This collection of articles is the result of the research project «The Polish local society in the process of European integration ¿ a decade of experience», financed by the Polish National Science Centre (NCN). The aim was to investigate the process of integration in the EU of six selected local Polish communities. The same six communities had been studied ten years before, when Poland was preparing for the EU accession. The research was based on qualitative methodology. The results show that the knowledge of the EU in local Poland remains at a very low level. The exception is competence in the field of EU structural funds. These funds are the main factor which determines the positive attitude of Poles towards the EU and the Polish membership in it. At the same time the process of the construction of a European identity in terms of values remains very problematic.

Local Poland - EU membership - EU funds - European identity - Utilitarianism - Local authorities - Collective memory

Zdzis¿aw Mach
is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology and the founder of the Institute for European Studies at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków. His research interests cover identity issues of nationalism, minorities and ethnicity, the development of the European citizenship, migration and the reconstruction of identity, the ethnic origin of a nation, and the construction of identities.