Przemiany uroczystości i świąt szkolnych jako efekt zmian społecznych

The aim of the article is to show transformations in selected Polish school ceremonies over decades during tens of years in a case study of schools in the city of Bialystok. The presented results are the result of the joint research project conducted by the Department of the History of Education of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology at the University of Bialystok and the Bialystok Open Air Museum (the Branch of Podlaskie Museum in Bialystok) in 2011. The work shows the period of the Second Polish Republic (1918-39), the Polish People’s Republic (1945 – 89) and the present day (since 1989). It helps to show a more comparative point of view. The article describes the yearly cycle of school ceremonials, and especially shows those holidays which have undergone social changes most. The main goal of the ethnographic-historical research was to record forms of school ceremonies and to analyze their course and significance in the school system and the social system. Aschool environment is a microsphere of society, where the importance, kinds, and forms of school ceremonies are changed depending on social transformations. To collect empirical material, research methods and tools from social sciences were used (i.e. surveys, questionnaires collected from teachers, students, and their parents). The valuable basis of knowledge about ceremonies was school documents and school chronicles, which needed reliable and critical analysis because they are indirect historical sources.