Limiting Privilege

Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-61249-881-2
Verlag: Purdue University Press

Buch, Englisch, 284 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Central European Studies

State socialism tried to industrialize, urbanize, encourage the more frequent washing of hands, urge people to leave the church, emancipate women, and electrify cities—all within a single lifetime. Central to these initiatives was extending educational opportunities to the working class and creating a vision of an egalitarian socialist university that offered advancement for all. Limiting Privilege: Upward Mobility Within Higher Education in Socialist Poland traces the possibilities and limits of this goal by looking at a model socialist university established in 1945 in the working-class city of Lódz, Poland. Initially a flagship project of socialist modernization, the university tried to offer social advancement by privileging admission for peasant and working-class children, but these efforts were often fought by the elite who sought to preserve their privilege. By looking at first-generation students, intelligentsia faculty, and an industrial city, Limiting Privilege explores a complex story about utopian visions, failed aspirations, and reluctant academia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Gruppen & Klassen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Agata Zysiak, PhD, is a historical sociologist at Vienna University in Austria and the University of Lódz in Poland. She is the author of the award-winning book, Punkty za pochodzenie (Points for Social Origin); coauthor of the main publication about Lódz available in English, From Cotton and Smoke; and the author of Wielki przemysl, wielka cisza (Great Industry, Great Silence), which covers Lodz industry and its collapse.