Polish professor of sociology, affiliated with the University of Warsaw. In 1960s as a young academic assistant she engaged in the dissident environment of Polish intelligentsia elite. She participated in secret gatherings, organised regularly by the biggest intellectual authorities of that time (e.g. Zygmunt Bauman, Leszek Kolakowski, Maria Ossowska, Tadeusz Kotarbinski). She took part in the 1968's protests of academics. Because of that she was fired from the University and imprisoned for seven months. For a long time her books were blocked from publishing in Poland, but she managed to publish them abroad. She was not able to return to Academia until 1981. She is still a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Warsaw and a big authority in public debates.

In her Notation Jadwiga Staniszkis describes how she became the "Solidarity" advisor during the strikes in Gdansk Shipyard in August 1980. Her narrative shows how randomly the experts were invited by the opposition leaders. Staniszkis knew Tadeusz Mazowiecki from the meetings of the Catholic Intelligentsia Club (KIK - Klub Inteligencji Katolickiej), which regularly organised meetings of dissident nature. Through personal connections she was invited to come to Gdansk and advise the workers' union during their talks with the government. In the Notation Staniszkisz speaks about her motivations and hopes which prompt her to participate in those events. However, she is quite critical about the union's leaders, especially about their attitude towards intelligentsia (which in her opinion served as mediators between two sides of conflict, whose role was to deliver a balanced compromise). From today's perspective she is unhappy with the August 1980 results, which in her mind could have had much better, long-term outcomes for Poland. She states that if she was given a chance, now she would have done in quite differently.

The Film Notation with Jadwiga Staniszkis was a part of the project "Experts and Advisors. August 1980 Agreements" ("Eksperci i doradcy. Porozumienia sierpniowe 1980"), conducted by the European Solidarity Centre and Video Studio Gdansk in 2010.