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FROM DIAGNOSIS TO PARTICIPATION: LOCAL INQUIRY AS A SOCIAL PRACTICE IN CULTURAL EDUCATION
Tomasz PECIAKOWSKI1
Publication language: English
scientific paper
Guests Editors of the Issue Tomasz Herudziński, Wojciech Mincewicz
Transformations No. 4(127)2025, Publication date: 30 December 2025
Keywords: local diagnosis, participation, cultural education, youth
Abstract The paper examines the role of local diagnosis in cultural education processes, drawing on a longitudinal case study of the Very Young Culture (Bardzo Młoda Kultura, BMK) programme implemented in the Lublin Voivodeship between 2023 and 2025. While local diagnosis is commonly treated as a preliminary and primarily cognitive stage of programme planning, the article argues that it can function as an educational, participatory, and relational practice in its own right. The study is based on qualitative document analysis of 68 programme materials, including local diagnostic reports, substantive project reports, regional self-evaluation reports, and diagnostic summaries produced over three years. The findings demonstrate a gradual shift in how diagnosis was conceptualized and enacted within the programme: from a formal, survey-based requirement focused on identifying deficits (2023), through the incorporation of qualitative and dialogical methods (2024), to a processual and participatory practice involving young people as co-interpreters of local realities (2025). As diagnostic practices became more participatory, they increasingly supported youth agency, relationship-building, and learning through inquiry. At the same time, the analysis reveals persistent tensions, particularly the incomplete integration of diagnosis with evaluation and reflective learning cycles.
Ph. D., assistant professor, Institute of Sociological Sciences, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland
ORCID: 0000-0003-4031-3346
E-mail: tomasz.peciakowski@kul.pl