Anomic Experiences in Anomic Social Conditions:
Polish Youth During the Pandemic in the Light of Memoirs
More details
Hide details
1
Nicolaus Copernicus University
Submission date: 2024-07-02
Acceptance date: 2025-01-07
Publication date: 2025-03-17
Polish Sociological Review 2025;229(1):7-32
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The aim of this text is to demonstrate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the psychosocial wellbeing
of young people. For this purpose, the authors used the concept of social anomie as reconstructed by
Krystyna Szafraniec, who pointed to seven dimensions of the experience of anomie: cognitive, axio-normative,
interactional, identity-related, temporal, emotional, and behavioral. Consideration of these dimensions allowed
for an in-depth analysis of empirical material consisting of pandemic-related memoirs obtained in two editions of
a nationwide competition. The analyses used 103 diaries by authors aged 18–25. The collected material showed
how the experience of the pandemic was especially difficult for young people due to their phase of life and social
position. The subjects were entering adulthood in a context of uncertainty, limited social contacts, disruption of
the temporal structure ordering their daily life, and emotional difficulties concerning their health and future.
FUNDING
This paper was written with the support of funds from the research project “Households in the Time of the Coronavirus: Work, Education, and Support under Uncertainty” (“Gospodarstwa domowe w czasach koronawirusa. Praca zawodowa, edukacja i wsparcie w warunkach niepewności”), which was conducted on the basis of a National Science Centre Poland grant awarded to a research team at
the Warsaw School of Economics in the OPUS 20 competition no: 2020/39/b/HS5/03121.