How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

Dewey’s concept of experience for inquiry-based landscape drawing during field studies

The epistemological and educational philosophy of John Dewey is used as a theoretical basis to analyze processes of knowledge construction during geographical field studies. The experience of landscape drawing as a method of inquiry and a starting point for research-based learning is empirically evaluated. The basic drawing skills are acquired through an online drawing course. The main aim is to foster the self-organized acquisition of relevant skills to explore, describe and reflect on subjective mental and linguistic concepts in relation to scientific landscape models. The results, based on an evaluation of the students’ drawings, their responses to questionnaires and a review of students’ “reflective notes”, indicate that the approach motivated students to learn about the processes which formed the landscape and that the students perceived the method of inquiry after Dewey as a way to overcome cognitive dissonance.     

“It was amazing to see our projects come to life!” Developing affective learning during geography fieldwork through tropophilia

This research, conducted with groups of undergraduate students before and after a European fieldwork exercise, critically examines the pedagogic value of fieldwork and its ability to provide students with transferable skills. This is achieved using Anderson and Erskine’s lens of tropophilia – the aesthetic connection between people and place – to explore the influence of “being” in the field upon affective learning. In doing so, this research suggests (1) that encouraging students to recognize how their own affective skills may influence the types of knowledge(s) that are produced on fieldtrips and (2) that people-place connections have the ability to inspire students to become more self-reflexive about their position(s) as learners.