THE VISIONS OF SOCIAL ORDER AND THEIR DETERMINANTS. THE ANALYSIS OF WARSAW COMMUNITY'S OPINIONS

Abstract

The article presents the analysis of research on the visions of the existing social order that were forming among the citizens of Warsaw in the period preceding the outburst of open social conflict in the 1980s. The author distinguishes five types of these visions: 'optimistic', 'permissive', 'indifferent', 'reformist' and 'radical'. The differentiation of these visions depending on different position in social structure of the individuals who voice them (such as their professional occupation, level of education, place of work, economic standing, social background, belonging to social organizations, membership in political organizations and attitudes to religion) forms the central analytical problem of the article. The analysis aims at finding out, which features of social position favor particular types of visions of existing social order. The patterns of dependencies derived from multivariate analysis are far from being clear-cut, however, which leads the author to suggesting that position in social structure cannot be sole predictor of attitudes to existing social order and perhaps other factors (i.e. cultural ones) have to be included in the analysis