Establishing and implementing rules that would teach young people to become active citizens became a crucial technique for turning those spots on the map of Europe whose sovereignty had shifted after World War I into lived social spaces. This article analyses how principals of borderland secondary schools negotiated transformation in Polish Upper Silesia with the help of Arnold Van Gennep’s notion that a shift in social statuses possessed a spatiality and temporality of its own. The article asks whether and how school principals were called on to offer elite training that would make Polish Upper Silesia more cohesive with the rest of Poland in terms of the social origins of pupils and the content of the history curriculum. In addition, it examines the extent to which borderland school principals accepted, refuted, or helped to shape that responsibility. The social origins of pupils are detected through a quantitative analysis of recruitment figures and the profiles of pupils’ parents. This analysis is combined with an exploration of how school principals provided a meaningful explanation of the recent past (World War I and the Silesian Uprisings). The article demonstrates that while school principals were historical actors with some room to make their own decisions when a liminal space was created, changed, and abolished, it was ultimately a priest operating in their shadows who possessed more possibilities to become a master of ceremonies leading elite education through its rites of passage.

建立和实施可以教导年轻人成为活跃公民的规则，成为将欧洲地图上那些主权在第一次世界大战后转移到生活空间的关键技术。本文分析了边疆中学的校长如何借助阿诺德·范·甘纳普（Arnold Van Gennep）的观念来谈判波兰上西里西亚的转型，即社会地位的转变具有其自身的时空性。这篇文章询问是否以及如何要求学校校长提供精英培训，以使波兰上西里西亚在学生的社会出身和历史课程的内容上与波兰其他地区更加紧密联系。此外，它还研究了边防学校校长接受，反驳，或帮助塑造这种责任。通过对招聘数据和学生父母的资料进行定量分析，可以发现学生的社会出身。这种分析与对学校校长如何对最近的过去（第一次世界大战和西里西亚起义）进行有意义的解释的探索相结合。文章表明，尽管校长是历史人物，在创建，更改和废除门廊空间时仍有一定的决策权，但最终是一名牧师在他们的阴影下运作，他有更多的可能性成为主持仪式的主人通过其通过仪式的精英教育。这种分析与对学校校长如何对最近的历史（第一次世界大战和西里西亚起义）进行有意义的解释的探索相结合。该文章表明，虽然校长是历史人物，但在创建，更改和废除门槛空间时，他们仍有一定的决策权，但最终是一名牧师在他们的阴影下运作，他有更多的可能性成为主持仪式的主人通过其通过仪式的精英教育。这种分析与对学校校长如何对最近的过去（第一次世界大战和西里西亚起义）进行有意义的解释的探索相结合。该文章表明，虽然校长是历史人物，但在创建，更改和废除门槛空间时，他们仍有一定的决策权，但最终是一名牧师在他们的阴影下运作，他有更多的可能性成为主持仪式的主人通过其通过仪式的精英教育。