VISITORS OR INVADERS? EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC DEBATE ON ACCEPTING REFUGEES IN POLAND

Abstract

The article focuses on analysis of the most important, from the perspective of their social implications, phases of the public debate on accepting in Poland refugees from Syria and other countries at war. The following research question has been addressed in the text: What is the impact of the ongoing debate on shaping the attitudes of adult Poles towards strangers. Successive phases of the discourse have been chronologically compiled with the surveys on Poles’ attitudes towards refugees conducted by the Public Opinion Research Center, Refugees Research Center and Institute of Media Monitoring. From the analysis of the ongoing discourse, together with the results of quantitative studies, emerges the picture of progressing radicalization. Such a phenomenon can be explained in terms of socio-cultural theories of adult learning. On the other hand, it should be underlined that the presented analysis merely covers selected aspects of social reality. It was inevitable to eliminate many factors whose analysis would go beyond the formula of this article.