The Attitude of Students from Southern Podlasie to the Region: A Civilizational Self-Identification Perspective

Subject and purpose of work: The paper addresses the issue of the attitude of students from Southern Podlasie to their region. Its purpose is to present the stance of young people who are permanent residents in the Eastern Borderlands to their civilizational identity.Materials and methods: The results shown in the present article come from the research carried out among students of Pope John Paul II State School of Higher Education in Biała Podlaska. A questionnaire designed by the current author contained 42 closed, semi-open and open questions. It was conducted in May – 2017 in the auditorium among 214 third year students from the following areas: nursing – 48, sociology – 29, pedagogy – 41, national security – 63, tourism and recreation – 33.Results: The study demonstrated that 83.3% of the students who identify themselves with the Western civilization and 72.0% of the respondents who identify themselves with both the Eastern and Western civilizations declare to be fully attached to the region. Slightly more than half of the respondents (51.4%) are convinced that they live in a region characterized by cultural diversity. This may suggest that the region of Southern Podlasie is characterized by the presence of the elements defining both the Western and the Eastern civilization.Conclusions: When summarizing the attitude of the students to the region, it should be noted that over 70% of them fully identify with it. Religion has the greatest influence on the respondents’ regional consciousness. This element should be recognized as the basic factor characterizing the students, which proves that the basic feature which identifies Southern Podlasie is the diversity of denominations.