International conference on “Exchanging research experience on Social trust in Poland and Vietnam”

In the opening speeches, Assoc. Prof. Dr.Dang Nguyen Anh, Director of Institute of Sociology - VASS, Prof. Dr. Andrej Rychard, Director of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - PAS, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Tan, Chairman of Vietnam Sociology Associationall affirmed: Research on social trust plays a specially important role, that is practical, meaningful in modern society, particularly Vietnam and Poland are on the background of stages of entire transformation, renovation and being affected by globalization.

The conference receives 8 papers from Polish and Vietnamese speakers, that focused on two issues:

(1) Providing theoretical foundations (definitions, theories, research findings, basic characteristics of social trust in Poland and Vietnam) on many aspects (individual, family, community, nation…); Pointing out two essential bases for recovery of social trust in Vietnam’s contemporarysociety (stable and rationalistic law and autonomous fundamental-based ethic); Diversity and complex of social trust in terms of angles (legality, politics, culture, history, religion) of speakers: Prof. Dr. Andrzej Rychard, Director of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - PAS; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Huu Quang, Southern Institute of Social Sciences - VASS; Prof. Dr. Hanna Bojar, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - PAS; Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc, Deputy Director of Institute of Sociology - VASS; Prof. Dr. Jacek Kurczewski, Institute of Applied Social Sciences, Warszawa University; Prof. Dr. Joanna Kurczewska and Dr. Piotr Binder, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - PAS.

(2) Studying research methods of social trust object, conceptual measures (qualitative, quantitative) and difficulties in process of survey of public opinion in Poland from 2 speakers, Prof. Dr. Pawel Sztabinski and Prof. Dr. Franiszek Sztabinski, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology - PAS.

On summary of speeches, on the closing speech, Prof. Dr. Andrzej Rychard emphasized important role of cultural and historical background that influences deeply process of development of social trust (in terms of individual and institutional trust) in modern society.

On the closing speech, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dang Nguyen Anh spoke out new point of sociology research on social trustvia speakers’ interbranch approaches (legality, politics, culture, history, community, religion…). As such, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dang Nguyen Anh opened issues needed to be researched and explained more deeply in the near future. Those are: (1) Relations between social trust and social capital, individual trust and social trust; (2) That social trust decreases leads to that religious belief increases; (3) Choosing trend of conciliation without court…(4) Using methods of qualitative, community and family research for effective measure of definition of “social trust”.

The conference is an event of important and useful academic exchange of scientific research between Vietnam and Poland for contribution to cooperative relations and research development of sociology toward proactive and creative approach, and preservation of social stability in the future.

Ha Trang