The role models of young social activists

Date of publication: 01.02.2024
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The National Centre for Culture Poland carried out a study on the role models of young social activists, asking itself whether the concept of role model is current and adequate in the case of this group. The qualitative study, based on the method of autobiographical narrative interviews, aimed to find the answer to the question of who has a significant impact on the biographies, decisions and attitudes of young activists operating in local communities.

The report is based on the analysis of over 50 autobiographical narrative interviews. We describe important people in the respondents' lives and the values associated with them that influence civic activity.

As part of the analysis of the collected data, we created four personas whom we talk about in one of the chapters of the report: activist Michalina, alternative activist Jagoda, leader Zosia, community-oriented Alek. Searching for differences and similarities between the respondents resulted in the identification of recurring features and attitudes, related to each other at the level of biography and identity, which translated into the description of personas. In a simplified way, they reflect the most important characteristics of the surveyed activists.

While encouraging you to read the whole report, we only reveal that the young activists distanced themselves from the concept and phenomenon of role model during the interviews. According to them, a role model is someone worth following in every area of life, and they are unlikely to find such figures. As a result, respondents usually did not spontaneously use the term role model. If it appeared spontaneously in their statements, it referred to inspiration in a narrowly defined field.

We encourage you to download the file and discover the perspective of young people.