Tadeusz Krauze (1934–2019)

W dniu 8 stycznia 2019 roku (w wieku 84 lat) zmarł w Warszawie Tadeusz Krauze, emerytowany profesor Hofstra University w Hempstead, NY, USA, matematyk i socjolog. Członek Polskiego Towarzystwa Matematycznego od 2005 roku.Tadeusz Krauze studia matematyczne ukończył na Uniwersytecie Łódzkim w 1955 r. Doktorat z socjologii uzyskał w 1974 r. w USA na New York University. Przez wiele lat był profesorem socjologii na Hofstra University w Hempstead (USA), a w latach 1985-88 kierował tamtejszym wydziałem socjologii.Jako naukowiec zajmował się problemami stratyfikacji społecznej i socjologii nauki, a także metodami matematycznymi socjologii.Przez ponad 20 lat był redaktorem „International Journal of Sociology”. Członek międzynarodowych, amerykańskich i polskich towarzystw naukowych

Changes in Social Structure, Class, and Stratification: The Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN)

We present an overview of the intellectual foundations and some major research questions and topics of the Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN). Carried out since 1988 in 5-year intervals, with the latest in 2013, POLPAN is the longest continuously run panel survey on changes in social structure, class and stratification in Central and Eastern Europe. The 2018 round is in planning. POLPAN is strongly anchored in recent theoretical innovations surrounding analyses of social structure and its change, as well as in the most up-to-date survey methodology. As such, POLPAN has major substantive and methodological contributions. Substantively, POLPAN constitutes a breakthrough that stems from taking into account individuals' life courses in a long time span. Methodologically, POLPAN enhances knowledge about how to conduct long-term panel studies and how to assess the quality of this type of data. Social scientists interested in the dynamics of social structure, class, and stratification, as well as political attitudes and behaviors, have a wealth of data with which to address timeless and timely research questions from a variety of perspectives and fields

The limits of application of an audience questionnaire among workers

The paper discusses the general conception and the results of a methodological research performed among workers in a factory in a small town, capital of a district. It is a study of adequacy of questionnaire procedures with relation to a certain occupational and social environment. The term adequacy has a double meaning here psychological, as the problem under consideration is whether the applied procedure is fitting for the given group because of emotional and intellectual characteristics of its members; and sociological, related with the research situation considered as close or remote to social situations ever experienced by subjects of the study. The survey was designed to cover 83 men, working on one shift in one department of a textile factory. They had at least 5 years of standing at work and finished at least 5 classes of an elementary school. However, only 59 persons appeared on the assigned day. The respondents were asked to fill in a questionnaire immediately after their working hours, in three groups of 20 to 30 men, each one under supervision of two-men research teams. The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions concerning mainly the respondents’ opinions about the management’s attitudes towards workers, their appreciation of the working discipline there in force, and their feelings about forms of address and phrases used by foremen in their direct contacts with workers and by workers when addressing their foremen. During the whole time of the research situation respondents were carefully observed. It allowed to divide the sample into 3 categories of attitudes towards the research situation. Thus 7 persons manifested obvious reluctance to participate. However, none of them went so far as to refuse to collaborate. The most numerous category consisted of persons who manifested neither interest nor obvious reluctance to the questionnaire situation. There were also 6 persons who were positively interested in the study and in its scientific or practical meaning. In the analysis of data particular attention was paid to the problem of adequacy of answers and of lack of answers. Only 40 questionnaires (68%) were filled in completely, while only 47 (80%) were filled without faults. 35 forms (59%) were filled in both completely and without faults. In that number only 6 were filled by respondents who had not had full elementary education, while there were 18 such persons in the whole sample. These data constitute empirical evidence that elementary education is the threshold of performing even simple questionnaire research programs. Lacks of answers and faults in answering, hardly ever analysed in questionnaire surveys, may serve as indications of adequacy of employed procedures and may thus help to interpret, the collected data. After some time since the questionnaire situation control open interviews were made with 28 members of the most numerous group of questionnaire respondents in order to secure repeated answers to two specially chosen questions of the questionnaire. What mattered was the degree of consistency of declarations uttered on the same topic in different situations. It was fond that at least 9 persons changed their minds about one, and at least 5 persons about two questions. As there were 28 respondents in general, this seems to be an evidence of a low degree of consistency of opinions expressed in the two situations. Besides, the data seem to indicate that the filling, of a questionnaire in the work environment did not, against the researchers’ expectations, make the expressed opinions more „official“ or „formal“. To the contrary, responses were more “official“ during the interview, in spite of using the whole range of means of the “art of interviewing“ in order to create an atmosphere of a sincere and intimate conversation. Parallely, another series of interviews was made with members of the two smaller groups of questionnaire respondents. This series was methodological in character, designed to secure information about the general attitude of workers toward the research situation. 20 respondents were thus interviewed, somewhat younger and better educated in average than the others. Perhaps that was why 17 of them said the questionnaire had been easy for them, while the three who admitted some difficulties suffered only 5 years of schooling. The majority of respondents (14 as against 6) felt anonymous enough, and this seems to account in a certain degree for the fact that the questionnaire situation had not made, their opinions „official“. Respondents were rather unlikely to expect (13 as against 7) that the results of the questionnaire could ever be used, for practical purposes; it might increase the tendency to neglect the research situation. Remarks about sincerity of responses (10 to 10) and about eagerness to participate (9 as against 11) also indicate that workers had hardly been convinced that the questionnaire was a suitable tool to grasp their real opinions about how matters stood in the factory. The whole material seems to prove that of the two employed research procedures the technique of individual interviewing was both psychologically and sociologically more, adequate, for the studied community

The Meaning of „Sociological Sciences” in the New Polish Classification of Science Domains and Fields: An Analysis of the Bureaucratic Decisions’ Consequences

Nowa Klasyfikacja Dziedzin i Dyscyplin Naukowych (KDDN), wprowadzona przez Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (MNiSW) w 2018 roku, miała odzwierciedlać klasyfikację OECD zwaną Fields of Science (FOS). KDDN i FOS różnią się znacznie, między innymi w operacyjnej definicji nauk społecznych. W KDDN wyodrębniono „nauki socjologiczne”, które – według dokumentacji – obejmują socjologię i nauki o rodzinie, a w FOS socjologia jest oddzielnie. W polskim kontekście, nauki o rodzinie uprawiane są głównie w ramach katolickiej nauki społecznej na wydziałach teologicznych uniwersytetów. Analizy wykazały, iż zarówno publikacyjne możliwości (dostępne czasopisma i wydawnictwa), jak i publikacyjne praktyki (gdzie prace naukowe są publikowane) znacznie różnią nauki o rodzinie od socjologii. Rezultaty tych analiz są rozważane w kontekście decyzji MNiSW dotyczących ewaluacji dyscyplin naukowych w jednostkach akademickich na podstawie punktów uzyskanych dzięki publikacjom. Artykuł dowodzi, iż alokacja środków na tej parametrycznej podstawie, w przypadku „nauk socjologicznych” będzie miała negatywne skutki dla socjologów.The new Classification of Science Domains and Fields (CSDF), introduced by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education in 2018, was supposed to correspond to the Fields of Science (FOS, OECD). However, CSDF and FOS differ substantively: CSDF introduces, among others, the term “sociological sciences” encompassing sociology and family studies. In Poland, research and teaching in family studies is conducted mainly in the framework of catholic social sciences, at the theological departments of universities. Analyses of both the publication opportunities (available publication outlets) and the publication practice (where scholarly work is published) show that family studies, as developed in Poland, have very little in common with sociology. The results of these analyses are assessed through the lens of the recently introduced policy that makes publication productivity a key criterion for the evaluation of science fields. With sociology and family studies treated as a single field, this model of evaluation will have detrimental effects for sociologists

On Teaching “Macrosociology” in The Past and at Present: An Invitation to Discussion

Analiza programów nauczania socjologii daje asumpt do refleksji nad kształtem i perspektywami rozwoju dyscypliny. Artykuł przedstawia program z „socjologii wielkich struktur społecznych”, jaki obowiązywał studentów trzeciego roku socjologii w Instytucie Socjologii Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego w roku akademickim 1989–1990. Obecne programy z makrosocjologii dla studentów studiów licencjackich są skromniejsze zarówno pod względem przerabianego materiału, jak i ram czasowych, co w dużej mierze wynika z reformy studiów. Wszakże trzon makrosocjologii pozostaje ten sam, z naciskiem na mechanizmy powstawania i utrzymywania nierówności społecznych wewnątrzkrajowych i międzykrajowych. Czy zajęcia z tego przedmiotu powinny koncentrować się raczej na substantywnej wiedzy („kto, co kiedy ustalił”), czy raczej na narzędziach prowadzących do osiągania wiedzy („jakie są dane i co należy z nimi robić”)? Zachęcając do dyskusji na ten temat, w artykule przedstawiono argumenty za odejściem od dotychczasowej praktyki i potraktowanie ukształtowanego już kanonu uczenia „socjologii wielkich struktur społecznych” jako historycznej bazy, na której należy zbudować coś nowego – zajęcia zorientowane praktycznie.The analysis of the teaching programs in sociology is a springboard for the examination of the discipline’s current state and development perspectives. This paper presents the syllabus of the course ‘Sociology of Social Structure – Macrosociology’ for undergraduate students of sociology at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw, in academic year 1989–1990. When this syllabus is compared with current syllabi of macrosociology at selected universities in Poland it surfaces that there are fewer topics covered and fewer class-hours allocated to the course, mainly due to the general curriculum reforms in Poland. Yet, the core of this course remains the same as it used to be, with the focus on the mechanisms of raising and maintaining social inequality. The following question arises: Should the course focus on the established substantial knowledge (‘who found what and when’) or rather on the methods of creating new knowledge (‘what are the data sources and how to use them’). Inviting a discussion on this issue, the paper provides the arguments for practice-oriented course in macrosociology

The use of a mail questionnaire in a repeated research contact

The aim of the study here reported was to analyze the utility of a mail questionnaire and its auxiliary procedures as tools of supplementary contact with respondents. Such contacts may be sources of additional data, as well as of information on the respondents’ attitudes towards the initial research situation. The basic research, performed by the Chair of General Sociology of the University in Łódź, dealt with social stratification of the inhabitants of Łódź, as well as with its psychological aspects. The interview questionnaire contained over 50 questions; one part of them was designed to characterize objective situations of respondents and. of their families, another part asked about the feeling of social differentiation, about the personal „vision“ of class structure, about the perception of basic lines of social division, etc. As interviewers were active 42 advanced students of sociology after detailed instruction. The study covered 1000 heads of families, constituting a representative sample of their group Respondents with no less than high school education were summoned for the second time. After almost four months since the initial research contact a mail questionnaire was sent to a new sample of 232 persons. 84 persons (36,2% of the sample) sent their questionnaires back filled in. Extra measures had been taken at certain time spans to increase that number: mail urge that resulted in 55 new responses (23,7%), and then individual visits that furnished questionnaire data from another group of 64 persons (27,6%). Out of the 29 remaining members of the sample 12 (i.e. 5,2%) refused to collaborate, while 17 (7,3%) could not be reached at all. The paper presents an analysis of some factors influencing the number of returned questionnaires in a mail survey. It has been found that such factors as education, occupation or income were not significant in that respect. The important factor was rather the level of familiarity of respondents with problems dealt with in the questionnaire Three degrees of such familiarity were distinguished and consequently it was found that questionnaires had been returned by mail by 69,4% of respondents with a high degree, by 64,2% of those with a medium degree and only by 30,0% of those with a low degree of problem familiarity. The final part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of application of a mail questionnaire for studying respondents’ opinions about interviewers. Content analysis of responses to the question about positive features of the interviewer who contacted the respondent revealed that most respondents (59,7%) remarked suck features as may be included under the heading of good manners and breeding. The group next in number (33,5%) pointed to intellectual qualities of their interviewers and their general level of learning; positive features of character were mentioned by 32,1% of respondents and the skill in conversation by 31,1%. A lesser number of respondents (14,8%) mentioned pleasant appearance of interviewers and their knowledge of problems dealt with in the questionnaire (11,4%). Some points of interest arised as a result of an analysis of the distribution of answers to the discussed question with relation to the respondents’ age and education, as well as to sex of interviewers. Respondents in the age group of 19 to 40 years much more often than elder ones pointed out the interviewer intellectual qualities and his or her general level of learning (38,0% as against 29,1%), as well as skill in conversation (37,0% as against 25,3%). Elder respondents, on the other hand, were more apt to emphasize the interviewer’s pleasant appearance (17,5% as against 12,0%) and his or her positive features of character (34% as against 30%). Respondents with college education were more apt to note the interviewer’s knowledge of problems dealt with in the questionnaire than those with only high school education (17,6% as against 7,8%). Women interviewers were more often appreciated in terms of their manners and breeding (65% as against 50,7%), as well as in terms of their skill in conversation (35,7% as against 23,4%) than their male colleagues; on the other hand, men were more often than women appreciated in terms of their knowledge of topics mentioned in the questionnaire (15,6% as against 8,7%), their positive features of character (36,4% as against 29,4%) and their intellectual qualities (35,0% as against 32,5%). Only 7 persons (3,4% of the sample) expressed critical opinions about the interviewers they had met during the survey. The distribution of responses to the question about positive features of an ideal interviewer is rather similar to the distribution of answers.to the question here discussed. In the end it is emphasized that a repeated research contact is advantageous in a double manner, as it allows an appreciation of the validity of data already collected, and as it positively influences the interviewers’ reliability and exactitude in their work

L’influence du caractere official d’une interview sur les responses obtenues dans le milieu d’intelligentsia

The author arranged 52 interviews with his close acquaintances or relatives on social stratification, evaluation of the policy of wages, nationalization of various branches of national economy, and socio-political role of sociological researches in Poland. Interviewees were members of intelligentsia, viz. professionals or white collar workers, men and women constituting 50°/o of the group, respectively. Interviews had an official character as they were conducted by a student presenting herself as an interviewer of a scientific institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The author himself succeeded in making contact with 40 of 52 interviewees in order to do focus interviews with them in an atmosphere of a personal and friendly talk about their own definition of the role in which they felt themselves during the first official interviews; he also asked them about the same topics that were touched upon earlier. Then a comparison of answers obtained in the first and in the second interviews was made. The aim was to determine the influence of psycho-social factors upon the degree of congruence between opinions expressed in these two different social situations. The results of this comparison showed that divergences appeared only in the answers to four questions: 1° – in evaluations of changes in the respondents’ living standard during the last several years (there were 15 cases of this kind of discrepancies, in most of them it was in the official interview that the respondents refrained from giving a definite opinion by saying “no change”, whereas in a personal talk they evaluated favorably or negatively the change in their living conditions); 2° – in opinions concerning the most desirable policy of wages (10 cases; most often in a personal talk the respondents favoured the policy benefiting white collar workers, while in official interviews – manual workers); 3° – in opinions about the principle of egalitarian remuneration for work (9 respondents were against egalitarian remuneration in a personal talk while in official interviews evading concrete answers or expressing opinions approving of this principle); 4° – in opinions on the desirable scope of an economic activity of free enterprise (in all seven cases of divergences it was in official interviews that the respondents postulated more severe restrictions against private commerce and artisanship). All the divergences mentioned above appeared among 16 persons (among seven of them in their answers to all four questions, among six in those to one question only, and among three persons in answers to 2–3 questions). For the remainder of the group, viz. among 24 persons, no divergences in their answers were discovered. These divergences in opinions were interpreted as being a consequence of the fact that the respondents acted in two different social roles: that of a citizen interviewed by a representant of state institution, and that of an acquaintance expressing his/her private opinions in a personal talk. Finally, on the basis of introspective confessions of respondents an attempt was made to find out whether in official interviews they expressed opinions sincerely or not. It turned out that among 24 persons whose answers were congruent, as many as twenty said they expressed themselves frankly, whereas among 16 persons whose opinions were contradictory, four did not give an explication clear enough, six admitted to answer insincerely and six maintained that they were answering frankly. The latter six cases were explained as a manifestation of a psychological ambivalence inherent in attitudes, by virtue of which respondents expressed contradictory opinions as a function of two different social situations. It was found that the lack of sincerity seems to be caused by such situational factors as: 1° –conviction that results of sociological researches are (or can be) utilized by some administrative organs; 2° – lack of an individual or group anonymity feeling; 3° – incertitude as to the real character of the survey; 4° – desire to express opinions considered to be “typical” and not those of one’s own

Quota sampling and the interviewers role in research carried out in a small local community

In the paper the author presents selected results of analyses referring to the methods of first contacts with respondents and that behaviour of interviewers which defines their social role during the interview. At the same time it is a collection of certain practical experiences which show the difficulties a sociologist may come across whole he is carrying his research in a small local community. The study was carried out in 1966 in a town of a small administrative district with 3500 inhabitants. 300 persons aged 18-65 years were interviewed. It was a quota sample with four control variables: sex, age, education and profession. The interviews were made by sociology students from the University of Łódź who were going through their obligatory training period in field study. The paper is based on the interviewers’ reports concerning individual interviews. The reports were written according to precisely formulated instructions containing basic categories of descriptions. The author has paid particular attention to two problems: The first problem deals with the selection of respondents and coming into contact with them during quota sampling by interviewers who are not acquainted with the members of the community in question. What should be done to avoid addressing persons who do not comply with the requirements of the instruction? In the paper four methods used in the study are shown. 1. The interviewers did not turn to persons met by chance but to heads of selected households and they learnt from them whether in their families there were persons who complied with the requirements of the instruction (51,7°/o of interviews). 2. Respondents, who were being interviewed, indicated future respondents and helped to come into contact with them – this is a new version of “the chain method” sometimes applied in ethnographical research (25,0% interviews). 3. Help of, regular informants who could supply necessary information about potential respondents (11,9% of interviews). 4. The use of official data dealing with a few narrow socio-professional (occupational) categories (11,4% of interviews). Efforts were made to find out whether some of the applied methods did not result in a special selection of respondents. It was stated that, when compared with other respondents, those obtained by means of “the chain method” gave longer and fuller answers to several questions in the questionnaire. It is probable that persons who directed interviewers to those respondents informed the latter about the interview which was to take place and its contents. Significant differences in replies indicate, that this method of obtaining respondents should be avoided. The other problem discussed in the paper refers to the standardization of the social role in which interviewers will address the respondents. Before the study was begun it was decided that the interviewers would introduce themselves as students going through the period of their field study practice. They were to ask the respondents to do them the favour and help to fulfill the duties imposed on the students by university authorities. In the recommended version of the initial talk there were many phrases and idioms which emphasized the “private” character of the research situation. It appeared, however, that in some interviews the interviewers did not closely follow the instructions addressing the respondents in a more official role exposing the official relations more than the personal ones. It happened mostly in those cases when the unofficial role brought about a slightly negligent attitude in the respondents. When replies received from that group of respondents were compared with other replies, the former showed considerable differences in contents which must be taken into account when the material is analysed

From inequality to polarisation: class structure divide and the differences in social and political attitudes

The paper presents the dynamics of class structure transformation since the year 1988 focusing on the ongoing stratification of formal education, occupational status and the per capita income. Distance separating wealthy business-owners from the less fortunate keeps growing as a result of wealth concentration on the one hand and continuous pauperization on the other. These processes are reflected in the so-called St. Matthew effect. It – roughly speaking – predicts that those who have much will eventually have more while those who have little will have even less. The growing social inequality in Poland occurs in the class-structural context. It is worthwhile to know whether the St. Matthew effect is also instrumental in generating opposite social and political orientations. To answer this question we examine the data of the Polish Panel Survey 1988–2008 (POLPAN). Our analysis demonstrates that location of individuals in the social-class structure influences their attitudes toward market economy and their perception of social conflicts.Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00