Agnieszka Cybal-Michalska

Internationalization as a challenge for geographical education in Poland: experience of a new postgraduate study “cultural industries in the development policies of cities and regions”

Abstract For many years internationalization has not been a strong point of geographical education in post-socialist countries, including Poland. Therefore, all attempts at intensifying it are a real challenge and good practices deserve dissemination. This paper seeks to present the organizational and programme assumptions of a new field of postgraduate study called Cultural industries in the development policies of cities and regions, (Project supported by the European Social Fund under the Human Capital Operational Programme in the years 2013–2015 (Priority IV: Tertiary Education and Science, Measure 4.3: Enhancing the didactic potential of universities in areas of key importance for the Europe 2020 Strategy. UDA-POKL.04.03.00–00-152/12–00).) developed by the staff of the Institute of Socio-Economic Geography and Spatial Management of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland) as a didactic innovation, based on a modular system of education offering wide internationalization possibilities. The analysis focuses on experiences connected with this process. They include classes prepared in cooperation with visiting professors and practitioners from eight universities and European institutions as well as week-long practical placements in Brussels, arranged thanks to a network of experts and institutions specifically established for this purpose. The results obtained help to formulate conclusions and recommendations for higher schools interested in adopting this kind of good practices connected with the development of geographical education.

Proactivity in Career and Identity Styles in the World Oriented Towards Global Change

The multi-contextual social changes, expressed in the permanent creation of the contemporary society, contribute to difficulties in the attempt to capture and unequivocally define the factors which determine them. A strictly “global” theoretical reflection refers to the complexity, heterogeneity, progressive interdependence of the world’s societies and the awareness of its totality. The complexity and temporal multidimensionality of the contemporary globalizing society (its ambiguity, ambivalence, transience, diversity) and the transformations of the socio-cultural reality which is subjected to constant fluctuations, make it difficult to grasp the description and standardization of the heterogeneity of the society which is undergoing objectivization in its actions. This fact is not without significance for the development of a new configuration of global policy, market structures and new patterns and models of careers. The issue of identity crystallizes the problem of individual career trajectories and the construction of the subject’s professional identity. In this sense, it is a narrative which has to be developed and which requires the creative contribution of the individual and their reflective approach to their own biography. Identity is shaped in the context of social and cultural influences of a reality which is subject to permanent change. The identity styles determined by the socio-cognitive processes relate to the individual preferences in the processing of information concerning the subjective “I”, in making decisions, in the selection of strategies of constructing or avoiding the crystallization of own identity and the quality of career decision-making in the world of “boundaryless careers”. In a situation where no career scenario adopted a priori provides a guarantee of success, investing in a career identified as the “property” of the subject, pursued “in one’s own case”, becomes a necessity and enforces the proactive planning, directing and management of a career.

Constructing a Career as a Determinant of Career Success in the Globalizing Society - on the Need for Pro-developmental and Proactive Behaviors of the Subject

In light of the pace of development of the global world, the acceleration of social life, the hard to predict direction of social change, the question arises about the quality of the transformations in the world of work and the process of constructing careers understood as investing in the career “portfolio”. A contemporary study of career requires us to take into account the multi-contextual occurring changes in the world of work, which create new requirement for the employees. Career development is a life-long process of a comprehensive nature. In the process of constructing a career emphasis is put on the subjects’ work on themselves, their permanent participation in life projects and multi-layered processes as well as the acquisition of experience and the capacity for self-awareness. This view is a background for thinking about career as a “property” of an individual, along with their individual career choices. This peculiar shift of an individual’s orientation from external conditions to internal conditions prompts us to consider career in connection with an individual seen as a pro-development and proactive subject, who possesses an individual career and a sense of success in its construction. Success in a career is the result of integration of two processes: career planning and career directing and management. In this sense, it is understood as the subject’s achievement of the objectives of their career. The distinguishing feature of proactive and pro-development planning, directing and management of a career is the awareness of being a causative agent that performs actions in a desired direction and influences the surrounding reality, thereby initiating changes. There is no doubt that active coping in a reality subject to permanent change requires people to adapt to the constantly changing context of creation of individual careers, and the new way of thinking about career means entering a path of permanent constructing of a career in the world of “boundaryless” careers.

Proactive Behavioral Orientation of a Subject as a Process of Investing in Career Capital in the World of “Boundaryless Careers”

The contemporary social configuration opens for individuals the range of numerous possibilities of career construction. The contemporary study in the subject of career orders to take into account the process of investing in the career capital that aims at making a subject oriented towards proactivity. Being active in the contemporary reality means constantly adapting to the changing context of an individual career construction and the new way of thinking about career means being a manager of the knowledge about yourself and the construction of your career portfolio. A subject’s career proactivity as a cognitive practice that is embodied in a continuous manner will be “a building material” to form the following features: looking for a change, seeing possibilities, creating situations, showing initiative and taking action. Looking at this issue from this perspective, the study of career is actually both, the study of individual changes and the changes in the society.