Research project Life careers: an analysis of the professional careers of Warsaw University student government leaders from 2002 -2008 3500-PROBAD-KLS
The workshop will be devoted to the study of
further professional careers of student leaders
from years 2002-2008.
Career research is a classic topic in sociology.
Professional careers are most often studied as the
basic dimension of the phenomenon of social
mobility. In this project, the emphasis will be on
analyzing the careers of student activists at the
University of Warsaw in terms of the issue of
shaping professional elites in Polish society. We
expect that people who were student activists at
the University of Warsaw gained higher
professional positions than their peers who did
not undertake such activity. In particular, we
expect to find many former student activists among
the broadly understood political elite. The study
will cover several dozen activists who in the
1990s were members of the executive body of the
student government of the University of Warsaw.
The distinguished method will be a biographical
interview through which the entire professional
path of the respondent will be reconstructed.
Respondents will also answer the question: the
role of their personal experience from activities
in the student government for their professional
career.
Detailed general topics:
-Main determinants of professional careers in
Poland
-Theory of democratic political elites (Higley;
Pakulski, Etzioni -Halevy)
- Review of research on recruitment mechanisms for
political elites in Poland
- Student organizations and youth parties: a
survey review
- Theories of social capital (Bourdieu, Putnam,
Sztompka)
Report topics:
- The main professional trajectories of student
leaders in the twenty years since graduation
- Collective aspects of careers of individual
student leaders
- A detailed analysis of the ways of generating
social capital within a student organization
- Experience of activity in a student organization
in the subjective assessment of the respondents.
Type of course
Mode
Prerequisites (description)
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
The workshop will be devoted to the study of
further professional careers of student leaders
from years 2002-2008.
Career research is a classic topic in sociology.
Professional careers are most often studied as the
basic dimension of the phenomenon of social
mobility. In this project, the emphasis will be on
analyzing the careers of student activists at the
University of Warsaw in terms of the issue of
shaping professional elites in Polish society. We
expect that people who were student activists at
the University of Warsaw gained higher
professional positions than their peers who did
not undertake such activity. In particular, we
expect to find many former student activists among
the broadly understood political elite. The study
will cover several dozen activists who in the
1990s were members of the executive body of the
student government of the University of Warsaw.
The distinguished method will be a biographical
interview through which the entire professional
path of the respondent will be reconstructed.
Respondents will also answer the question: the
role of their personal experience from activities
in the student government for their professional
career.
Detailed general topics:
-Main determinants of professional careers in
Poland
-Theory of democratic political elites (Higley;
Pakulski, Etzioni -Halevy)
- Review of research on recruitment mechanisms for
political elites in Poland
- Student organizations and youth parties: a
survey review
- Theories of social capital (Bourdieu, Putnam,
Sztompka)
Report topics:
- The main professional trajectories of student
leaders in the twenty years since graduation
- Collective aspects of careers of individual
student leaders
- A detailed analysis of the ways of generating
social capital within a student organization
- Experience of activity in a student organization
in the subjective assessment of the respondents.
Assessment criteria
Participation in the discussion, preparation of a research
project, written work - research report
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: