Sara Young

This article continues a theme recently raised in this journal by Małek (2019) and Krzyworzeka-Jelinowska (2019). It analyses the activism of Polish women living abroad, as headteachers, teachers and parents at Saturday schools, and demonstrates that Polish migrants are not as socially passive as sometimes assumed. We define civil society as ‘a society of active citizens, associating together and working for the collective good’. Our study of seven schools suggests that the Covid-19 lockdown stimulated some schools to broaden their activities as civil society organisations. Although some local links were weakened, for example because Polish Clubs were shut, the schools’ online activities expanded: more networking took place between headteachers UK-wide, and the schools reached out to a range of Polish and non-Polish organisations: locally; elsewhere in the UK; in Poland; and in third countries. Within the schools, the pandemic represented an opportunity to teach children about their civic responsibilities and involve parents more directly in children’s education. However, the lockdown also raised difficulties for all Saturday schools, not just Polish ones, when their credentials as ‘educational’ organisations seemed challenged by both UK government policy and some mainstream schools.

Polish accession to the European Union in 2004 saw migration to the UK increase exponentially. However, the recent climate in Britain has become one of a harsher anti-immigrant discourse. This paper is based on findings of my doctoral study exploring identity construction amongst Polish-born adolescents in the UK in the light of such negative discourses. Here, I see identity as contingent, (re)negotiated in different contexts; I also draw on the theory of positioning, whereby individuals adopt certain subject positions even as they are positioned differently by others. Fieldwork for the study took place in January-May 2016. A narrative inquiry approach was used; interviews were held with eleven participants aged 11–16, living in small Polish communities. Findings suggest that while the adolescents report having been subjected to anti-Polish bullying, they refuse to tell stories of victimhood. Rather, they present themselves as agentive individuals who respond to attacks by asserting their Polish identity and reinforcing their right to be in the UK. Thus, despite the antagonistic discourses surrounding Polish migration to the UK, these adolescents demonstrate the positive way that they are confronting their present difficulties and approaching their future.