ongoing
CEEYouth: The comparative study of Poles and Lithuanians in the context of Brexit
![](/images/SPOLECZNOSC/goscie/avatar_female.svg)
principal investigator / project leader
sociologist and economist, specializing in employment market and migration
project value: PLN 955,920
funding source: National Science Center
discipline: political science and administration, sociology
location: Warsaw
duration: 2018 2019 2020 2021
Communion is the need to establish and maintain positive relationships with people. Agency is the need to achieve goals and to emphasize one’s own values. These concepts are commonly found in different cultures, their universal presence has given them the title of the “Big Two”. The research conducted by cooperating teams from SWPS University and the University of Koblenz-Landau will contribute to the understanding of the dimension of the “Big Two”.
RESEARCH PROJECT
CEEYouth
The comparative study of Poles and Lithuanians in the context of Brexit
Research Unit
![UNI SWPS english](/images-old/2015/Nauka-i-badania/Granty/headers/logo/UNI-SWPS-english.png)
Grant AmountPLN 955,920
Funding Source
![NCN logo poziom en2](/images-old/2015/Nauka-i-badania/Granty/headers/logo/NCN-logo-poziom-en2.png)
Duration of Research Project: October 2018 – September 2021
Since the 2004 European Union's enlargement, the mobility of young Poles and Lithuanians has significantly increased. For many of them, Great Britain has become a new home. The situation suddenly changed in June 2016, when the Brexit Referendum results were announced. Researchers from SWPS University and from the Public Policy and Management Institute in Lithuania will research the types of risks that young migrants from Poland and Lithuania may face as a result of Great Britain leaving the EU.
Project Outline
This project will be an interdisciplinary study examining risks faced by young (19 to 34 years of age) Polish and Lithuanian migrants, who migrated to the UK since the 2004 EU enlargement, after the announcement of the results of Brexit Referendum. Moreover, the researchers will analyze the impact of subsequent Brexit consequences on the lives of Poles and Lithuanians, with particular emphasis on changes in the patterns of entering adulthood. The objectives of the project correspond to three main concepts: social anchoring, strategies and risks. The study aim to comparatively asses social anchoring of young Poles and Lithuanians in Great Britain, as well as to compare migrating youth from Poland and Lithuania (movers) with their peers who stayed in their country of origin (stayers). In addition, the project aim to analyze and compare trends in the latest return migration of young Poles and Lithuanians, and if possible to analyze the diversity of migratory behaviors of ethnic Poles and Lithuanians and ethnic Lithuanians from Poland staying in the UK.
The CEEYouth project assumes that the process of Brexit will force people into an institutional limbo creating uncertainty and tensions felt not only by the migrants themselves, but also by their families and friends in Poland and Lithuania, which may have significant influence on the process of their social anchorage. Other possible Brexit effects may include: the revision of ownership rights in the UK and the decrease of migrants’ trust in education, health care and the welfare state as systems guaranteeing basic needs. Moreover, the project assumes the disruption of the process of human capital accumulation (as a compensation for post-communism societies), decrease of self-esteem and self-confidence of migrants, as well as closing a way back to the country of origin to Lithuanians who were granted British citizenship.
Researchers identified some practical research assumptions according to which young migrants will use all institutional instruments, including applying for the status of a resident or citizenship, to stay in the UK for as long as possible. Migrants will also increase their efforts in the economic sphere to avoid ‘drifting’ in the labor market and will strive to improve their competences and raise their qualifications. In addition, young migrants may begin to formalize mixed partnerships or they may decide to return to the country of their origin or to a country other than the sending country.
CEEYouth [word play: see you] is a unique comparative research project on young Polish and Lithuanian migrants – two most mobile societies after the EU enlargement in May 2004. This project is a kind of social movie, which we will try to make using different research methods, such as asynchronous interviews and quantitative analyses, where we follow the trajectories of people, who emigrated to the UK. This project is a gift for the upcoming 15th Anniversary of Polish and Lithuanian membership of the EU.
Grabowska, Izabela
Principal Investigator
Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
null
Role in the Research Center
null
First and last name
Izabela Grabowska
Academic degree or title
Ph.D.
Ph.D. Izabela Grabowskasociologist and economist, specializing in employment market and migration
Research Methods
The study will be conducted with a mix-methods approach. Researchers will conduct a comparative analysis of data mainly from Labor Force Survey, but also from other available sources. During the project the researchers will use an innovative qualitative research based on asynchronous interviews with 50 migrants for the period of two years. The interview will allow to collect data in a dynamic and longitudinal perspective. Another research method will be a Computer Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) conducted in native languages of migrants. This survey will allow researchers to reach young migrants from Poland and Lithuania who live in Great Britain, as well as the recent return migrants. The study involves a total of 600 interviews, 300 with migrants from Poland and Lithuania, of which 50 to 100 return migrants are to be included in the sample.
Application of Results
This study examines social changes in the making, as the consequences of the Brexit Referendum vote are still unraveling. Studies of the impact of the Referendum on the lives of young Poles and Lithuanians appear for the first time. The internationally published project results will allow to understand the actions taken by young migrants and will help to predict their life transitions, as well as develop new interdisciplinary fields of youth and migration studies.
Research Team
Blachnicka-Ciacek, Dominika
Specialization
Visual sociologist, researching relationships between people, spaces and memory in migration and forced migration contexts
First and last name
Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacek
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Lecturer
Email
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Role in the Department
[]
Role in the Research Center
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Ph.D. / Lecturer Dominika Blachnicka-CiacekVisual sociologist, researching relationships between people, spaces and memory in migration and forced migration contexts
Trąbka, Agnieszka
First and last name
Agnieszka Trąbka
Specialization
psychologist
Academic degree or title
Ph.D.
Email
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Role in the Research Center
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Role in the Department
[]
Ph.D. Agnieszka Trąbkapsychologist
Czeranowska, Olga
Role in the Faculty
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Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
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Specialization
Sociologist, specializing in migrations and sociology of work
First and last name
Olga Czeranowska
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Assistant Professor
Email
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Role in the Research Center
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Ph.D. / Assistant Professor Olga CzeranowskaSociologist, specializing in migrations and sociology of work
Sarnowska-Wilczyńska, Justyna
Specialization
sociologist, researches transition from adolescence to adulthood
First and last name
Justyna Sarnowska-Wilczyńska
Academic degree or title
Ph.D. / Assistant Professor
Email
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Role in the Faculty
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Role in the Department
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Role in the Institute
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Role in the Research Center
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Ph.D. / Assistant Professor Justyna Sarnowska-Wilczyńskasociologist, researches transition from adolescence to adulthood
Winogrodzka, Dominika
First and last name
Dominika Winogrodzka
Academic degree or title
M.A.
M.A. Dominika Winogrodzkadoctoral student
Researchers – Lithuanian Team
External Experts
Violetta Parutis
Ph.D.
University of Essex
Louise Ryan
Professor
University of Sheffield
Aleksandra Grzymala-Kazłowska
Professor
University of Warsaw
Publications
- Blachnicka-Ciacek, D. Grabowska I., Hekiert D., Pustulka P., Sarnowska J., Trąbka A., Werminska-Wisnicka I., Barcevicius E., Budginaite-Mackine I., Jonaviciene D., Klimaviciute L., Vezikauskaite J., Parutis, V. (2019). The comparative study of young migrants from Poland and Lithuania in the context of Brexit. Combining public statistics, web survey and asynchronous interviewing, Warsaw: SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Youth Working Papers, 10/2019, ISSN: 2543-5213. Doi: 10.23809/7.
- Trąbka, A, Pustułka P. (2020) Bees & butterflies: Polish migrants’ social anchoring, mobility and risks post-Brexit, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Online First, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1 Grabowska I. (2020). The 2004 EU enlargement as an outcome of public policies: The impact of intra-EU mobility on Central and Eastern European sending countries. Social Policy and Society, 1-17. doi:10.1017/S147474642000024X
- Klimavičiūtė L., Parutis V., Jonavičienė D., Karolak M., Wermińska-Wiśnicka I. The Impact of Brexit on Young Poles and Lithuanians in the UK: Reinforced Temporariness of Migration Decisions. Central Eastern European Migration Review, 127-142. doi: 10.17467/ceemr.2020.06
- Trąbka A., Wermińska-Wiśnicka I. (2020), Niejednoznaczny wpływ Brexitu na życie młodych Polaków w Wielkiej Brytanii, Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny, 4 (178): 49–70. DOI: 10.4467/25444972SMPP.20.038.12775 Blachnicka-Ciacek D., Trąbka A., Budginaite-Mackine I., Parutis V., Pustulka P. (2021), Do I deserve to belong? Migrants' perspectives on the debate of deservingness and belonging, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. doi: 10.1080/1369183X.2021.1932444
- Czeranowska O., Wermińska-Wiśnicka I. (2021) Nostalgiczne powroty Polaków i Litwinów w kontekście brexitu i pandemii. Nota badawcza na podstawie wyników sondażu porównawczego na próbie litewskich oraz polskich migrantów powracających z Wielkiej Brytanii [in:] Książka pokonferencyjna "Zmiana społeczna w XXI wieku", IFiS PAN
- Grabowska I., Jastrzebowska A. (in press). Migration and the Transfer of Informal Human Capital. Insights from Central Europe and Mexico. London: Routledge.
Detailed list of publications and conferences »