Dr Agata Zysiak (Photo: Dr Bartosz Kałużny)
Dr Agata Zysiak is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Rural and Urban Sociology of the University of Lodz. Currently she is also working on understanding the post-war history of Poland, dealing with the category of socialist citizenship at the University of Vienna. The American edition of her award-winning book, "Punkty za pochodzenie", was published in December 2023, as we reported a few weeks ago.
The discussion around the publication Limiting Privilege: Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland has moved from the halls of universities in the United States to Europe, which is reflected in a podcast with the author's participation in the series run by the Research Center for the History of Transformations at the University of Vienna.
We encourage you to listen to the fifteen-minute recording in English:
Episode 45: Upward Mobility through Higher Education in Socialist Poland
Political reform of higher education is never enough by itself to overhaul membership of a country’s intellectual elite. Instead, these reforms rely on interpretation and implementation at multiple levels—both within and beyond the university’s walls. Ultimately, there came to exist a “clash of privileges” in socialist Poland, between state-support for working class and peasant students on the one hand, and the intelligentsia protecting their privileged claim to the university on the other, with the effect that both limited each other
– says Dr Agata Zysiak.
You can buy the book Limiting Privilege: Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland on the publisher’s website.
Currently, when purchasing a book with the code PURDUE30 you will receive a 30% discount!
Source: Dr Agata Zysiak (Department of Rural and Urban Sociology, Faculty of Economics and Sociology of the University of Lodz)
Edit: Michał Gruda (Communications and PR Centre, University of Lodz)
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