Europe in the Classroom
Description
This book provides an unconventional account of post-1989 education reform in Romania. By drawing on policy documentation, interviews with key players, qualitative data from everyday school contexts, and extensive textbook analysis, this groundbreaking study explores change within the Romanian education system as a process that institutionalises world culture through symbolic mediation of the concept 'Europe'. The book argues that the education system's structural and organisational evolution through time is decoupled from its self-depiction by ultimately serving a nation-building agenda. It does so despite notable changes in the discourse reflecting increasingly transnational definitions of the mission of the school in the post-1989 era. The book also suggests that the notions of 'nation' and 'citizen' institutionalised by the school are gradually being redefined as cosmopolitan, matching post-war patterns of post-national affiliations on a worldwide level.
Reviews / Votes
"Simona Szakács has produced an impressively creative study of Romanian curricular developments over recent periods. Romania depicts itself not as dramatically distinct but as a cosmopolitan instance of proper European nationhood. And the imagined Europe seems to be an indistinct cosmopolitan instance of general global norms. The book will be of great interest not only to students of Romanian education, but also to those interested in the evolution of national and European identities in general." (John W. Meyer, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Stanford University, USA)"This book explores the role of European and global citizenship models in preparing young people to cope with the trials and tribulations of the current globalised world. The "forward"- looking approach clashes often enough with the reality of this post-communist country. Anyone interested in exploring the challenges of education and the tension between national and global citizenship in the 21st century should read this book!" (Hanna Schissler, Adjunct Professor of History, University of Hanover, Germany)
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Simona Szakács is a postdoctoral researcher at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research in Brunswick, Germany. Her research is focused on the interplay between Europeanization, global cultural change, and post-socialist transformation in education from a transnational, wider-world perspective.