Ethno-regional diversity in Upper Silesia vs the historical memory of school children

Abstract

The paper is devoted to effects of ethno-regional differentiation in Upper Silesia from the particular perspective of elements of historical memory and knowledge about Silesian identity amongst secondary school children. In this region we have a public debate about the idea of Silesian nationality and local political aims of creating it by leaders aspiring to the acknowledgement of Silesian dialect as regional language, and reconstructing the memory about the Silesian autonomy, and Prussian, German, Czech components of local traditions in regional industrial culture. The main research question of this study is what is the importance of school and family transmission of historical knowledge for constructing regional identity, as declared by pupils from different educational levels and types of secondary schools. Analysis of the data from regional representative samples (on 3,986 students from 140 schools) lets the author to present data about the educational effects of institutional practice and their ideological, patriotic attitude to the historical memory of the young generation. The article also presents the characteristics of the regional identity in self-declarations of the pupils, and family differences by socio-demographic characteristics of surveyed students. Theoretical base for the author’s analysis is habitus as source of the morals and a subjective sense of being a young Silesian and possibility to fully adhere to the rules of symbolic violence in school system described by the theory of Pierre Bourdieu. Today’s memory of a young person is constantly updated, driven mainly by the focus on mass media, peer groups, the experience of emotions and sensations condensed into a shorter time, and oriented to current and future attractions.