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The article addresses a source rarely used by social researchers, namely the inscriptions on wayside crosses in rural settings. Crosses erected "in memory of" preserve social memory and forestall the natural process of oblivion. These inscriptions are the products of social reflection, and express collective representations and the collective opinion of the community. One can deduce the values most important to the community, and those most endangered, from the wording imprinted on the crosses. The preserved inscriptions are all the more valuable as a state of collective consciousness in rural communities has yet to be constructed on the basis of individual testimonies in the form of letters or diaries. The inscriptions on crosses in an area of the Lublin voivodeship, enriched with information gathered regarding the local context, constitute the article's empirical basis.

The author remembers the late Andrzej Kojder (1941–2021), a sociologist of law, student of Adam Podgórecki, and specialist in the works of Leon Petrażycki. He describes Kojder as a scholar, social activist, and person with whom he shared generational experiences. In addition to biographical information, the essay touches on the history of sociology at the University of Warsaw.

The sociology of the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939) is presented as a tradition – a part of the heritage that is positively evaluated and transmitted from generation to generation. The tradition of sociology in Poland dates back to the partition period; it developed in the interwar period of independence and was tested during the Second World War and subsequently in communist times. The basic elements of the tradition are identified in the article and illustrated by the life and work of leading Polish sociologists of the pre-war period.

This sketch narrates an account of the author's abundant years of fieldwork, delving into the Holocaust and memory thereof in the Polish countryside. The region selected is highly representative in a phenomenological sense: much of the destiny met by Polish Jews in rural areas played itself out in these lands. Born and raised in this vicinity, the author of the text at hand was able to obtain otherwise inaccessible information about the fate of local Jews, culled from conversations with current and former inhabitants. Moreover, this inquiry was accompanied by engagement: a complementary goal was to reintroduce Polish Jews and the Shoah into the memory of a community and, by the same token, to demonstrate that the rebuilding of memory is possible in contemporary Poland. In consequence, a memory that includes the Jews who used to live in this area is gradually returning to the region under investigation. Among other things, a monument now stands in the village, playing a central role for the community—a wall commemorating murdered local Jews as well as local non-Jewish Poles recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. This provincial society has thus also been prepared to face knowledge about local persecutors and perpetrators of Holocaust crimes against local Jews.

In sociological and anthropological studies, people often appear as anonymous representatives of their groups. The question arises of what we could learn about them if we had the opportunity, even many years later, to discover their identities. The author answers this question by a case study derived from Józef Chałasiński's classic work 'The Younger Generation of Peasants' (1938), which was based on life histories submitted to a competition for rural youth. On the basis of memories, documents, and other sources, the author of the present article reconstructs the biography of a peasant from Central Poland, Józef Próchniak (1876–1934) from the village of Dęba. Appearing marginally as 'Józef' in one of the life histories submitted to the competition, he is revealed to have been a person of rich biography. This article describes Próchniak's relations with his social environment and with broader history and is a sociological account of one hundred years of history in his village and neighbourhood. The example demonstrates the misconceptions that exist about 'classes without history' and shows that writingthe history of 'ordinary people' is possible.

In der Phase des realen Sozialismus bedeutete ›engagierte Soziologe‹ eine Soziologie, die die offizielle Ideologie und die Ziele der politischen Autoritäten akzeptierte. Der Beitrag zeigt, wie sich Soziologie demgegenüber in einem demokratischen Polen für die Gesellschaft engagieren könnte. Unter Verwendung der Weberschen Distinktionen aus Wissenschaft als Beruf wird erläutert, dass Soziologie 1. die Leute in die Prinzipien wissenschaftlichen Denkens über Gesellschaft einführt, 2. Konzepte verbreitet, die den Leuten ein besseres Verständnis der sozialen Welt vermitteln, und 3. die weitreichenden Konsequenzen gegenwärtiger Ereignisse und Politiken aufdeckt und sie mit ultimativen sozialen Werten in Beziehung setzt. Diese soziale Hermeneutik ist nicht weniger wichtig als die Herstellung einer Basis für angewandte Sozialwissenschaft oder die Beratung von Führungskräften, Politikern und Aktivisten. In the period of real socialism, ›engaged sociology‹ meant a sociology that accepted the ideology of the official system and the aims of the political authorities. The author indicates how sociology could engage on behalf of society in democratic Poland. Using Max Weber's distinctions in Wissenschaft als Beruf, the author shows that sociology (1) teaches people the principles of scientific thinking about society, (2) disseminates concepts that give people a deeper understanding of the social world, and (3) reveals the far-reaching consequences of today's events and policies and relates them to ultimate social values. This social hermeneutics is not less important than providing the bases for social engineering or advising leaders, politicians, and activists.

Podręczniki metodologii badań sondażowych uczą pobierać reprezentacyjne próby, układać pytania, zadawać je respondentom oraz zliczać i analizować odpowiedzi. Nie ma natomiast podręczników interpretacji odpowiedzi, określenia znaczenia uzyskanych wyników, odnoszenia ich do pojęć, które konstruują doświadczenie. Można się tego uczyć, analizując przypadki badań i interpretacji. W pracy pokazano problemy określania znaczenia wyników badań ankietowych. Wykorzystano prowadzone w Polsce w latach 1967–2011 badania nad postawami wobec Żydów. Rozważono kolejno znaczenie występującego w kwestionariuszach sondażowych słowa "Żydzi", problemy z określaniem znaczenia pytań i odpowiedzi numerycznych, pytań o postawy – sympatię i niechęć, bliskość i dystans, odpowiedzi wyrażających przekonania o władzy Żydów oraz problem znaczenia pytań i odpowiedzi w międzykrajowych badaniach porównawczych.

The article is an attempt to assess a social impact of the book "Golden Harvest", published at the beginning of 2011 by Jan Tomasz Gross and Irena Grudzińska-Gross. The authors of the book have revealed facts, scale and motives of participation of the Polish citizens in killing and robbing Jews in the Nazi-occupied Poland. They have demonstrated that the scale of Jewish homicide was broader than hitherto described, and argued that it was greater than the scope of help provided to the Jews. The book triggered a fiery public debate in Poland. Based on the research polls the Author of the article demonstrates that the impact of "Golden Harvest" is quite complex. The book and the debate did activate the social memory concerning violence, burglary and killings of the Jews. Supposedly, they also persuaded some scarce number of Poles that such facts, quite numerous, did happen and made a significant number of Poles think that it might have been so. The discussion did not, however, change an overall and valuating opinion about the attitude of Poles towards Holocaust. The Author tries to explain why the book's effect was far less spectacular than its authors had expected. The answer is looked for in the attitudes of Poles and the type of beliefs that were to have been changed as a result of publishing "Golden Harvest", as well as in the specific features of the book and the debate triggered by it.

This article constitutes a meta-analysis of sociological surveys conducted between 1967 and 2010 on the attitudes of Poles towards Jews. This analysis covers factual knowledge about Jews, like/dislike feelings, social distance, cognitive schema, and views regarding Polish–Jewish history. The results reflect a general nonacceptance of strangers as well as a specific type of anti-Semitism with strong roots in and encompassing a broad spectrum of Polish society. In this respect, Poland and some of the other Central Eastern European countries are much alike and distinguish themselves negatively in comparison to Western Europe. Nevertheless, in the last decade a positive shift in Polish attitudes towards Jews has been manifesting itself: feelings of closeness are increasing while disapproving cognitive schemes are decreasing. Further changes depend upon the reconstruction of Polish national identity as well as on the public debates delving into Polish–Jewish relations past and present.

America was an attractive destination for European scholars and social scientists— their contacts, observations, experiences, and thoughts often became a subject of interest in itself to many other sociologists. Poles are no exception. Florian Znaniecki and William I. Thomas and their classic Polish Peasant in Europe and America, first published in 1918—20, is symbolic of contacts and influences between Polish and American sociology in the first half of the twentieth century. However, sociologists other than Znaniecki and their transatlantic journeys remain somehow in the shadows to this day. This article presents a more recent and yet less known chapter of Polish— American relations—Polish sociologists visiting American universities in the 1950s and 1960s.