SOCIAL DIVERSITY OF THE UNIVERSITY. RURAL AND URBAN YOUTH AT UMK UNIVERSITY IN TORUN

The pluralisation and democratisation of the university (level) education system in Poland is the reason whereby university education for a lot of youth coming from families of lower social status and lower cultural capital has become freely available. At the same time, it means that universities are now becoming different, not only in case of the quality of teaching or a division of departments and faculties, but also in case of social and environmental origin of students. As it occurs, this fact determines the way of studying, social activity or economic behaviour, which nowadays are particularly underestimated dimensions of social inequalities having noticeable consequences after the graduation. Results of the research conducted in the university presented in the article prove that students coming from different environments (a village versus a city) are different from each other not only in the matter of social status or a financial situation but, first of all, in the matter of activity at studies' duration and importance given to academic education. The effects of such differences can be following: a different location in a social structure and a job market and in a consequence - reproduction or deepening of these currently existing inequalities.