Rural – Urban, Central – Peripheral: Durability Of Civilisation Divides From The Perspective Of Youth

In most developed countries both rural area and agriculture have undergone fundamental metamorphosis quite a long time ago. Agriculture turned into farming, and peasants became farmers subordinated to the market rules of modern society. Untill recently they constituted quite big part of rural world, and in a modern rethoric, this world itself was located somewhere in the past (as something about to disappear, dependent, as the ballast of development). That was the meaning of Robert Redfield’s rural vs urban area antonym, which has been obligatory in sociology for several decades. Contemporary Polish village (and farmers) are far from both stereotypical social images, as well as from scientific notions, but the rural–urban division is still the problem in Poland. There is a question put in this paper: how durable these divisions can be from the perspective of rural youth – their aspirations, life-orientations and life startegies.