Published: 2019-02-01

The Social Image of the Law: The Scope and Results of our Pilot Study

Mateusz Pękala , Radosław Zyzik
Zeszyty Prawnicze
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2018.18.4.02

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the results of a pilot study we conducted among students of the social sciences, the aim of which was to determine their basic intuitions and assessments regarding the law and the Polish legal system. Research has been conducted in Poland since the 1970s to identify the basic features of the popular idea of the law, and one of the observations in the literature on the subject is the claim that its character is anti-legalistic. The first part of this article reviews earlier studies on the legal awareness of Polish society, including the most important factors affecting it. Attitudes to the law are undoubtedly one of the most important areas of empirical research now being conducted by Polish sociologists of the law. The second part of the article [is a presentation of a pilot study we conducted on Polish students’ ideas on the law. One of our main research goals was to determine their most frequent associations with the term “legal provision” and their general assessment of the Polish legal system. Our research, albeit only a pilot scheme, allowed us to make a preliminary evaluation of the claim made in the literature on the anti-legalistic character of the idea Polish society has (or in our case Polish students have) of the law.

Keywords:

a society’s general idea of the law, empirical studies, legal awareness, stereotypes.

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Citation rules

Pękala, M., & Zyzik, R. (2019). The Social Image of the Law: The Scope and Results of our Pilot Study. Zeszyty Prawnicze, 18(4), 35–65. https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2018.18.4.02

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