a challenge of embracing all the important directions of changes while indicating a now socio-cultural model at the same time. In the USSR, on the other hand, the government was interested only in the cultural research which was to confirm a hypothesis on fast cultural development of masses. Sociology of culture did not exist as a science, though. Following years of deep crisis, when perestroika period began, sociologists of post soviet Russia faced a serious challenge: how to move from “the only one true” Marxist paradigm to the mastering and usage of various theories which functioned in sociology around the world. The Author indicated the contribution in this respect i.a. of Vladimir Yadov or academics circled around Yurij Levada. In general one can say that in Poland as well as in Russia, the sociology of culture following the fall of communist regime and following certain major political, economic, social and cultural changes, found itself in entirely new reality.

Love is the most widespread phenomenon at the individual, social and cultural level. Our knowledge of love comes both from our individual experiences and the social and cultural models that depict the nature of love in that particular era. There are a number of tools for measuring individual attitudes, feelings, manifestations, and behaviours relating to love. The Individual Representations of Love Scale is based on the fact that representations of love are created at the point where the individual intersects with the culture. The psychometric parameters of the Individual Representations of Love Scale were verified on a sample of 755 young people aged 18-35. Cultural resources and differentiation ability with regard to religious status, gender, and multiple partner relationship characteristics are taken into account. The results show that there are five factors of individual representations of love: 1. biological and selfcentred love, 2. spiritual love, 3. physical love, commitment, searching and building, 4. strength and positive benefits of love, and 5. reverse side of love. The cultural resources of these five factors and the scale’s differentiation ability are discussed.

Over the last 20 years, Polish society’s attitude towards people with disabilities has changed for the better. However, we still have not completely rid ourselves of prejudices, fears, and stereotypes.

Although the Council‘s declaration Nostra aetate has been absorbed by the magisterium, there are new challenges suggesting its acknowledgement and further development. The document’s significance resides in its foundation on Romans 9-11 and in the fact that it has been promulgated at all, in spite of enormous resistance in the years ahead. No. 528 from the Catechism of the Catholic Church rises up out of various official statements with respect to this topic: The three wise men from Jesus’ Epiphany are typical representatives of the pagan religions who have to turn to the Jews in order to receive “from them the messianic promise”. This insight corrects a romanticizing pluralism of religions as it becomes manifest in the terminology of the three “Abrahamic religions”. A further development of Nostra aetate should include two aspects: Overcoming the narrowing down of Judaism and Christianity as a “religion” without refeRence to realities like “the land”, and, secondly, deepening the theological understanding of the referral of Christianity towards Judaism, particularly in connection with the term “People of God”.

The public and, above all, scientists clearly emphasize that the cause of global climate change caused mainly by carbon dioxide emissions is, above all, human activity and its combined emission. It is associated with the processes of fuel combustion in the energy, industry and transport, as well as with poverty being the main cause of difficulties in meeting basic energy needs in households and the incorrect way of heating them. The public is often made aware that the climate should be protected and at the same time convinced that global warming has no impact on the everyday lives of Poles. Meanwhile, Poland, due to the high share of coal in the energy sector, is indicated as one of the main culprits of carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union and exposed as a significant shareholder of climate change causing global warming. The aim of the work is to show the opinions of young people aged 15–24, in terms of their awareness of the human impact on climate change and indication of desirable directions of the modern energy policy, defining the level of support for these directions, which will significantly contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

The research conducted among young people shows that it is aware of the consequences of climate change, especially on a global scale, and to a much lesser extent in Poland, and still less in the Podkarpackie province. The studied youth emphasizes that climate change is currently one of the greatest threats, but it is one of many threats.

The young people emphasize that the energy policy in Poland should aim at the better utilization and reduction of energy consumption as well as increasing the share of energy based on renewable energy sources, associated mainly with public health protection, reduction of air pollution, as well as the energy security of the country. Young people show a lack of determination regarding the use of nuclear power plants, where we see supporters and opponents of this source of electricity in a similar relationship.

In my article I try to examine the genesis of the Round Table negotiations in Poland and East Germany in 1989-1990 on the basis of the existing literature and archival sources. Despite the shared name “Round Table”, there were many significant differences concerning the genesis of the negotiations between the ruling communist parties and the opposition in the two countries. These differences can be observed on many levels, starting with the internal situation in both countries in the wake of 1989 – through their varied economic conditions, disproportionate political power of the opposition and dissident movements – up to different, though so close in time, political-historical context of both negotiations. Describing these historical asymmetries helps better understand spectacular changes of 1989 and their long lasting consequences.

A strong nostalgia for “the good old days” is a cultural phenomenon underway throughout the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The filter of nostalgia “tames” communism, though it does not negate its absurdities and inconveniences. Only in exceptional cases does nostalgia mean a genuine desire to restore the past. Nonetheless, the very fact of a swelling nostalgia for communist times is symptomatic and indicates that despite strong public support for the narratives of the transformation in the post-communist countries, there are also narratives created in a bottom-up manner and managed by small and often private museum institutions. The musealization of post-communist nostalgia is a widespread process, but it differs in the various countries of the region. This article will analyze examples of nostalgic museum exhibitions in Poland and the former East Germany. Based on the study of these cases, the author attempts to describe the importance of such exhibitions for the public.

The article is a critical analysis of Ingarden’s theory of how we learn about other people’s mental states. The author discusses arguments that have been offered by Ingarden against competing theories and highlights their shortcomings. Next, he presents Ingarden’s original theory, underlining its strengths and weaknesses. He shows that Ingarden’s theory, apart from giving an insight into the mechanisms underlying the cognition of other people’s mental states, has a limited explanatory power even if treated as a phenomenological description of a select class of cognitive situations.

Lubiewo (2005) by Michał Witkowski presents a particularly high number of cultural elements related to the last decades of the Polish People’s Republic (1952–1989), which far from serving exclusively as a historical background, turn the latter into one of the novel’s main characters. The present paper aims at investigating and comparing the way these elements, whose translation is known to be problematic, have been transferred into the Russian ( Любиево 2007) and English ( Lovetown 2010) translations.

This article offers a survey of the careers of 54 Polish female historians who received the habilitacja degree in 1945–1989 at seven Polish universities – four of those were founded soon after the Second World War (University of Łódź, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, University of Wrocław, Maria Skłodowska‑Curie University in Lublin), while three had been established earlier (University of Warsaw, Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań). Analysis of personal files and various biographical materials has led the author to a number of conclusions about female historians’ academic careers. The careers reflected the discipline’s development, both in terms of the expansion of its field of inquiry, as well its methodological diversity and the conditions in which it operated. Career paths followed by women were not much different from those followed by men. Neither advancement requirements, nor employment policy at the schools of higher learning were discriminatory towards any of the sexes. However, as far as the female career advancement is concerned, there were some differences between the old and new universities: it was easier for women to obtain managerial positions at the latter.

The topic of intra-European youth mobility has been under investigation for some time. This contribution discusses a particular youth migration, that of the children of immigrants who leave Italy to move to Northern Europe. What are the motivations behind this de facto migration? How much do discrimination processes count in the decision to move abroad and under what conditions and for what reasons do people leave Italy? This paper – based on my extensive qualitative research on young people of foreign origin, born and/or raised in Italy – discusses the opportunities and limits of these young people’s coping strategies in the face of difficulties in inclusion and entry into the labour market. It does this based on the broader research project, by taking into account the mobility ideas, drivers and relationships between mobile youth and their (ethnic or not) social networks.

This article addresses issues of mobility and place-making among CEE-born young people who migrated from Poland and Romania to Sweden as children (up to the age of 18). Previous research on intra-EU mobility in other destinations posits this group as 1.5-generation migrants who, due to their mobility at a formative age, experience duality and in-betweenness – with specific effects on their social and familial lives. Inspired by this research, our article examines how mobility to Sweden at a young age (re)shapes young peoples’ connection to and meaning-making of places post-migration. Drawing on two-step qualitative interviews with 18 adolescents and young adults from Poland and Romania, as well as on drawings and photographs as part of the visual materials produced by the participants, the article makes two contributions. First, it integrates the scholarship on children and youth mobility, translocalism and place-making but also deepens these conceptualisations by underlining the role of memories and feelings in young people’s place-making processes. Second, the article suggests that visual methodology is a valuable tool with which to capture the embodied and the material practices of translocal place-making over time. Our findings reveal that most of these young people continue to strongly associate with places from their childhood and country of origin. For some, these places symbolise ongoing transnational practices of visits and daily communication while, for others, these are imaginary places of safety and a right place to be. The findings also highlight the importance of memories and feelings in creating transnational connectivity between the countries of origin and Sweden, as well as in developing coping strategies against the social exclusion and misrecognition which some young people may experience in their new living spaces.

The pontificate of Pope Francis has a specific character that does not consist only in spectacular gestures or a new language but is also manifested in the contents of his teaching. The presented paper is an attempt to outline the main message in the teaching of Pope Francis and his most important theological inspirations which explain the point of view and specific theological features of his pontificate. The theology of the people is the starting point of the paper as it is central to Francis’ thought about the Church and constitutes the basis for his understanding of social questions. Then, elements of Ignatian spirituality will be presented as they have impact on the manner of presenting theological themes by the Jesuit Pope. The last point introduces a reflection about mercy, which is the key theological idea in the teaching of Francis and finds application in the understanding of many specific questions. The analysis of Francis’ teaching confirms that it is based on the Bible, the theological tradition of the Church and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and shows specific new aspects which have been treated as hardly audible voices in the world Church so far.

The article discusses the image of Volhynian Polesye as presented in Alexander Kuprin’s novella Olesya. Kuprin’s piece combines numerous elements characteristic of a Russian Volhynia text. As regards nature, this is primarily represented by the theme of wildlife. The motif of an untouched, virginal wilderness along with solitude also appears. As for the presentation of customs and morals, the themes of secluded rural life as well as the ignorance and backwardness of the local population are conspicuous. It is here that the binary oppositions typical of a Volhynia text are expressively conveyed: these include ours vs. the others, and the human vs. the devilish. In this work, mythology also features prominently. The image of Polesie shown in this text is to a large extent that of a mythical expanse where primeval forces lurk, one emanating an ambience of mystery. It is this ambience that inspires the narrator to ponder the relationship between man and nature, and to encourage existential reflection. In conclusion, it should be said that Kuprin’s novella made a significant contribution to the formation of the Russian Volhynia text at the turn of the 20th century.

The article presents the history of the competition and design of the building originally intended for the Juliusz Osterwa Theatre in Lublin (currently the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures). Both the concepts of the location of the building and urban conditions were discussed, as well as various conceptual designs of the theatre, awarded and distinguished in an architectural competition at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s. In the further part of the article, the concept of the experimental scene, proposed by Kazimierz Braun in the early 1970s, is discussed. The background for the reconstruction of the history of the design and construction of the building are changes in the style and arrangement of the modern theatre architecture, with particular emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe.

Turkowski refers to Michał Przeperski’s much-read biography of Mieczysław F. Rakowski, which constitutes interesting literature not only for those interested in the political history of the Polish People’s Republic, but also for those researching social processes in post-war Poland. In particular, Turkowski ascertains that one can discover numerous valuable observations concerning the issue of social advancement in this biography, observations that question the durability of the heritage of the system of real socialism in this respect.

Research has given increasing recognition to the important role that children play in family decisions to migrate and the significant impact of migration on family relationships. At the same time, the role of emotional labour involved in feeling ‘at home’ and the sense of ontological security and everyday be-longing that families develop post-migration can benefit from further exploration. Drawing on data collected with Eastern European migrant families in Scotland, this article explores intergenerational understandings of (in)securities by comparing parents’ and children’s views on their lives post-migra-tion. It shows that, while adults constructed family security around notions of stable employment and potential for a better future, children reflected more on the emotional and ontological insecurities which families experienced. Family relationships are often destabilised by migration, which can lead to long-term or permanent insecurities such as family disintegration and the loss of a sense of recognition and be-longing. The article reflects on the ways in which insecurities of the past are transformed, but are un-likely to be resolved, by migration to a new country. It does this by grounding the analysis in young people’s own understandings of security and by examining how their narratives challenge idealised adult expectations of family security and stability post-migration. It also shows that young people’s involvement in migration research brings an important perspective to the family dynamics post-migra-tion, challenging adult-centred constructs.

The 15th of United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss. This paper investigates the approach adopted by indigenous peoples for conservation of woody plant species diversity in some selected spots in Abia State, Southeastern Nigeria.
Relying on mixed method approach to research, data collection comprising field observation, ground truthing, plant species inventory, and key-informant interviews and analysis of data, two spots were purposively sampled, one from each of the two LGAs; Mbom in Bende LGA and Amangwu in Ohafia Local Government Area (LGA). A 50 × 20 m quadrat was sampled from each site, from where plant species inventory was undertaken. Shannon– Wiener diversity index (H’) was used to analyse the data.
The result of Shannon–Wiener diversity index, shows that the diversity indices of the plant species for the two sites were 3.20 (Mbom) and 3.95 (Amangwu) respectively. The people of Bende and Ohafia LGAs employ some traditional laws to ensure conservation of woody plant species so as to achieve goal 15th of the SDGs. This paper advocates sustenance of those traditional laws that encourage conservation of woody plant species in the study area with enforceable sanctions to deter defaulters.

I address the question of Marx’s understanding of the role and function of religion in social life. Marx’s pronouncements on this topic are few and far between. Yet relying on them I undertake to examine the proposal ostensibly made by Marx that it was possible, or even necessary, to purge religious institutions and religious attitudes from social life. I point to a number of inconsistencies and errors that Marx committed in making such proposals.