THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE POTENTIAL

FOR EMANCIPATION

The category, "public sphere," if analyzed dynamically in relation to the "private sphere," can constitute a fruitful theoretical tool for descriptions of the scale left to individuals in influencing political and social processes. This is true despite the fact that the theory of this category may not be sufficiently founded. One of the results of our presentation will consist eventually in making explicit certain patterns of the opposition between public and private in order to show that any rigid limits imposed a priori upon "public" make the very category inoperative and often inapplicable. Jürgen Habermas⁽¹⁾ was inclined to treat the public sphere as an historically given term, rather than as an ideal type for theoretical consideration. Nevertheless, it is due to him that viewing social relations in terms of the quality of the "public sphere" has become crucial for efforts to make explicit, and to eliminate, "ideologically frozen relations of subordination." Its role for the theory of education has been studied by Henry A. Giroux.⁽²⁾

In order to clarify my own analytical approach concerning the notion of the public sphere and its applications to educational institutions it should be noted that in the broadest terms this notion refers to a sphere which is open and authentically present within the discursive practices of a given society. It can be characterized by its basic function of articulating various ethical, political and religious options, including a critical attitude towards state power and its agents. To be more specific, the status of this category can be differentiated on the basis of reference to various types of socialization and to their respective logics for regulating power relations between an individual and his social environment.

The analysis of the public-private relationship in terms of types of socializations requires complementing the traditional opposition of primary (a symbiosis of the individual and his world seen as the only possible one) and secondary socialization with the concept of "critical socialization". This can be done through subdividing the secondary type into "strictly secondary" (in which a destination and even collision of a given life and the world can be preserved) and "critical" (where the individual preserves his autonomy and subjectivity regarding his activities in the world).⁽³⁾ Reduction of secondary socialization to mechanisms which generate "role identity" is no more than the level of the "conventional" organization of interactions with its logic of reproducing rules, standards and the pre-given definitions of roles (which I link with "strict secondary" socialization). All this actually sanctions the state of affairs in which "education still consists of wielding power," of reducing the individual's subjectivity rather than of promoting it towards more action.

This level can be attained only through an entirely different attitude in facing the world, linked with the idea and postulates of "critical socialization" consonant with postulates oriented towards reaching a new level of individual competence. On this basis entering into conflict with hitherto existing fixed conventions or definitions of situations becomes not only tolerated, but also a highly respected and desired natural reaction to the world. It enables counterposing present regulations with their alternatives or at least some modifications. In such difficult critical socialization one expects the elimination of factors blocking an individual's claim to personal autonomy and subjectivity. One expects also the conflict in promoting such competence to involve not just a destructive struggle, but a process of discursive confrontation preserving interaction, respect for subjectivity and the right to autonomy. This level of interaction enables one to treat discursively the problem of the legitimacy of norms and principles which hitherto was taken for granted. It creates a platform for criticizing and eventually rejecting claims of traditional social institutions and their respective authorities in their often onesided, irreversible domination over individuals.

Often one may get the impression that schools and other educational systems strive toward natural and conflict-free prolongations of the "logics" of primary socialization.⁽⁴⁾ They strive always to preserve and root full affirmation of that attitude towards the world transmitted via the pattern of secondary socialization, namely, of identification, "enthusiastic" presence and participation in this world. Clearly, such pedagogical systems wish to achieve the results of "strictly secondary" socialization with a smooth adaptation of the individual's activity to the norms and standards of the world. This has its pathology in the form of "a split identity" or prolonged "crisis of identity" resulting from efforts to divide radically the individual's public and private actions along with their respective spheres with a corresponding reduction of the problem of individual autonomy and critical competence in the private sphere. The "logic" of strictly secondary socialization contains a very special principle, namely, the "split world." This principle consists in recognizing as natural a strict demarcation between the public and private sections of the world. Thus, one radically counterpoises the ways of organizing the "internal" world of the individual with its expression in actions, on the one hand, and the "external world" as the social environment of the individual, with its collectively imposed and controlled modes of acceptable behavior, on the other hand. The division is carried out by opposition between, on the one hand, recognition of the right of an individual to autonomy in thinking and private opinions (which are "kept to himself,") and, on the other hand, the need for close regulation of his behavior and actions in public, that is, among other people and with authorities and institutions. On the basis of this division, in the "public" world one would be obliged to respect various "public" rules of the social game which might not necessarily be consonant with what the individual believes, and which could not and should not be questioned in openly articulated individual disagreement.

From the point of view of education this principle of division reflects a type of socialization according to which the basic institutional request is reduced only in order to prepare the individual in his "public" behavior to respect, that is, to obey, definite positions despite lack of emotional engagement or, if the emotions are negative, independently of them. Within such a framework an individual is considered to have the right not to admit such positions to that part of his identity which constitutes his self-conception, while at the same time he is urged to subordinate his individual world of action to such positions as a prerequisite for institutional approval.

An historical illustration might be found in the institutional surveillance and persecution by the Church Inquisition which interfered not only with one's world of behavior but also into one's sphere of thought and emotion, subjecting these to the canon of strictly standardized "role identity." This can be interpreted as an essential destruction of one's individual emotional privacy through its strict external surveillance by the institutional claim of the Holy Office to a privileged, indeed, to the only normatively valid standard of behavior, as well as of thinking and of emotional engagement. The same idea of the "public" destruction of privacy has been applied repeatedly by G. Orwell in his vision of the "thought police" in 1984. Paradoxically, any such destruction means also a total (because totalitarian) reduction of the public sphere to the logic of "blind" and "naked" power: sooner or later executors share equally the fate of their former victims. Stalinist practice has shown that under such circumstances even an individual's renunciation of his or her rights or of any aspiration to present in "public" his or her own emotions and feelings--even open devotion to ideals articulated officially--does not help much. For the destruction of the private is linked with a pathological replacement of the "public" by an automatic, cold-blooded and narrow-minded logic of instrumentally eliminating any risks there might be to power in their remaining beyond control a sphere of autonomy in thought--not to mention in actual deed.

SOCIALIZATION AND CRITIQUE

It is important to note that the relationship between the public and private sphere can be characterized differently depending upon the type of socialization which dominates in a given social context. Here I shall try to be more specific regarding the notions of "primary," "strictly secondary" and "critical" types of socialization which were introduced above.

Within the framework of primary socialization the two spheres seem not to be separated from each other; the principal mechanism of the adaptation of the individual to his environment is based upon a logic of the symbiosis of a given life with the world, treated almost instinctively as the only one possible. Within the framework of strictly secondary socialization, however, one can distinguish these spheres; it is possible to perceive their separateness and even that some collision of the two is natural and not easy to eliminate. At the same time, however, one is faced with indications that successful adaptation of an individual within and following the logic of such a framework is characterized by consciously renouncing individual claims to autonomy and subjectivity in action, except in the exclusively private sphere. On the other hand, this means automatic subordination of self to the power of other institutional "instances" which define the principles of "public" life and thus what behavior will be permissible. At this level of the logic of the public-private relationship an "immature" attitude is thought to be characterized by "strictly secondary" behavior which embodies "role identity"; the scope of the "humanistic" attitude of public institutions is reduced to tolerance, that is, to a declared or actual readiness to respect an individual's private sphere, namely, one's feelings, aspirations and identity. This respect extends so far as has been codified in judicial and symbolic conventions taken as legitimate and unquestioned in society. Though they are without a specific source, they are obligatory for all.

The basis for identifying a separated level of "critical" socialization beyond the framework of the strictly secondary one is that post-conventional individual development (as well as that of institutions in society) does not presuppose a radical counterposition of the public and private sphere. The demarcation of the public from the private, which is so characteristic of strict secondariness in socialization, does not obtain within the new horizon of identity at the post-conventional level. This division loses its legitimacy since the individuals preserve their autonomy and subjectivity regarding their activities in the world. This enables one to influence the style and scale of public rules in one's private world; it enables one also to verify and eventually even to reject the validity claims put forward by institutions and advocates of the "public" world and its ethos of fixed moral, ideological and organizational conventions. The level of critical socialization, with its new claims of individual subjectivity, can be coordinated naturally with the post-conventional functioning of the social world. Only for a world organized in a "conventional" way does such critical socialization constitute a dangerous challenge through attempting to execute strict secondariness in role identity.

At the post-conventional level "critical" attitudes towards the world cease to be dysfunctional since there all group and social activity is founded upon engaging individuals in the creation of collectively recognized rules. Collective groupings are constituted through a practical recognition of the autonomy and subjectivity of their members. Such a post-conventional community in an allegedly exclusively private or even intimate sphere of individuals is valuable, and at times even required for the destruction of those blockages which render the individual helpless in the face of vital problems--where a post-conventional or personal community cannot be replaced by mere collective therapy.

In view of such relations between public and private, neither a symbiosis prior to reflection fusing the private with the public (prior to the dilemmas of autonomy), nor a strict demarcation splitting the world into two in congruent variants of rationality and meaning can provide an appropriate solution. That would require reciprocal interpenetration, which is indispensable for the transformation and constitution of each of the two spheres. This alone constitutes the prerequisites for critical socialization. This cannot be reduced to strictly secondary socialization without abandoning the promotion of those advanced modes of humanism required to strengthen both individual development and social advancement.

These comments need further careful analysis and explanation. The penetrability and plasticity of the reciprocal influences of the public and private spheres should not mean complete transparency one to another. "Public" transparency of the private sphere would mean its complete destruction for it would destroy the vitally needed intimacy beyond undesirable intrusion. On the other hand, private transparency of the public sphere would also be destructive for it would mean that according to the typically "enlightenment" illusion of reason the individual would be reduced constantly to the patterns of universal, rather than individual, reason. Secondly, one must keep in mind the fact that this penetrability may be characteristic of anomic regression in behavior when one mixes what is private and public in the roles played by a given individual; "performing a public role may have as its aim taking care of strictly private interests, taking upon oneself a private role may often happen pro bono publico."⁽⁵⁾ In such cases both spheres penetrate each other in such a way that their functional distinction in expressing individual autonomy and subjectivity is destroyed.

An important issue which clarifies the implications of the analysis of society in terms of the quality of the "public sphere" is the legitimization of the system of power. Habermas notes that when wide sections of society concentrate their commitments within the private sphere, with a simultaneous withdrawal from participation in the public sphere--even when a certain autonomy in representing one's individual will and interest, is allowed for--the system becomes almost exclusively one of "negative" legitimacy based upon the depolitization of the public sphere and leading eventually to a decline of the formation of "radical-democratic will."⁽⁶⁾

This observation should be emphasized as a "strategic" point for contemporary thought regarding critical socialization, since it sensitizes us to the complicated and even contradictory nature of the task and methods for regaining "political subjectivity." In Habermas' view this cannot be carried out effectively by traditional means of political struggle. In highly developed societies Habermas observes even a vanishing of critical potential for the public sphere as a result of the means and contents of mass communication and the "logic" of political party systems. Along with the "colonization of the life world," Habermas identifies a sort of "refeudalization of the public sphere" through "private interest groups which more or less openly fulfill political functions, directly negotiate with public authorities, and manipulate to exclude citizens from effective participation in the decision-making processes."⁽⁷⁾

In this context the ideal of "undistorted" communication "free from domination" becomes also a criteria for identifying the pathologies of social life which deprive people of the capacity to control the conditions of their own life.

Habermas' fundamental thesis on the decline in the authentically public sphere, with its critical function of mediating through free social discourse the degree of independence and alienation of political institutions, increases the challenge to revitalize this sphere. This is particularly so since, as noted by H. Giroux,⁽⁸⁾ radical social transformation through education depends especially upon the quality of the public sphere, namely, its ability to enable individuals to acquire the competence and will for actual engagement with civil courage. If the school is to embody these opportunities and safeguard itself against degradation to the level of a simple instrument for reproducing a rejected, unchallenged or neglected political system, then it must commit itself to the practice of restoring political subjectivity through creating alternative possibilities for discourse wherever possible. The task is especially difficult since it must include a radical social option rejecting the deprivation of the right to active participation by all. Moreover, the need for continuing reflection and for initiatives which inspire and integrate critical activity is challenging in view of Habermas' supposition that the traditional means of education for the formation of citizens and other cultural identities have ceased to be effective and must themselves be modified.

EDUCATION AND THE QUALITY OF PUBLIC LIFE

Among various criticisms of the school and of educational systems, one which slowly is coming to the fore concerns primarily their lack of any clear reference to the quality of their social environment, its mechanisms and logic. This is not just a question of replacing purely "internal" criticisms of education concerned with the work in the classroom by its "external" counterpart. For then one would take as the starting point the school's "reproductive" role in strengthening the inequalities and injustice which exist between social classes in terms of their political power or access to "cultural" capital. What is at stake here is rather an effort to search for new categories and attitudes which make it possible to overcome the traditional internal-external opposition and to establish a perspective in which both contexts are not only interconnected, but interrelated in a dynamic and evolutionary relationship. This relationship must be represented by a theory of education which, on the one hand, will be able to refer to the quality of the process of the individual's psychological development and, on the other hand, will leave room for reference to the quality of the evolution of society. Such a theory of education can no longer be merely a reduced traditional pedagogy, just as it should not be dissolved within the broader discussion of the political and other institutional mechanisms influencing the schools. What is needed is a kind of educational and pedagogical philosophy practically and theoretically rooted in a psychological and sociological understanding of the potential and actual conditioning which takes place in education. I do not suggest that such a perspective already has been elaborated, but it is possible to indicate some of its elements.

Such a radical theory of education would contain the following. First, a realistic and profound criticism of the foundations of education and a humanization of the contents of the curriculum and of interpersonal relationships within the school. Second, extension of authentic participation to teachers and parents as institutionally respected subjects in stimulating the development of the personal potential of the young and promoting their access to diversified and universal cultural contexts. Third, preparation of young people to contribute intellectual and emotional dynamism to society and, with imagination and commitment, to push back the limits of what hitherto has been possible. That is, not merely to find a place for themselves in the world, but to contribute to the realization of a world in which one can find a fitting place.

All these tasks are beyond the reach of education unless it is seen within a theoretical analysis and practical transformation of the mechanisms and structures of the social world perceived in terms of the actual and potential tensions between social aspirations and institutional barriers. Thus, criticism concerning education becomes possible primarily as criticism directed towards society: pedagogy cannot be perceived outside of critical social theory.

It is important to stress also for philosophical analysis that the climate and success of education is effected by the lack of social approval of individuality representing autonomous thinking and valuing, by institutional disempowerment of civil courage, as well as by hesitancy to respect and appreciate social initiatives contrary to claims of political monopoly. Practical exclusion of wide sectors of culture and its heritages from the overall social debate, as well as a monopolizing of the search for the solution of contemporary problems and dilemmas deprive educational institutions of the ability to function in promoting and disseminating the competencies needed to deal with such challenges. Sanctioned by solemn ritual, replete with superficial phraseology and carried out under administrative pressure and control, "structural exclusion" of education from concern with public issues cuts the roots of its basic social function and dooms it to a kind of social schizophrenia. Dwelling on a fictitious world, it promotes cynicism and anomic reactions, is deprived of norms and values beyond those of egoistic privacy, and is aggressively opposed to or neglects the rights of others. One can easily observe how the blockade upon the subjectivity of both teachers and pupils in the official everyday life of the schools and, most of all, the dysfunctional character of all nonconformist behavior in "official" institutions create a mechanism which represses interests and commitments and promotes compensation, apathy or aggression against the world. Often they push one towards marginalization in search of privacy, towards counter-cultural self-identification and behavior, or simply beyond the frontiers of accepted reality. The drama of the emigration of tens of thousands of the young in the 80s had much to do with their refusal and incapacity to give shape to their private identities in a world whose public life neither invited, nor sufficiently tolerated, nor created prospects for individual vitality.

EDUCATION AND THE PRINCIPLE OF

MINIMUM AUTHORITY

The public-private relationship and its involvement in processes of education can be illustrated in terms of Jürgen Habermas' theory, by relating it to his "universal pragmatics" linked with the so-called "validity claims" present in all communication, namely, the claims to a clear linguistic expression, the claim to a truthful attitude in communicating content and, finally, the claim to a justified normative stand. Without entering into the details of this conception, let us note one of its implications. A successful process of communication contributes toward agreement, mutual affirmation and acceptance of the form and contents represented, together with their normative implications. This is possible provided there exists between the partners involved in the process a relation which embodies the principle of minimum communicational authority attributing to both sides in communication the "ability to present acceptable arguments."⁽⁹⁾

Only under such a condition can there exist readiness for meaningful communicative interaction, namely, listening attentively, considering profoundly, trusting and thinking through the train of reasoning and its force and, in consequence, following this agreement in one's own actions.

Of course, the "validity claims" and the acceptability of arguments can be better perceived when contrasted with the eventual dangers of distortion in communication and of blocked interaction. Let us presume an extreme example. Let us suppose a case in which within the educational process the principle of minimum authority does not obtain so that there is at least a partial rejection of what has been offered. The teacher or parent shares the normative engagement of the recipients, and fully approves and affirms them as subjects. In particular, their offer is linked with the most sincere intention of respecting the subjectivity and autonomy of the recipients. Nevertheless, the students do not accept in this sense what is offered. All this may happen when the teacher as person or the school as an institution shapes its axiological orientation with reference to the values recognized by the pupils and when other elements in Habermas' validity claims are fulfilled objectively as well. Thus, though the offer is sincere, it is not treated as such--it is not credible; the content of the offer is true, but the recipients are not ready to treat it as such or to check it objectively; the linguistic code is clear verbally, but its form is not appreciated.

To illustrate the last gap between an objective state and its subjective status one may recall the example of Orwellian "newspeak," where the Ministry of War was actually called the "Ministry of Peace." In Poland an analogical term for newspeak, "nowomowa," was identified earlier by sociologist Jan Strzelecki⁽¹⁰⁾ with a "lyrical" model of socialism and its political language. Sometimes the very sound of such verbal structures in an educational setting was treated with hostility and blocked any agreement. We were thus confronted with a situation in which there is a certain rupture between the formal side of the process and its subjective and emotional perception by one of the parties. Cases of negation of the principle of minimum communicative authority, e.g., in family, in the crisis of adolescence, in school--in fact, much more often and more naturally than one would be inclined to believe--illustrate beyond doubt that one's objective intentions and the orientation of one's engagement are not themselves decisive for the processes of education or identity formation.

The formal analysis of such a model leads to conclusions which are quite paradoxical from a traditional pedagogical perspective, although they are supported by the empirical findings of sociology and social psychology. They can be expressed as the social costs of an educational process taking place under the conditions of at least partial rejection of the educational offer. The most essential phenomenon is the lessened inclination in the recipients to respect in their activity the norms and values they had accepted previously, but which now are considered as an integral part of what has been rejected and are treated as representative for the refused offer and its source. There emerges a phenomenon of ejecting from one's own world of action values which previously had been accepted. In more universal terms this phenomenon can be described, as with Erik H. Erikson,⁽¹¹⁾ as "negative identity" which entails the risk of manifest behavior emotionally affirming an alien ethos which might be preferred over a violently rejected social offer. In fact, this is actually self-aggressive and self-destructive, since the individual looks for roots in norms and values which are alien to his basic emotional sensitivity. Thus, one experiences a process of expropriation from values, not eliminating them totally from one's individual self-concept, but imposing limits on their presence in one's own activities in the surrounding world. There may emerge a cynical attitude towards the very values belonging to one's own decalogue; though a sort of "axiological residuum" remains, it is manifest only within an ever more reduced area of individual activity and relationship with the social environment. It may even blunt sensitivity towards one's proper internalized values to such a point that the individual concerned will no longer consider activities as of value or as making sense once they are perceived as having been affirmed by the source of the educational offer that has been emotionally rejected.

Implications of such considerations for educational theory are drastic, even if treated as an empirical hypothesis. This is due to the fact that no matter what kind of pedagogical intent and humanistic message animates the education, as a result of carrying it out without satisfying the minimum of communicational authority described above, one may face a reduction of axiological emotivity and sensitivity on the part of the subjects concerned at the lowest levels of individual identity, typical of anomic adaptation or traumatic reactions. Eventually there can remain a sort of axiological residuum in one's personal identity, i.e., the ability to recognize a certain set of values in one's self-conception without manifesting these values or actively defending them in one's individual actions--which are dominated instead by interest, profit and cynicism.

In society the coexistence of these personal values with powerfully opposed institutions leads to these institutions ceasing to be considered as valuable. Therefore there arise widespread counter-cultural reactions against the social environment perceived as hostile. Ostentatious affirmation of norms and values neither recognized in the educational environment nor internalized as integral components of the subjects of such reaction become typical. The danger linked with such negative identifications is that both the affirmed groups, e.g., youth gangs or rock fans, and the rejected part of society, may push such an individual into irreversible compensatory commitments or at least make the drastic and little intended consequences of one's temporary gestures decisive for one's entire life.

Although there has been no direct reference to the public-private dilemma here, it too can be stated in these terms. Namely, approaching education from a communicative point of view we wanted to suggest that the private world of the individual is influenced negatively by the "public" efforts to offer him values. This is so even when they are derived from a highly humanistic tradition, if there does not exist even a minimum authority principle to support the process of communication. One has to take into account the real phenomenon of resistance or of striving to sabotage cooperation in the educational process by the recipients of the transmitted message.⁽¹²⁾ Not only does this lead to formal rejection of the content of the message, but the whole process becomes destructive of the private world of the individual, including his axiological stand.

The only way out of this situation would seem to consist in establishing real public spheres integrated with education where there will be a chance for an individual publicly to articulate his values without the obligation to split one's own identity into the "official" or publicly manifested and the hidden or "true" face, manifested only in the most private circumstances. Under their socio-political conditions, for a very long time young Poles and their teachers had to face the challenge of such a situation. The school, often identified with a rejected ideology or authorities, became an integral part of an alien world constituting a barren process of intellectually and emotionally superficial efforts. "To go to school" meant to "play a role," to pretend to be there in order to work and to profit from it, while presence in school had become not only unfruitful, but often destructive and irreversibly demoralizing.⁽¹³⁾ It seems obvious then that if its function is to be something other than killing the vitality of subsequent younger generations, education of itself cannot be an effective instrument of any social system imposed by a power contrary to the cultural heritage of the society.

N. Copernicus University

Torun, Poland

*This text uses some sections from the author's book in Polish, Tozsamosc i zmiana. Wstep do epistemologicznej analizy kontekstow edukacyjnych (Identity and Transformation. Introduction to the Epistemological Analysis of Educational Contexts), (Torun: UMK, 1988). The basic inspiration and the point of reference is the critical social theory of Jürgen Habermas and some basic knowledge concerning this theory is taken for granted. In particular one might consult Habermas' Communication and the Evolution of Society, translated by Thomas McCarthy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979). This is linked here with the reference to Lawrence Kohlberg's vertical structure of "levels" of moral development, interpreted by Habermas in terms of preconventional, conventional and post-conventional types of symbolic organization, with their characteristic discontinuities of transition and basic "logic" of development. Much is owed also to the analysis of types of socialization processes by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann in their The Social Construction of Reality (Polish edition; Warszawa: P.W., 1983). Cf. also Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education. A Pedagogy for the Opposition (South Hadley: Bergin and Garvey, 1983).

1. 1. . Cf. Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Oeffentlichkeit (Neuwied: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 1962).

2. 2. . Cf. Henry A. Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education (South Hadley: Bergin and Garvey, 1983), pp. 234-242.

3. 3. . I came to this division of secondary socialization while critically analyzing P. Berger's and T. Luckmann's approach in their The Social Construction of Reality (Polish edition; Warszawa: PIW, 1983). The basic idea was applied from my study of L. Kohlberg's and J. Habermas' confrontation of the conventional and the post-conventional levels of development, cf. Jürgen Habermas, Communication and the Evolution of Society (Boston: Beacon, 1979).

4. 4. . As I noted, the traditional and, in its humanism, sentimental version of pedagogy suggests a need to make school so nice and attractive to the children that they will "love" it. However, one should not overlook a certain discontinuity in types of identification which remain at the basis of the distinction between primary socialization in the family and the secondary one. The roles which the child meets in school become much more general and partial. Berger and Luckmann were right in indicating that as a prerequisite for successful socialization, a child is supposed to love its parents, but not its teacher.

5. 5. . Cf. Miroslawa Marody, "Antynomie spolecznej swiadomosci" (Antinomies of Social Consciousness), Odra (no. 1, 1987), pp. 4-9.

6. 6. . Cf. Jürgen Habermas, Kultur und Kritik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973), quoted from the Italian edition, Cultura e critica (Torino: Einaudi, 1980), pp. 71, 74.

7. 7. . Cf. Nicola Paoli, note in Cultura e Critica, p. 283.

8. 8. . Cf. Henry A. Giroux, Theory and Resistance.

9. 9. . Cf. Carl Freidrich, Tradition and Authority (London, 1972).

10. 10. . Cf. Jan Strzelecki, "Historia jako wcielenie wartosci" (History as Embodiment of Values), Odra (no. 11, 1982), 13-17; "Socjalizmu model liryczny" (Lyrical Model of Socialism), Odra (no. 1-8, 1982), 23-27; "Propozycje jezyka lirycznego": Model socjalizmu (Proposals for a Lyrical Language: The Model of Socialism), Teksty (no. 1, 1981), 31-54 (all texts in Polish).

11. 11. . I have analyzed thoroughly this concept in the first monographic study in Poland devoted to Erikson, cf. Leck Witkowski, Rozwoj i tozsamosc w cyklu zycia: Studium koncepcji Erika H. Eriksona (Development and Identity in the Life Cycle: A Study of This Conception by Erik H. Erikson), (Torun: UMK, 1989).

12. 12. . This idea goes beyond Pierre Bourdieu's conception of "transmission of social inequalities" by culture. The evolution of the "new sociology of education" beyond Bourdieu's conception is discussed in Henry A. Giroux, "Theories of Reproduction and Resistance in the New Sociology of Education: A Critical Analysis," Harvard Educational Review, 53 (1983), 257-293.

13. 13. . Cf. Zbigniew Kwiecinski, "Szkola jako wcwiczanie w kulture pozornego wysilku. Studium przypadku" (School as Training Into the Culture of Apparent Effort: A Case Study), Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny (no. 3, 1987), 49-70.