Abstract:
It is commonly understood and proven by years of research that elite schools produce or at least aim to produce future leaders. Poland is one of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries where transition from communist to capitalist system had many implications. One of them is the emergence of new types of elite schools. This is a relatively new phenomenon in the post-communist space and research in this area is extremely limited. Studying the emerging elitness of education in Poland will improve the understanding of how elite schools differentiate and adjust to changing global and national circumstances and how they embrace or reject the global trends and agendas. With recent political and economic developments in countries of European Union, my study offers excellent opportunities to improve understandings of how prestigious schools in Poland navigate the major political, social and cultural crosscurrents.In recently published Elites, Education and identity: An Emerging Research Agenda, Stephen Ball (2015) suggests three narratives for further research: the need for attention to differences between elites, especially differences in terms of localism as against cosmopolitanism and the different roles of education in identity formation in relation to these different orientations; the need to explore the complex relationships between the global education market and elite formation, differentiation and reproduction. My presentation will involve all those aspects to some extent.Poland is the largest of the CEE economies and serves as an entrepreneur of EU norms and standards to the EU’s near neighbours (Klatt & Stepniewski 2012). Poland has stood out in recent years for its students’ PISA scores and has become one of the ‘rising stars in education’ (Hicks 2012). It has the lowest rate of early school leaving in Europe (Eurostat 2009) and 95% school retention rate.In spite of these achievements, the liberalization of the system has lead to social diversification of education system that worries many, and which, in view of some educators, will lead to greater inequalities in the future. The question also arises, how long will national elite schools be able to withstand the trend towards internationalization and how are the EU-ification and globalization forces impacting the minds and educational choices of the rich and powerful of the contemporary Polish nation state?