Preschool Education in Madagascar: State of Play and Challenge to Development in the 21st Century

The 21st-century society is characterized by the increased importance given to the acquisition and use of knowledge. This article examines the education of young children in Madagascar, a country where a significant portion of the population has never attended preschool. It strives to present an overview of the early childhood sector and its relationship to development. The increase in the number of pupils enrolled in preschool activity centers is a testament to the growing interest in preschool education. However, not all children have access to the same educational services. Inequalities start in early childhood. They can act as a brake on future growth by preventing the full development of individual potential. Strengthening the early childhood sector will contribute to the training of actors working for the long-term development of Madagascar.

The Intercultural Approach in Teaching Polish as a Foreign Language in China

The article presents issues related to intercultural teaching of Polish sociolinguistic and sociocultural customs in China. Efficient communication is guaranteed by mastering grammatical rules and vocabulary and requires knowledge of the culture of a given country. Papers on teaching Polish culture in Europe are the theoretical basis. The material was gathered by the author while she was teaching at Polish studies departments in China. Intercultural approach in teaching Polish linguistic-cultural behaviors in China demands other solutions than in the European cultural circle.

Paris Was Not Built in a Day… Three-Dimensional Puzzles and Architectural Blocks as a Universal Tool Supporting the Process of Aesthetic Education

This article proposes the use of knowledge of space studies in the school educational practice. It allows for implementation of obligatory content and skills indicated in the core curriculum for general education. Shaping the spatial imagination and aesthetic sensitivity is accompanied by the development of both social and manual skills, while the construction of miniature buildings by students is a convenient starting point for a discussion on social and cultural changes.

The Ethics of Child Resocialization in Uwineza G. Sabano’s “Family Conflict”: From the Urgent Need for Exorcisms to the Imperative of Behavior Renewal

Uwineza G. Sabano in Family Conflict presents scenarios of stormy family relationships between parents and adult children around various issues. How does the adult deploy his or her experiential know-how in order to exorcise the behavioural imposture and, in so doing, bring about an alternative way of life, the main thrust of which is ethics in behaviour? Anne Ubersfeld’s and Patrice Pavis’ theatrical semiotics and semiology guide this reflection, which is divided into three parts. At the end of the analysis, it emerges that in order to better evolve in his or her life, the child needs constant family supervision.

To Traumatize or to Put under a Taboo? Holocaust Narratives in Children’s Literature

The article investigates the ways of representing the Holocaust in children’s literature published in Poland in the 21st century (e.g. Joanna Rudniańska’s Kotka Brygidy and Smoke by Antón Fortes and Joanna Concejo). Phenomena such as anti-Semitism or death of the main character, called by researchers and critics inappropriate for a young audience, are analyzed with the use of the research on taboo in children’s literature (Bogusława Sochańska and Justyna Czechowska) as well as confronted with the threat of “traumatization” of the young reader (Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek). The analysis proves that the Shoah only appears to be well-represented in children’s literature as many topics are still omitted.

Contemporary Youth Speech: Linguistic and Cultural Conceptualisations of the Phenomenon

The article covers the ways to understand and describe youth slang as a social language variety from three perspectives. The first one presents the youth slang conceptualisation as the effect of language studies from the past several years, the second perspective refers to making use of the ways to describe the language of young generations in media space, while the third one exposes the significance of slang among teenagers as its natural users. The recapitulation is accompanied by the author’s linguistic and sociocultural reflections, which argue in favour of contemporary expansion of youth sociolect and its evolution from a communal variety to a culturally motivated communication style.

Inclusive Approach in Teaching Students with Special Educational Needs – a Chance to Change the Polish School

The article deals with the issue of inclusive education, which is one of the priorities of contemporary educational policy. The author describes both the idea of inclusion and the assumptions of inclusive education, as well as introduces the legal aspects of this issue. Particular attention was paid to the situation of students with special educational needs, for whom inclusive education is an opportunity to optimize the teaching-learning process. The final part of the article presents selected practical solutions that can be used by teachers to build a learning environment friendly to students with special educational needs.

Development of the Early Support System for Young Children in Ukraine: The Periods of System Formation

The article examines the formation of the early support system for young children as an integral part of Ukraine’s state policy in the field of education and children’s rights, the international and national legislation that defines this system, and the stages of its formation. Early support is understood as an interdisciplinary family-centred comprehensive support system for young children with developmental disabilities or biological or social risks. The aim of this system is to improve children’s development and their families’ quality of life with the help of special institutions, organisations and their subdivisions of different subordination: the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of Ukraine. The main provisions declared in international and national legal documents concerning early support for children with special educational needs at different age periods are analysed and the stages of system formation are defined. The practices of early support for children with special educational needs at each formation stage are described.

Children of “Toxic Parents”: An Attempt of Interpretation of “The Unconsoled” by Kazuo Ishiguro

The article constitutes an attempt to interpret the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro The Unconsoled – a work with a complex plot and a multi-threaded structure, typical for a composition stretched on the frame of the rhizome-like labyrinth and the motif of memory imperfections. The labyrinth is a space of strangeness, of being lost. It is a journey of the main character who wanders around various spaces of the city and hotel (which performs a variety of functions), meets many random people and listens to their accounts. The life problems of the city’s inhabitants indicate the eternal truth, according to which a man cannot live without understanding, without talking to someone kind who has the ability to listen. They were looking for someone who would listen and understand them, someone who would kindly respond to their problems. It may also be assumed that living in a world without the feeling of a lack of transcendence, the inhabitants were looking for an authority like a messiah who would indicate the direction of renewal in the world of chaos and who would answer the question: How to live? The novel describes a cultural crisis triggered by the feeling of a fundamental contradiction between the world of scientific truths and the inner world of every human being. Values such as faith, friendship, selflessness, truthfulness or family, to which Ishiguro pays a lot of attention, have been lost. “Toxic parents” are shown in multiple configurations: on the example of Ryder’s parents, or Ryder himself as the father of Boris and Stephan Hoffman. The author shows one of the major causes of the paternity crisis, namely the cult of professional success. Professional success and rivalry connected with it completely absorb Ryder’s life and activities. As a result of the pursuit of professional fulfillment, the role of emotional ties in his life becomes less significant, they almost disappear. It may be assumed that, using the example of the crisis in the described city, Ishiguro presents the contemporary world, which lost the sense of life; however, he did not limit it to the lost past. The world in which all attempts to search for a new form of expression and valorization end in failure. It is a labyrinthine, objectified world which is only given outside, a world of showing off and a “game” of pretending, without honesty and simplicity. It is a place dominated by a pose and culture of narcissism, full of inauthenticity, artificiality and appearance. In addition, The Unconsoled is a poignant novel about human loneliness.

Rural Child in the Polish Educational Discourse during the Interwar Period or about Less Known Roots of Regionalism at School

The article is devoted to the process of discovering the specificity of life and development of a village child, initiated at the turn of the second and third decades of the 20th century. It was one of the consequences of the then developing educational discourse, supported by the achievements of child psychology, pedology, and the New Upbringing trend. In 1929, the first Polish research on the level of development of children from urban and rural environments was conducted. The results were very unfavorable for children from the countryside. This gave an impulse for further action. In 1930, in the pages of “Praca Szkolna” (“School Work”), a competition was announced among teachers to describe a rural child from various regions. Twenty-two papers were submitted, the best of which were published in the book Dziecko wsi polskiej (A Child of the Polish Countryside). These works allowed us to penetrate both the problems faced by rural children at school and the difficulties faced by teachers working in the countryside. To a large extent, they resulted from the lack of a proper diagnosis of the educational and upbringing needs of a rural child and from difficulties in cooperation between schools and villages. The perspective of changes in this area was opened only by regionalism, introduced to school curricula as a result of the education reform in 1932, which was to support the education of rural children and contribute to the integration of the school with the local community. Thus, the teaching characteristics of a rural child contributed, in a sense, to the introduction of regionalism in Polish schools.