The qualitative research study conducted in the Polish higher education context confirms that students' vision of an ideal university strongly embraces the concept of quality as transformation. The enhancement and empowerment are manifested by multiple facets of transformation that the students look for at an ideal university, including…

This article shows the results of research on how Polish school space is perceived by students from a refugee background. The study was conducted through participatory photography and narrative interviews with 15 participants (ages 10-16). Action research was the main research strategy. The results indicate that students perceive the school space…

This article provides a case-based critical reflection on integrating transdisciplinary knowledge in entrepreneurship education as a framework for empowering future entrepreneurs and innovators . The increased complexity of modern societies emphasizes new requirements for teaching practices intended to equip decision-makers with the tools…

The paper examines school meetings held in a small democratic school in Poland in order to explore how school communities are formed. Drawing on Foucault's concept of power, the authors analyse fieldnotes and interview excerpts to reveal how voice and scripted bodily expressions accompanying verbal utterances are privileged in these school…

Given the double risk of exclusion caused for women with a low educational level, adult education can be a fundamental element that allows them to actively participate in their social, political, and cultural environments. Moreover, because educational level has been reported by the scientific literature to be a factor that directly favors…

This article aims to explore how the situation of unemployment and -- more generally -- early job insecurity affects young people's scope for exercising agency with regard to decisions about continuing and improving their education. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of the capability approach, the article develops the concept of patterns of…

This article aims to present the effects of participatory action learning (PAL) as a method of work to Empower the Active Citizenship of young people in schools. The author of the article was involved in an educational project called Future Youth School -- Forums (FYS-FORUMS). The basic aim was to create a model of schooling that promotes the idea…

The article is an (co)autoethnography story about a project that conducted as a teacher at the University of Szczecin in Poland. Technically, the project consisted in creating a (co)autoethnography text. The story in this article attempts to raise the question of the relationship between (co)autoethography, emancipation and resistance to the…

The paper provides an analysis of the concepts of agency, compliance, and resistance, drawing on evidence provided in the Belgian, Norwegian, and Polish cases in this Special Issue, as well as the Canadian context. Using the Cultural Historical Activity Theory framework as a lens, it highlights conditions that foster agency, those that may invoke…

Social movements at universities have recently flourished as a response to the Bologna Process and austerity measures at universities, but studies on learning within these movements are still scarce. Our goal is to describe one movement which started at the University of Gdansk in 2009 and aimed at democratising the university and implementing…

There is in higher education a powerful discourse of "independent learning". While there may be pedagogical rationales to support the desirability of increased independence at the tertiary stage, it may also serve other institutional agendas, such as functioning as a way for academic staff to "manage" the frustrations…