What influences our attitudes? A survey study on attitudes of Polish university students towards German people

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The goal of this study was to shed more light on how young educated Polish people (university students) feel about Germany and German people. Based on the previous research we expected the attitudes to be determined by i) the place of living, ii) the level of proficiency in German, iii) the frequency of contact with German people, and iv) personal acquaintance with German people. More precisely, our hypothesis was that more positive attitudes are expected when the informants live closer to the German border, know the German language better, have been to Germany more often, and know more German people personally. The results of our study show that place of residence, frequency of contact with German people and number of German acquaintances significantly contribute to attitudes towards the Germans. By contrast, proficiency in German turns out not to be significant. In particular, our informants have more positive attitudes towards German people if they have been to Germany more often and know more German people personally. We also conclude that the place of residence influences the way our informants feel about Germany and German people. In particular, our study reveals an essential difference between cities closer to the German border, i.e. Szczecin and Wrocław on the one hand, and a city far away from Germany, i.e. Lublin, on the other. Furthermore, there is also a difference between informants from Szczecin and Wrocław to some extent. The latter seem to be more open towards Germans and their culture. However, one should bear in mind that the results are limited because they are based on a rather small number of informants (121). In addition, our informants were recruited from different faculties – economics, electronics, Romance, Slavic and English philology, and journalism – which could also have impact on our results. As an anonymous reviewer points out, philology students could be more open to other cultures than other students, a point which is worth further research. Finally, we want to emphasize that our study intended to investigate the attitudes of young, educated Polish people towards Germany and German people, which means that our investigation is not representative of society as a whole. To sum up, our study suggests that despite many differences, our respondents notice that Polish and German people share common features. In this very fact lies the key for the future, more precisely for future relations between the German and the Polish peoples. It is important to stress the common properties but also to learn about the differences and to respect them.

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