With the help of Jerzy Bartminski's methodology, the authors reconstructed the stereotype of Poles living in Poland as it functions among students of two American universities in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The picture received on the basis of a ten-point questionnaire is rather general. In terms of appearance, a Pole is seen as blue-eyed and fair-haired, obese, stocky and dressed in warm clothes. In everyday life Poles are associated with hard work, in the psychological sense with stupidity, in the social sense with attachment to tradition, family and hospitality. In the spiritual sense, a Pole is a Catholic and a Christian. The most frequently mentioned artifacts associated with Poles are the sausage (Polish kielbasa) and dumplings (pierogies). Attributes of contemporary Poland and its inhabitians are not numerous. Apart from the Pope, they are limited to a few concepts such as Gdansk, Walesa and Solidarnosc.
Financed by the National Centre for Research and Development under grant No. SP/I/1/77065/10 by the strategic scientific research and experimental development program:
SYNAT - “Interdisciplinary System for Interactive Scientific and Scientific-Technical Information”.