STUDENT SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCES AS CHANCE TO DEVELOP STUDENTS SOCIAL IMAGINATION (Studenckie Konferencje Naukowe szansa na rozwijanie wyobrazni socjologicznej studentow)

The paper offers an insight into student scientific conferences as seen from the angle of sociological imagination - a term coined by C. W. Mills. By using the elements of sociological imagination identified by Mills, the article makes an attempt to answer three questions: What is the degree of subjective acting and managing one's own doings among students involved in student scientific conferences? Do the participants of such conferences acknowledge and use the legacy of the past, and if so, to what extent? Does taking part in the conference favor cognitive diversification? Eighty seven responses of students partaking in a student scientific conference were subjected to quantitative analysis. The results made it possible to casually outline the image of educational relations realized during one of the forms of stimulating the students. Analyses reveal that while preparing and running the conferences students take subjective actions - become 'doers' in their search for tradition and the present. They are also able to see better the continuity and change of social and individual reality - in other words, they use sociological imagination. Its elements determine the creation and transfer of culture between a lecturer and a student, and the constituents of 'what people - do, think and own - as members of society'.