Abstract:

The 20^th century was a period of dynamic changes which shook nearly all institutional structures and existing systems of values on a scale that had no precedent in the entire human history. The perspective of the first quarter of the 21^st century looks no different. Just the opposite, the changes seem to be gaining momentum. On the one hand, they are determined by bloody and cruel wars, systemic changes, and the migration of large groups of people outside the boundaries of their traditional areas of residence, regions, states and even continents. On the other hand, the 20^th and 21^st centuries mark the time of unprecedented progress in science and technology, popularisation of education and culture, the age when education first became a universally recognisable value, both in autotelic and instrumental terms, only to lose in importance to demonstrable competencies. Mirosław J. Szymański notes:

‘In a rapidly changing world, it is sometimes very difficult to find common, long-lasting tendencies and trends. And it was just in the previous century that the constancy of living conditions clearly dominated over changeable elements. Most people would rarely change their learnt or inherited profession or place of residence, views, likings, creeds or beliefs, or membership in a specific social class or group. Despite various tensions and conflicts, the family was an extremely stable institution, and divorces or openly functioning cohabitation relationships were really sporadic. A similar stability was true also for the local environment, where the course of things was the same despite changing generations. The durability of the existing social order was underlined by the strength of the state authority, established legal systems and the influence of church institutions which presented religious guidelines as universal, unchangeable and timeless.’ (Szymański 2001, p. 5)