CULTURE AND SOCIAL POLICY. ON COMPLEX INTERRELATIONS AND THE NEED TO STUDY THEM (Kultura a polityka spoleczna. O skomplikowanych wspólzaleznosciach i potrzebie ich badania)

The article discusses the topic of culture and its interrelation with social policy. Basing on important contributions of Baldock, van Oorschot and Pfau-Effinger, it attempts to present the significance of a wide cultural context for the welfare state and at the same time a relative negligence of this cultural context in academic social policy. The main part of the article is the presentation of the contextualization of the above mentioned issues as proposed by Birgit Pfau-Effinger who outlined the concepts of welfare culture and welfare arrangements. The twofold character of culture-welfare state interrelation seems to be a very intriguing and promising field of study, also in a comparative perspective.