The motto of the article signals that ‘the great cultural change’ on the turn of the 20th century is going to be the context for reflections on the identity of pedagogy. The problem of identity has always been controversial; however, it is particularly visible in the circumstances of change. In the article I attempt to weaken the argumentation used by the advocates of marginalising that problem in an academic discourse in order to remind statements of leaders of Polish pedagogy encouraging undertaking the problems of the identity of pedagogy. I also try to convince the reader that it is possible to form important questions about the new connection between pedagogy and educational practice in the context of a discourse about the identity of pedagogy.

Iranian society underwent various transformations influenced by Western culture as part of its process of modernisation. This was driven by the state’s, intellectuals’ and the emergent middle class’s efforts to push cultural change. However, despite a century of such modernisation, a populist backlash accelerated the rise of religious leaders and the Shiʿite tradition before, during and after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. For this important reason, the link between cultural change and modernisation need further examination in the Iranian context. This paper posits the preliminary hypothesis that modernisation as a means of cultural change did not transform Iranian culture in large measure due to the lack of nationwide education. A majority of Iranians remained devoted to the Shiʿite faith and traditions of Islam. This paper examines the importance of education in cultural change in the Qajar and Pahlavi eras, deploying aspects of Riane Eisler’s cultural transformation model to evaluate cultural change influenced by Western culture in Iran.

One of the main traits of a society of reflexive modernity is the critical analysis of categories that in the past appeared unquestionable. Socio-cultural gender and health or illness/mental disorders are categories of this type. Above all, they are socially constructed, that is, they are dependent on culture and on political, economic, and religious factors. The author undertakes to analyse the relations between the diagnostic criteria used in the international system of classifying mental diseases (DSM-IV and ICD-10) and traditional schemas of masculinity and femininity. Confirmation of the incidence of particular diseases in connection with gender is the author’s entry point for seeking answers to why individuals suffering from certain illnesses/mental disorders display behaviour corresponding to traditional gender roles, even though contemporary gender roles are fluid in many respects, and hypotheses about biological differences as causes of incidence of disease in men and women have not been empirically confirmed.

' Savoir-vivre with a past', or an Etiquette Guide of the Age of Transformation according to Agnieszka Osiecka, was published in the illustrated weekly Przekrój in 1993–1994. This article analyzes the column's content in the context of contemporary social and cultural change, focusing on issues from a broad field of dos and don’ts that acquired unexpected visibility during the early years of the Transformation, and tries to find out what was Osiecka's treatment of individual cases says of her own views.

Cwaniary (Female Wanglers) is not only a metatextual novel with numerous references to popular culture, but above all an important contribution to the discussion about the place and role of women in contemporary society. The author breaks with the nineteenth-century image of matka Polka, the Polish Mother, whose existence is confined to family and home. The creations and actions of the female wanglers in Cwaniary, outsiders who defy popular stereotypes by pursuing outré lifestyles, are underpinned with allusions to a nascent rebellion against patriarchy, systemic suppression of women's rights, and the resulting marginalization of women in society. Unfortunately, Poles still have great problems with openness to other cultures, nations, and non-heteronormative sexual orientations. The Poles, it seems, are caught between an irrational fear of disintegration of the structures of their relatively homogeneous society and the need to move on and reinvent themselves as the 'modern subjects' of critical theory. It is a choice between holding on to an anachronistic model of Polish culture founded on suppression or catching up with the 21st-century world of openness, diversity and multiculturalism.