Ethnic return migration is a widespread strategy for migrants from economically disadvantaged coun-tries. This article is about those ethnic return migrants who might successfully migrate thanks to their ancestors; their decision is based upon economic, pragmatic or rationalistic incentives aside from their diasporic feeling of belonging. Although this phenomenon has already been studied, scholars still mostly refer only to the benefits proposed by immigration policy as a key to understanding it. The impact of policy in the country of emigration on ethnic return migration is understudied. This article fills this gap. I found that when the Soviet Union introduced an attractive policy for Ukrainians/Russians in terms of study or work opportunities and the inhabitants in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic were quick to proclaim themselves as Ukrainians or Russians, the dissolution of the Soviet Union quickly changed this motiva-tion. Ukrainians with Czech ancestors started to aim at obtaining official status as Czech members of the diaspora because of the benefits proposed by the Czech government (mainly permanent residency). However, it is difficult to prove the required link to one’s Czech ancestors due to Soviet-era documents in which the column with the Czech nationality of people’s ancestors is often missing. These observa-tions lead to the conclusion that an attractive immigration policy aimed at the diaspora should not be treated as the only comprehensive explanation for ethnic return migration. Ethnic policy in the country of emigration also shapes this kind of migration and – in this concrete case – could even discourage ethnic return migrants.
The paper outlines the methodological issues connected to national statistics, their cartographical representations, and the methods of conducting censuses. During the Paris Peace Conference representatives of new Central- and Eastern European states vehemently criticized the ethnic statistics developed by the empires, mostly Russian and Austro-Hungarian. The censuses, conducted in these new states in early 1920s, were criticized along similar lines by the minorities. Among the most vociferous critics were German geographers. Pointing out to the results of the plebiscites in Silesia, Carinthia and other regions they argued, that national identity did not have to correspond to the mother tongue, and census authorities should have taken it into account. Paradoxically, they considered this point valid only to the Central and Eastern Europe, not Western Europe. In the final part of the paper the position of geographers and statisticians in post-war debates are confronted with information on the behaviour of respondents during the censuses in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
The traditional model of the multinational city, which was based on the harmonious coexistence of separated ethnic residential districts and common multinational public areas, where the exchange of services and goods took place, gives way to the contemporary model, based on the principle of dispersion and segmentation. In the postmodern city virtual space has increasingly becoming a platform of exchange: numerous economic, social and cultural functions are performed through the ubiquitous electronic communications. Public space, symbolic for the European concept of the city, is losing many of its previous functions in favour of the Internet. The dispersion of immigrants in the structure of the multinational city is conducive to the emergence of an attractive, kaleidoscopic and multicultural urban organism, their separation in ghettos results in intensification of pathologies. Integration is assuming the form of a network, while separation that of walls.
The aim of the presented paper is to show the history of the development of research on social minorities in the environment of Bialystok sociologists. This research center, located on the north-eastern borderland of Poland, was one of the first in Poland to develop research in the field of borderland sociology. With time, the research subject has been expanded, from the analysis of the assimilation of the Belarusian minority to the contemporary face of the idea of a multicultural society, discussing not only nationality, religiosity, but also non-heteronormities.
Confronted with a natural tendency of marginalization national/ethnic minorities and immigrant communities respond by adopting two diverse strategies of showing their presence in the public sphere of the host country. Depending on the level of their integration and the goals they want to achieve, they can either stress their links (affinity) with the majority culture or the differences that mark them out. However, some minority communities succeed in achieving a distinctive presence in the public sphere already at the stage of launching its own media.
Some consider the multiculturality of Wrocław to be its obvious and socially legitimised “property”, whereas others view it as controversial and refutable construct. In the paper, we would like to investigate the multiculturality of the Lower Silesia’s capital taking into account its internal differentiation, which is mostly due to the adjudicating authorities – city authorities, its citizens and researchers — as well as observable dynamics. Hence, we propose to inspect the following: firstly, the real differentiation of the social structure of Wrocław’s inhabitants and its transformations related mostly to the influx of Ukrainians, who change the ethnic cityscape; secondly, the politics of municipal authorities regarding the promotion and strengthening of the city’s image as the multicultural, open and tolerant “meeting place”, as well as initiatives inscribed therein and other observable, contradictory events; thirdly, the evaluation of Wrocław’s multiculturality and its selected aspects performed by the city’s inhabitants and revealed in the research on this phenomenon in 2011 and in two editions of Social Diagnosis of Wrocław (2014 and 2017).
In reference to Anna Śliz’s book Wielokulturowość: stygmat współczesnego świata? Próba analizy socjologicznej [Multiculturalism: The Stigma of the Modern World? An Attempt at a Sociological Analysis], the subject of this article is multiculturalism as a phenomenon, a political project, and a real kind of existing society (multiculturalism is not the same as interculturalism or transculturalism). In the discourse on multiculturalism, many specific questions arise: the inevitability of the phenomenon and its genesis; the beginnings and bases of multiculturalism as a political project and its challenges; the reality of multicultural societies—from affirmation to contestation. Model discourse over multiculturalism is confronted with a range of remarks, commentaries, and questions about its fundamental significance, for example, about the potential for realizing the idea of multiculturalism in Europe, and whether Australia and Canada are now definitely multicultural societies.
This study examined the relationship between gender role conflict and attitude towards psychological help-seeking. This study involved 120 university students from a university. Gender Role Conflict Scale was used to measure gender role conflict and Attitude towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale-Short Form was used to measure attitude towards psychological help-seeking. The results found there is a significant negative relationship between gender role conflict and attitude towards seeking psychological help. The results suggest that it is essential for mental health professionals to recognise the impact of gender roles on the counselling process.
As the adoption of the Hungarian simplified naturalisation scheme raised much tension both in the neighbouring countries of Hungary and in the main host countries of EU citizens, this paper summarises the nature of such reactions and the most frequent fears that EU states expressed. The main aim of the study is to show what effects a country’s modification of its citizenship rules may have on the situations of other EU member-states and European Union citizens. The article also raises one practical aspect of the situation that evolved as a result of the answer by Slovakia to the Hungarian modifications – namely the ex lege withdrawal of Slovakian citizenship if a person acquires a new one from another country. It introduces in detail the free-movement aspects of ethnic Hungarians losing their Slovakian citizenship, while not leaving their homeland in Slovakia, arguing that people in such a situation may rightfully and immediately be eligible for permanent residence rights, which would provide them with a higher level of protection.