Suchergebnisse

The paper retraces a short history of the rhythms and directions the reform of the Romanian school recorded in the first post-communist decade. This is not a pedagogical analysis, but an assessment of the political and media impact that the works of some experts in educational sciences had. The period when Andrei Marga headed the Ministry of Education (1998-2000) is particularly focused upon, as it was definitely different from the previous attempts, which it minimized or denied. Deemed a "man of the Reform", he became a precedent which all his successors had to relate to, either to contest or to continue his initiatives. Without being aware of it, the politicians and the administrators of the Romanian school system still live in the mirage of the "reform" discourse established at the end of the 1990s. The frequency with which ministers and education statutes were replaced confirms, in fact, the incapacity of the educational policies to change and determines a re-evaluation of what actually happened in those years and of the aftermath.

The present study investigates the major problems and challenges faced by the Romanian educational system during the last years of Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime. My main focus is on the so-called "polytechnic" education as a mean to reform and improve the system, and the debates it generated starting with the late 1970s. Consequently, the paper also examines the evolution of the debate and the top-down and bottom-up projects and initiatives to reform the educational system during the first decade following the collapse of the communist regime in Romania in December 1989. The aim is to present the clashing visions of different actors over the idea of reform and the urge to implement it, nonetheless to reveal the long term deadlock generated by this situation within the Romanian educational system.

Remembering Communism examines the formation and transformation of the memory of communism in the post-communist period. The majority of the articles focus on memory practices in the post-Stalinist era in Bulgaria and Romania, with occasional references to the cases of Poland and the GDR. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, including history, anthropology, cultural studies and sociology, the volume examines the mechanisms and processes that influence, determine and mint the private and public memory of communism in the post-1989 era. The common denominator to all essays is the emphasis on the process of remembering in the present, and the modalities by means of which the present perspective shapes processes of remembering, including practices of commemoration and representation of the past. The volume deals with eight major thematic blocks revisiting specific practices in communism such as popular culture and everyday life, childhood, labor, the secret police, and the perception of "the system"