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Erpe Ecti, vol. 41, no. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 5578. 2009 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN 10564934/2009 $9.50 + 0.00.DOI 10.2753/EUE1056-4934410103

Monica E. Mincu

Myth, Rhetoric, and Ideology inEastern European Education

Schools and Citizenship in Hungary,Poland, and Romania

Educational study is always a matter o choice between dierent theo-

retical paradigms (Paulston, 2003). Sometimes, however, it also runs

the risk o taking a dichotomized and ideological stance. Comparativeeducation is an emblematic case in point, especially the excessively

ideologized versions o comparative thinking inspired by the cold war(Sander, 1997). The choice to interpret citizenship and education through

the lens o such concepts as myth, rhetoric, and ideology is not to promote

a particular worldview in a dichotomized and ideological sense, nor to

Monica E. Mincu is assistant proessor o comparative education at the Universityo Turin, Italy, Department o Educational Sciences. She did her undergraduatedegree at the University o Bucharest (1996) and University o Turin (1998), andher Ph.D. degree in Comparative Education at the Catholic University in Milan(2002). She published Eczie e cittiz el ptcilim. I cmbimetiellErp ellEt p il 1989 [Citizenship and Education in Eastern Europe.Transormations in Eastern Europe Ater 1989] (Turin: SEI, 2004), Leczie etrle. L peggi p l vlt cmmitri [Non-neutral education.

A communitarian turning point in pedagogy] (Turin: SEI, 2007). She is coeditor withMaria Teresa Tatto o the orthcoming volumeRermig Techig Lerig:Cmprtive Perpective i Glbl Er (Netherlands: Sense). Email: [email protected].

The author thanks the ollowing people, who oered their critical comments andencouragement: Giorgio Chiosso, Thomas Popkewitz, Jamie Kowalczyk, TheodorSander, editor Iveta Silova, and the two anonymous reviewers o this journal.


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56 EuRoPEan EduCaTIon

reveal negative or dysunctional issues. On the contrary, the concepts

o myth, rhetoric, and ideology provide a more appropriate rameworkand theoretical approach to enable us to highlight important aspects o therealities under investigation. Such an eschatological search, however,

must not be viewed as an exclusive trait o these contexts, even though

the intensity o social tensions and the dissolution o traditional identi-ties make it more evident (Tismneanu, 1999, p. 61). I will rst discuss

a conceptual ramework o myth, rhetoric, and ideology and then applyit to Eastern citizenship and education. These concepts are addressed

in three sections dedicated to dierent historical phases: presocialist,socialist, and postsocialist.

Citizenship and education as historical and mythological/

ideological constructions: A conceptual framework

During the past sixteen years, both international and national observ-

ers have analyzed the social and educational transormations at work in

postsocialist contexts mainly within a neoliberal and new-managementconceptual ramework. This approach represented the main line o reason-

ing, even though some scholars and many practitioners were well aware o

and equally disenchanted with the disjunction between rhetorical unctionand practical outcomes o the reorm strategies such as decentralization

and democratization. Conversely, political and social scientists questionedthe prevailing neoliberal vision as well as the reorm rhetoric introduced

by key international agencies such as the World Bank and the Organization

or Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), though the reorms

were introduced with some dierences (Robertson, 2005). Historians andpolitical analysts drew attention to diculties, internal distortions, and

peculiar social and mental phenomena, such as anticommunism with acommunist ace and antasies o salvations (Tismneanu, 1999). Some

scholars (Kozma, 1992) have observed that the traditional concept o politi-cal culture does not apply to postsocialist realities, at least during the rst

decade since the collapse o the socialist bloc in 1989, and that concepts

such as political mythologies and ideologies are more appropriate. In act,

some analysts adopted general political paradigms, notably the neocon-servative paradigm to explain the phenomena (Kozma, 1992, p. 93).

Hence, a more critical interpretation o these educational settings isnecessary given the complexity and lack o linearity o the postsocialist

transormations. In line with Freeden (2000), this study argues that at atheoretical level, political ideologies are linked to and sustained by edu-


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cational ideologies and myths. Yet, at a practical level, their relationship

is not deterministic. This is the case o imposed ideologies, such as thesocialist one, which produced educational and social paradoxes. On theone hand, political myths are seen as substitutes or a more ormal politi-

cal culture, that is, as rituals that guide processes in which policies are

made and public opinion is ormed (Bennett, 1980, p. 167). They arealso unquestioned truths about society. Conversely, political ideologies

are somewhat dierent phenomena: [w]hile the myth is telling a story,the ideology is based on systematic ideas (Tismneanu, 1999, p. 37).

Both have in common the appearance o a coherent narrative, based onemotional elements, which give an illusionary sense o protection.1 On theother hand, educational rhetoric or ideology represents a key concept

in the study o education reorms. It is a orm o merged rhetoric othemes derived rom dierent educational theories: the human capital,

the new common school, and the clientelism theory (Paris, 1995). This

overlap [o dierent themes] is more than rhetorical. As a practical mat-ter, our institutional arrangements seem to refect the attempt to combine

these various aims (ibid., p. 51). The ideology o school restructuring

shows both the ragmentary implementation o dierent theoretical issuesand an exceeding o expectations, which are oten contradictory. Its main

unction is to replace the lack o vision o contemporary reorms.Educational myths and idols are linked with the eects o globaliza-

tion on educational matters, the creation o national imaginaries and the

process o citizenship ormation (Popkewitz, 2003, p. 269). A sociohis-torical strand in comparative education examine how universal principles,

such as the cosmopolitan Enlightenment, liberal democracy or more

generally rational systems o reasoning underlying the idea o humanprogress are locally embodied in oundational narratives o the nation.

These latter are intrinsically intertwined with and supported by pedagogi-cal ideas widely diused on a global scale and locally reinterpreted. In

this sense, it can be assumed that political ideologies and mythologies,

in their global/local dynamic, are closely linked to educational issues,serving the processes o national invention and reinvention.

Roots of Eastern European citizenship: From nationformation to the socialist era

Focusing on citizenship allows observers to analyze the elites ways o

receiving and reinterpreting political ideas at dierent historical mo-ments. The selective dynamic o political ideas and their successul


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impact on some social groups (i.e., the Eastern European intelligentsia)

may be explained by the particular modernization phase and geopoliti-cal conjuncture. Such an acquired thought heredity became part othe elites political representations in the orm o up-to-date political

languages, acting as tradition lters or successive ideas and ideologies.

Many scholars believe that this is the case o Eastern Europe2 during the

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which reveals a common pattern i

compared to West European countries.Between 1770 and 1850, Eastern Europe was undergoing a process

o late modernization. It was the rst important attempt at providing anoriginal reinterpretation and synthesis o the ideas o the French Enlight-enment and German Romanticism. The citizenship prole in Eastern

Europe was molded round this ambivalence o dierent traditions: rst,

the rational choice represented by the historical cosmopolitanism andpaternalism (as Josephinism) o the Hapsburg empire, and second, the

romantic alternative represented by the eelings o belonging to an ethno-linguistic community. This ambiguity o civic and ethnic components o

citizenship, orged during the 1848 Revolutions, produced an ideological

conusion between liberalism and nationalism and subsequently gener-ated the great debates which infuenced and continue to infuence the

development o the politics o this area (Neumann, 2001, p. 39).

In other words, the cosmopolitan ideal as represented by the Frenchrationalist Enlightenment was entangled with particularistic-nationalistic

visions. It is interesting to note that East European nationalism hasbeen interpreted as a localization outcome and reaction to globalizing

ideologies. Thus, over the nineteenth century, and in contrast to the uni-

versalistic ideology o Western liberalism, it was mostly ethnic, whileduring the socialist period and the Soviet domination it was largely civic

(Shulman, 2002).

The cultural climate during the rst hal o the nineteenth century wasstrongly infuenced by the French rationalist Enlightenment, as attested in

Poland by Father Kornarskis initiative o reorming the clpi schoolsin order to instil the ideas o the Enlightenment and civic virtues in the

new elite. Another example comes rom the analysis o school speeches

and other public discourses between 1831 and 1877 in the Romanianprovinces o Walachia and Moldova. The prevailing model was the

patriot-citizen, based on moral and religious values and inspired by a

Christian civic culture (the good Christian; Murgescu, 1999, p. 43).However, as most authors note, this initial cosmopolitan orientation


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was rapidly superseded by the romantic eelings o national belonging

as a particularistic perspective, which contributed in the long run to theprevalence o ethnicity and o cultural dierences. This orientation wasemblematically represented by Herders thought, and politically avored

by the overwhelming infuence o Prussia in the East. More generally, it

has been argued that Herderianism avored the idea o a linguistically andethnically organic community, explicitly excluding cultural pluralism and,

at the same time, impeding the social emancipation o these populations.In actual act, the eastern regions o Europe were characterized by the lack

o a middle class and by limited urbanization. The main drawback wasthe social distance between the people and the elites. The emancipationand democratization processes were limited to the privileged strata o

the population. The abyss thus created between the elites and the lower

classes underwent recurrent renewal.Traditionally, political science considered that the dual pattern o a

cosmopolitan versus Herderian orientation was at the origin o the well-known contraposition between a good/Western/civic and a bad/Eastern/

ethnic type o nation creation. However, this oversimplication o Eastern

citizenship has recently been radically questioned on empirical grounds(see Shulman, 2002).3 On the other hand, some scholars such as Dressler

give a positive evaluation o the Herderian infuence or its integrativesynthesis o cultural and social orms (1999, p. 54). The goal o the

cultural nationalism was to synchronize liberal politics and central-ized democracy, represented by the French Jacobin universalism, with

cultural autonomy o nations characterised by a plurality o languages and

religions, without imposing any criteria or dening identity (Dressler,1999, p. 54). The problem is not with Herderianism itsel, but its inter-

pretations and instrumental uses by elites (rtr-tilime).The 1848 European revolutions and the subsequent period o na-

tional identity ormation, in the second hal o the nineteenth century,

were nevertheless infuenced by a plurality o traditions: not only theprevailing Herderian4ethnoculturalism, but also the cosmopolitan val-

ues represented by the French Enlightenment and practically endorsedby the Ottoman empire in the area o its infuence. The main diculty

o the process o national construction was the weak tradition o civicculture and the overestimation o the collective-individual. Thus, thenew political philosophies were based rst and oremost on mythologies

such as common origins and continuity, that is, c-rmim orthe Romanians and rmtim or the Poles. These early political myths,


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mostly an elite invention, also infuenced the idea o the national school,

viewed as an opportunity to both civilize and orm the nation. The poorclasses viewed school mainly as an opportunity or social redemption,as documented by the Romanian school speeches o the time.

Until the nineteenth century, the building o national identity in the

region was a matter o geography: the nations were composed o variousregions and provinces, mostly under oreign control, but they all shared

the same infuences cross-nationally. Historical conditions created a vari-ety o local realities: rom autonomous Galicia under Austro-Hungarian

dominance, to the regions under German and Russian cultural oppression.The Polish high sense o community was avoured in Galicia by the useo their own language in schools (Tworzecki, 1996); in other parts o this

country, identity was a matter o struggle or culture and language. It is

then not dicult to understand the role played by the school as the centralarena or the struggles over culture and national language. The issue o

national identity, in all the countries here considered, resembled a mosaico internal voices or o national souls, depending on how national

cohesiveness is assessed by dierent scholars or mentally represented

by the people themselves. This cultural diversity, prior to the process onation ormation, is still discernible in regional dierences as conrmed

by the voting behavior pattern, strength o civic culture and, especially,

ideological and political orientations (Tworzecki, 1996).During the rst hal o the twentieth century, the polarization o public

themes around a cosmopolitan ideal, such as the European idea, and

an endogenous ethnospecicity became even more maniest. Publicdiscourses supporting industrialization and urbanization processes

were paralleled by the circulation o particularistic ideologies, such astraditionalism and agrarianism, the latter in the Romanian versions

omtrim and pprim. Thus, Hungarian culture oscillatedbetween urbanism and populism (Gyurgyak, 1991). Further, the experi-ence o ascism in Hungary and Romania, with the enactment o racial

laws and the Nazi occupation o Poland, infuenced civic culture, rein-

orced intolerant values, such as anti-Semitism, and introduced behaviorpatterns and mentalities o political repression also cultivated by the

communist regimes.At the turn o the century, educational developments became increas-

ingly bound up with political ideas and ideologies. The traditionalist

and agrarian political cultures in Romania avored the building orural schools or the masses, which had been hitherto largely ignored.


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This resulted in a substantial decline in illiteracy. Another signicant

consequence was the creation o a rural sociology, which infuencedpedagogical thought, producing the theories o pedagogical regional-ism and localism. These theories, based on statistical and empirical

analyses, were supposed to improve the social and cultural conditions

o small rural communities.In all probability, the idea o a dierentiated curriculum or rural and

urban areas did not produce the expected outcome. On the contrary, itran the risk o aggravating an already polarized situation. In practice,

rural education continued to be inadequate. Because the intellectualistictradition o the Romanian school was slow to die, education in ruralsettings was neither really pragmatic, nor did it promote an explicit

political and civic education. It thereore ran the risk o strengthening

existing stratication. The dual rural/urban education reinorced thecrystallized dual citizenship on social grounds. Not surprisingly or

that time, the idea o two kinds o children was also put orward, inaccordance with the ethnical spirit o the Romanian pedagogy (Stanciu,

1995, p. 213).

This analysis reveals the extreme signicance o social straticationand polarization in explaining Eastern European realities. The resem-

blance o these social realities explains the Eastern internal contradic-

tions and, consequently, partially validates a dierentiated East/Westnational pattern. The source o Eastern nationalism lies in a peculiar

social stratication, which traditionally lacks a consistent middle class

and cuts across urban/rural dierentiation. The conguration o the politi-cal myths and ideologies, with their educational subproducts, conrms

the relevance o social actors as an underlying pattern in the ormationo Eastern European national identity. Unlike in Western countries,

where the label urban students reers to a more disadvantaged or at

risk social group, in Eastern Europe, especially in countries with hugediscrepancies between rural and urban contexts such as Romania, the

term has come to indicate a relatively privileged group.

Experiencing communist ideology in its real

socialist meaning

From the perspective o educational outcomes, a process o ongoingstratication was rooted in school practices, especially ater the 1970s.

The communist sociopolitical and educational experiments in Central


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and Eastern Europe displayed common traits as well as dierences. The

communist parties and regimes ocially promoted the communist ide-ology. It is questionable whether its historical and actual consequencescan be analyzed as the result o a genuine political culture, though the

only one accepted, or as the outcome o a negative coherent structure

o thinking that obscures incongruous elements in order to uphold aparticular social order. As Freeden (2000) points out, this is a matter o

context and it is characteristic o any given ideology.The communist ideology exhibited an eschatological dimension o

moral and societal progress. The discrepancy between its high aspira-tions and its practical orms is revealed by the expression real socialistmeaning, coined by the socialist people themselves at the time o the

communist disenchantment and collapse.

On practical grounds, during Stalinism a certain democratic eecto social justice has been noted, even though it was more visible in the

poorest national settings. These positive outcomes, which were limitedto the initial stage o the socialist period, were rapidly replaced by many

other social and political dysunctions, such as the discontinuity between

socialist citizenship and its precommunist model, the lack o politicalinormation and pluralism, which would have created a more critical

and authentic citizenship, and nally the emphasis on social rights to the

detriment o civil liberties and political, economic, and cultural rights.The communist ideology denied alternative discourse on social devel-

opments, which meant that the ocial discourse based on collectivism,

democratic centralism, polytechnic/vocational education, and citizenshipeducation had a mere ritualistic political unction. Besides, such catch-

words produced or veiled exactly contradictory outcomes and paradoxi-cal realities, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. This was true not only or

dictatorial and sultanistic Romania, but also or authoritarian Poland and

advanced post-totalitarian Hungary (Linz & Stepan, 2000, p. 208). As amatter o act, the ideological cage was or all those countries a common

trit i that remained a ritualistic duty until 1989.Education in communist settings was ull o such paradoxical eects.

The communist hidden curriculum was more than an educational out-

put. The ideological duty o education was paralleled by deeply rootedsocial habits that sharply contrasted it. Unsurprisingly, the statistics o

political ocials did not acknowledge this eect, a general trend in the

East. However, this was not the case o teachers, parents, and students,who were particularly pragmatic in coping with the real situation, as char-


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sPRInG 2009 63

acterized by paradoxical and counterproductive eects. The latent cur-

riculum was the outcome o excessive educational centralization. In act,the myth o a classless society was related to democratic centralism.The long-established centralizing tendency o East European educational

systems was once again strengthened by means o political ideology. This

had the eect o producing tremendously rigid congurations.However, proclaiming educational uniormity did not mean that the

education actually received was the same everywhere and this or severalreasons. Historically, in some contexts, such as in Hungary ater 1975, a

certain diversication o the educational oer was created by changingthe standardised curriculum into a cre crriclm, based on minimalstandards and complemented by a local version and a personal choice

(Bathory, 1986). Conceptually, it is hard to believe that the socialist

uniorm yllb, dened as one curriculumone textbook and thecurriculum is a law, would have reach a complete standardisation o the

educational practices. In addition, it must be considered that where thecentral curriculum is dominant, there it will inevitably appear a latent

curriculum (Bathory, 1988, p. 127).

Such paradoxical issues show how communist egalitarian politicsresulted in highly selective educational institutions, strong discrimina-

tion between academic and proessional pathways and special training

o gited students. A well-known comparative study on educationalinequalities, Peritet Ieqlity: Chgig Ectil attimeti Thirtee Ctrie (Shavit & Blosseld, 1993), plainly demonstratedthat ocially promoted politics produced unexpected outcomes andparadoxical eects. But this was not a novelty in the socialist area. In

act, rom the 1970s onward public opinion, especially in Hungary, wasaccustomed to the shocks engendered by the publicity o International

Energy Agency (IEA) studies results (Bathory, 1992) and other internally

conducted studies on the ongoing stratication, which became, however,a common sociological topic in the area. Mass education in communist

settings was not so successul in promoting a lessening o social class

discrepancies. In the Polish case, an unintended positive eect hasbeen reported regarding gender equality, as this eect was neither

a stated aim, nor an expected outcome (Heyns & Bialecki, 1993, p.304). In the Hungarian case, social inequalities and the infuence o the

athers proession on educational achievement as a predicting actor

o educational and social success, were more signicant than in otherWest European settings. Similar ndings are reported or preunication


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East Germany. The enrollment quotas, intended as democratic measures

avoring disadvantaged people, had a very limited eect. They provedecient mostly in the immediate postwar period and in the case o theelementary school (Barbu, 1999).

Another peculiar eect was a certain encyclopaedism, an over-

charged and compulsory elitist curriculum. In act, the emergence duringthe 1970s o a i geeri social class, the so-called mekltr, wasanother sign o reinvigorating the process o stratication, also supportingmore elitist orientation. The other side o the coin was that the education

or the masses had an unbalanced and thus excessive proessional andtechnical prole, brought about by the polytechnic education myth.The polytechnic principle revealed itsel rom the outset as typical

Soviet rhetoric, which inormed all the Soviet educational reorms rom

1921 to 1984. While it was supposed to represent a genuine search oran educational solution to the classical distinctions between intellectual

and manual work, its obscure and shiting meaning testied to a mostlyideological unction (Mincu, 2004). In act, this was a rather ambiguous

notion, given its practical implementation as both an educative principle

transversal to the levels o the school system and, at the same time, asmainly concerning the lower secondary level. Soviet education itsel

displayed this shiting meaning with every reorm. Another ambiguity

is linked with its theoretical application: as a technical dimension othe curriculum or as a laboratory practice (Smart, 1968). Ambiguous,

and thus ideological, as it was, its practical consequences have been

impressive: a massive specialization o secondary education schoolsas technical, agricultural, and industrial proles and the quasi-absence

o general academic proles.Highly selective rituals accompanied the collectivist rhetoric: school

Olympiads, demanding selections, private lessons or privileged

urban students who wished to gain entrance to the best schools. Anethnography on an East/West sense o sel-ecacy in 1990 Germany

reports that, under the collectivist veil, classroom interactions gener-

ated inormal hierarchical classications and thus an elitist orientation(Oettingen, 1999). This illuminating analysis helps us to understand the

way collectivism was practically implemented. In act, it assumes thattraditional and Herbartian-style5methodological cultures sustained powerdisparities, masculine values and thus a competitive school ethos. The

outcome was the institutionally produced demotivation o the lowest-

perorming students, a category that signicantly overlaps with the


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sPRInG 2009 65

socially disadvantaged groups. However, this was the same target group

that collectivism was ideologically supposed to protect. The dysunctiono communist collectivism as a orm o cooperative teaching was shapedby the specicity o social and educational contexts. Such undemocratic

regimes produced an elitist-individualist counterculture that opposed

truly collectivistic-cooperative values.Citizenship education also refected all the above contradictions.

The overarching educational and societal goal was the promotion o thecommunist citizen according to the precepts o morality, ideology

intended as an explicit educational dimensionand patriotism. Thesharp divergence between the communist theory o social change andits practical eect, especially in the past twenty years o the socialist

period, resulted in an articial conception o citizenship that lost most

o its original persuasiveness. The educational strategies to promote thenew citizen were based on traditional pedagogy. The citizenship prole

was that o a disciplined hard-working subject, able to exhibit acceptedpublic behaviors in a civil rather than civic sense.

This pedagogy was ar rom reaching the expected goals. Actually,

some Romanian eld studies, or instance Nestian (1988) demonstratedthat less ideological and more creative approaches were more ecient in

instilling commitment to communist values and genuine patriotism. It has

been concluded that literature could instil patriotism only on conditionthat it display an undoubted artistic value. The excessive moralism o

some narratives drawing on clich originated by samanatorism andproletcultism6 reached undesirable eects: They bored like a rainy

day in the autumn, since they embodied a hyperreality rom which theartistic emotion was expelled. Their weak patriotic message was the result

o an equally weak aesthetic value (Nestian, 1988, p. 20).Collectivist ideology, the classless society and socialist democratiza-

tion were dierent names or the same thing: the great communist aspira-

tion o social cohesion. Such a political ideal remained mostly a chimera,although some observers noted a certain favor o solidarity (Garton

Ash quoted by Tismneanu, 1999, p.133). Many scholars highlighted the

individualistic and atomistic congurations o Eastern European societies.

The solidarity ring as a political myth o social uniormity was contrastedby concrete orms o corporatism in the Polish case (Zielonka, 1989), by

the rediscovering o dierent orms o pluralism, such as religion, or bythe accentuated and peculiar stratication ater the 1970s as previously

discussed. A nationalistic revival was also noticeable, which depended


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on the manipulation and promotion o articial solidarity in times o

economic diculties by the politicians.It is not hazardous to assert that the communist educational landscapewas teeming with rhetorical catchwords, ideological slogans, and politi-

cal and educational myths that did not take account o the real situation.

Socialist citizenship is best described as the paradox o social cohe-sion ormulated by Saunders (1993), and revealed by the inecacy o

imposed collectivism as a duty to interact or collaborate with otherpeople (p. 85). The parents obligation to collaborate with teachers and

schools as unique educative agency is an example (Svecov, 1994). Therole o the teacher-parents associations was only to support the school asunique educative agency. Parents were responsible only with regard to

the rules or their children and the accomplishment o the patriotic duties,

or example, assuring the requested amount o materials or recyclingpractices in Romania. Excepting the Hungarian attempt to institute a

more substantial collaboration with parents in 1985, parents disaectionwith schools was clearly denounced by the private lessons system in

the area (Timar, 1990, p. 30).

The communist ideology had nevertheless a dierentiated infu-ence on the educational systems o the socialist area, rom an intensive

indoctrination with nationalistic overtones in the Romanian case to a

ritualistic duty in Hungary and, nally, to a communist ideology promot-ing a pluralistic scene in Poland. The dierent impact o the ideological

actor is mainly to be linked with the sociopolitical internal dynamism.

For instance, in the advanced post-totalitarian Hungary the ocial dutyto comply with ideology guaranteed remarkable educational, social, and

economical innovations.

Reinventing politics and restructuring education

Political mythologies in continuity

The political scene o the 1990s exhibited many traits in continuity with

the previous historical stages as well as plural political reerences. For

instance, in Hungary two main political ideas were revived, urbanism andpopulism, which were typical o the 1920s (Schlett, 1991). They refect

the traditional contradiction between the adhesion to European valuesand the appreciation o peasant culture. In addition, several political

cultures have always been at work in Eastern Europe, perhaps with the


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sPRInG 2009 67

exception o Poland, where the Catholic Church has played a uniying

role. The reason or the existence o ragmentary political cultures liesin the above-mentioned discrepancy between the elites and the masses,in terms o the geographical distribution o national identity and the

uninterrupted regeneration o the dual citizenship pattern (i.e., a cosmo-

politan orientation versus a particularistic traditional peasant culture).Eastern European political settings were also represented by political

mythologies o salvation (Tismneanu, 1999, p. 13). These, however,were mere ideological surrogates competing with common political

ideas. Examples o political mythologies are the return to Europe(Silova, 2005, p. 129; Tismneanu, 1999, p. 61) and to a certain extenteven the regulative ideal-type o civil society (Keane, 1998, p. 41). Such

syncretic phenomena perpetuated ancient collectivistic passions and a low

level o trust into the institutions o the state. Hence, immediately ater1989, they perormed a uniying unction in terms o public discourse

and served as visible markers o personal identity, in the absence o amore active or ethical commitment to politics. As a result, public behavior

showed sel-compassion and victimization as well as ear o the other as

a rejection o dierence and otherness. These mythologies are classiedas (a) salvation-ocused and authoritarian, (b) messianic and demonizing

(ethnic nationalism), (c) revengeul (i.e., decommunization and political

justice), and (d) reactionary and restorative (Tismneanu, 1999).During the initial stage o Eastern European transitions, such mytho-

logical oundations o politics, which emphasized ethnic relations and

supercial cohesion, nevertheless sustained the reconstruction o a senseo community. In addition, the dominance o the ethnic roots o citizen-

ship can be observed in the renewed postcommunist nationalism. At ageneral political level, the theory o a neoconservative ideology as the

expression o an endogenous orientation brought about the resurrection

o precommunist and thus out-o-date institutions, given that the commu-nist period was considered a mere historical accident. At an educational

level, the consequences were curriculum nationalization, the revival o

old educational structures or new purposes (Silova, 2004, p. 85),and the privatization o the educational system. Hungarian liberals and

populists agreed on such strategies based on ideological and rhetori-cal motivations (Kozma, 1992). A similar neo-conservative scenario is

reported in the Polish case, still at the end o the 1990s. Signicantly,

this may be considered a sign o the slow normalization o the politicalscene (Tomiak, 2000).


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The language of civil society

The postcommunist reconstruction aimed at reinventing politics in terms

o the creation o a truly political society, given the peoples disen-chantment with politics under communist regimes and the reconstruction

o state institutions. However, the leitmtiseems to be the rebuildingo civil society, intended as a social and moral transormation as wellas a remedy to the communist atomisation eect. As many scholars

have showed, such an ambitious purpose raises some doubts, since theormation o civil societies is a historically and culturally unplanned

process. The catchphrase civil society represents the Eastern or Marxist

counterpart o the more classical citizenship idea (Keane, 1998; Turner,1993) and it is meant to imply civil solidarity and morality. During the

socialist phase it played the role o an eective moral and political

utopia (Keane, 1998, p. 21), while or the dicult transition processesthat o a more tangible guiding vision. As Keane (1998) maintains, we

assisted at the worldwide diusion o the language o civil society . . .with a variety o dierent meanings, and or a wide variety o purposes

(p. 21). In point o act, the civil society ideal sometimes happened to

turn into no more than another ideological slogan. This was the case osocial and moral settings with weak civil societies, such as Romania.

For some observers, Romania was completely lacking moral and civic

resources so that civil society renewal was deemed quite impossible.Despite the dicult reconstruction o civil society, which remained

more a rhetorical exhortation than a real outcome, this initial suppositionwas too pessimistic even or an atomized and postdictatorial country

such as Romania.The diculties and paradoxes o the transition processes, such as an

individualism o possession, intensive stratication processes, corruption,

and supercial democratic ormsthe decorative pluralism (Barbu,

1999, p. 125)are parallel public discourses that ocus on community,participation, and the common good, amiliar collectivist values updated

with an unexpected communitarian favor.7 It is doubtul whether this

represents a genuine search or the reinvigoration o social values and

virtues, or whether it is mostly a renewed orm o rhetorical governmentand administration o the public sphere. Poland may represent an excep-

tion, because o its strong Catholic culture, commonly recognized as oneo the main ingredients o a genuine communitarian perspective.


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sPRInG 2009 69

The method to renovate education

During the 1990s, a re-regionalization process emerged, suggesting

signicant dierences between the pathways o transitions and citizenshippatterns. Nevertheless, Eastern European education systems continued to

be more similar than dissimilar to the communist past, as the imported

new orms preserved the old contents. At the outset, postcommunisteducation displayed the temptation o dierentiating itsel rom the

totalitarian and monolithic education o the socialist past. Educationaldebates moved rom an ideological recuperation o some precommunist

school structures to the best model to be imported policy, viewed as

a quick x solution to rapidly pass through the savage phase (Birzea,1994, p. 25). Some major scholars involved in political decisions declared

that there were no models to reproduce, that it was not easy to opt or a

liberal or a centralistic model, and that situations [were] very dierent(ibid., p. 25). From interviews it emerged that other scholars recognized,

more or less overtly, that restructuring strategies were actively avoredby some precisely identiable international partners (a specic coun-

try), and that prominent scholars oered advice. Many more admitted

that international nancing was not neutral but ideologically driven andconditioned. Some others appreciated the method o international guid-

ance, oered by request, as a cooperative orm o peer-review involving

international specialists. This use o an external consultant was viewed asan important way to put pressure on local politicians, and thus, as a posi-

tive incentive to change (in interviews with the author in 19992000).

Democratization through decentralization

The unequivocal sign o the lack o vision o educational reorms was therecurrent emphasis during the 1990s on two priorities: the decentral-

ization and democratization o education. Obviously, these labels were

justied by the real situation o the educational systems. In act, ateralmost ty years o excessive centralization, both the Polish and Roma-

nian systems exhibited very similar organizational and structural traits.

From a political point o view the Polish experience with communism,as an authoritarian regime ater the 1980s and with important sources o

internal pluralism (e.g., the Catholic Church, the strength o civil society,the strong socialist tradition o the beginning o the twentieth century,


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and the historical opposition to Russian imperialism) was more similar

to the Hungarian experience as an advanced post-totalitarian regimeo gradual withdrawal rom communism. However, rom an educationalpoint o view the resistance o the initial infuence o Soviet education

principles8 (Szebenyi, 1992) linked with a traditional methodological

culture and the weakness o the internal resources to diverge rom thispattern; or example, the peculiarities o the political and social scene,

the historical precedents (Mitter, 1991) o the educational systems, thecontacts with the international and then western pedagogy and the

capacity and desire to undertake educational reorms made Polish andRomanian education immediately in the atermath o the 1989 eventsmore similar than dissimilar.

The Hungarian system, however, was an exception, having initiated

politics o decentralization long beore 1989. In act, already in 1978the center attempted to delegate the innovative unction to lower levels

o the system and thus to initiate an experimental stage; allowed or thepossibility to adapt the centralized curriculum to the local contexts and

introduced teaching autonomy (Nagy, 1994, p. 46). A more substantial

attempt to reorm the system was made in 1985 with the law o schoolautonomy, which undertook signicant provisions toward decentralisa-

tion. Its ecacy was however partial and the result were inconsistent

given the incongruence between school autonomy and a centralizedcurriculum that was only adapted on a local base, the lack o a control

since the inspection system was replaced by school guidance, dierentregulations o primary schools (local authorities) and secondary schools

(central authorities), the imprecision o dening the autonomy concept

itsel and actors mentalities. The 1985 Hungarian Reorm Act was more amatter o legislative innovation. However, it was a singular and outstand-

ing watershed with the centralised past, a useul precedent that opened

the way to a radical decentralization o the Hungarian education.As ar as democratization is concerned, all these systems needed

substantial changes, since the socialist intentions o social equalityproduced systematically ad-hoc hierarchies and peculiar stratication

dynamics. The two priorities mentioned above displayed, however, an

ideological unction, as revealed by the educational strategies chosen orimplementation and by their eects. The signicance o the decentraliza-

tion movement was rather radical since it was inspired by the politics o

Thatcher and Reagan o the 1980s (Beresord-Hill, 1998). This was alsothe case o the 1985 Hungarian educational reorm and the postcommunist


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sPRInG 2009 71

restructuring. Moreover, the single strategies and the coherent reorms

produced or almost ten years ater 1989 produced only rhetoric andthus disappointing outcomes. This was also true or the Hungarian caseduring the 1980s, which survived a long adjustment phase. The reason

is that truly decentralizing politics are sustained by specic mindsets

that are not easily modiable and take time to become reality. Numerousreorms worldwide reached a deconcentrated systemic conguration

that sometimes carried out a regional neocentralistic eect, as is the casein Poland and Romania. This eect is a clear sign o the discrepancy

between educational aims, at a rhetorical level, and mentalities, at apractical level, which can be viewed either as a negative outcome or asa rst step toward the introduction o more substantial changes.

Most studies on decentralization show that it is not a simple and homo-

geneous strategy (Fullan, 1993; Halasz, 1999). In act, it involves dierentlevels and areas o educational governance and the relationships between

the general system o public administration and educational administra-tion translate into dierent decentralizing strategies. Additionally, it is

commonly argued that centralization was more appropriate or a state-led

(communist here) massication o the education process, and that recentautonomist politics uphold fexibility as well as a democratic process o

educational dierentiation and individualisation. Other scholars adopt a

more subtle view, arguing that neither centralisation nor decentralisationworks and that both top-down and bottom-up strategies are necessary

(Fullan, 1993, p. 22).

For these reasons, educational decentralization as a general cure wasmore o a myth, at least in the postcommunist settings here considered.

Looking at the results it has produced so ar, especially in highly central-ized countries such as Poland and Romania, it is reasonable to say that

during the rst postcommunist decade it did not bring about real changes

o educational practices. In act, notwithstanding dierent educationalpriorities and peculiar outcomes, such as the civic schools in Poland

(Klus-Stanska & Olek, 1998; Laciak, 1998) and the private higher educa-

tion institutions in Romania, structural diversication was rather limitedin these countries and until the late 1990s it could not be described as an

innovative dynamic rom below, nor an ecient reorm rom above.The continuing convergence between Polish and Romanian education in

the late 1990s is given by the nature o the changes, as nonstrategic and

ragmentary (Birzea, 1997; Bogaj, Kwiatkowski, & Szymanski, 1999)lacking a coherent and clear vision o a systemic reorm. Educational


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discourses conrm the need or a global and systemic reorm and the

urgency o its implementation.On the contrary, it created conusion and articial change in contexts oinertia (Poland and Romania), as well as nancial shortage and inequali-

ties between dierent regions in dynamic contexts, such as Hungary.

It also has been reported that there was a decrease in educational quality.In the past, intellectuals and nonintellectuals alike believed that com-

munist education worked properly because it produced elites and goodstudents. Similarly, ater 1989 many believed that an advanced reorm

o decentralization was a clear sign o a good education. Both convic-tions reveal educational myths: in the ormer case, that o a competitivenational system o education, legitimized by a limited number o excellent

students, oten with the right backgrounds; in the latter case, the myth

o an intrinsic goodness o educational decentralization.On the democratic side, the vision o postcommunist reorms initially

had a more general political meaning. Education was supposed to behumanized and socialized in a renewed sense o democracy. In ad-

dition, rendering education more democratic meant adopting classical

strategies to allow large groups o people to gain access to education.This resulted in the elimination o highly selective tests and the increased

tertiary-level enrolment. At the same time, democratic education

acquired a more decentralizing sense, which involved a diversica-tion o educational provisions and institutions. This trend o external

diversication and privatization conducted rapidly in a loosely coupled

system led some educationalists, like Kozma, to wonder who owns theschool? (quoted in Halasz, 1998, p. 68).

Old and new ideologies at work

From the study o postcommunist education, it has been noted that the

lack o a reorming vision and the persistence o the Manichean mind-set avored an ideological approach to education and citizenship. The

question is whether ideological catchwords can eventually transorm

social realities or whether they irrevocably lead to a denial o change

(Popkewitz, 2000). Actually, the lack o real change is most probablyengendered by such mythological accounts, which ignore real develop-ments, mentalities, and social congurations.

In other words, the question allows or real change to be brought about

by social and educational ideologies. Following Archers interpretation,


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sPRInG 2009 73

Mitter claims that the ideological actor was unproblematic in the

absolutist state (2004, p. 352). The implicit assumption in his wordsis that the emergence o regional and global new educational spaceshas complicated the scenario. The eects o educational ideology in a

globalized world nevertheless need urther investigation.

For Freeden (2000), an ideology may however induce social andeducational change i its characteristics are fexible and i the politi-

cal culture within which it is situated is pluralist. In his words, i moraland political theory are ordinarily entrusted to tell us how to act, can

an ideology, in its dual role, both as theory and practice, do the same?(Freeden, 2000, p. 305). Moreover, ideology must not be considered asan inerior orm o political thought and theories. Postcommunist ideolo-

gies, such as the neoconservative paradigm, should not be considered

negative or perverted political cultures, but products o specic settingsand mentalities. It is assumed that even when ideologies involve distor-

tion, misrecognition or rhetoric, there are contextual reasons or thoseeatures, and they too evidence ideational patterns that may be decoded

(Freeden, 2000, p. 321).

Conclusions

The postcommunist area represents an interesting challenge or under-

standing citizenship and education as ideological phenomena, rhetori-cal outcomes, and mythological eects. This approach is an attempt to

interpret and connect political and educational developments. The East

European modernization path was thereore mainly molded by a contra-

dictory fuctuation between the European idea and national identity.Oten, education reinorced sharp social stratication, although the

underpinning ideology attempted to reduce it as refected in endogenous

pedagogical perspectives. Education also accentuated an additional

discrepancy, the dierence between rural and urban education, and,consequently, between a rural and an urban citizen, as in the Romanian

case. The communist ideology had a dierentiated infuence on the edu-

cational systems o socialist countries. The existence o rival ideologies,

as in the Polish case, or the economic evolution to a ree market, in theHungarian case, shaped a somewhat pluralistic ramework. Hence, thecommunist ideology became a mere ritualistic duty. However, it also cre-

ated educational and social paradoxes that contrasted starkly with ocial

ideology. During postcommunism, political mythologies and ideologies


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guided the restructuring o states and educational systems. The globalized

educational rhetoric and the myth o educational decentralization triedto renovate educational cultures, but they generated only poor results.The more signicant the discrepancy between real social and educational

congurations and new reormist visions (i.e., between a civil society

and a decentralized education) the more it will impede the achievemento desired social and educational changes.

Notes

1. For instance, in the educational realm we can distinguish the myth o qualityeducation as proved by the extraordinary perormances o an elite in the Olympiadsand jointly held by parents, teachers, and administrators. Its suggestive narrativeis obviously dierent rom that expressed by the more systematic ideology odecentralization, satisying the need to both eel competitive and be reassured.

2. For some scholars, Hungary and Poland belong to Central Europe andRomania to Southeastern Europe. This controversial issue o terminology is morea matter o politics than geography, as maintained or instance by Coulby (2000).For a ull account o this issue o terminology see Kozma and Polonyi (2004).

3. In act, the interpretation o a Western state-led nation building versus an

Eastern ethnocultural nationalism (i.e., rom state to nation versus rom nation tostate) is not completely convincing. Similarly to Wandycz (2001), who argues oran initial Western model in Hungary and Poland and a later oriental model atertraumatic events, that is the Hungarian deeats o Mohacs in 1526 and the WhiteMountain in 1620, and the Polish partitions in 1772. Sugar stresses the varietieso Eastern nationalism, identiying an aristocratic nationalism in Hungary andPoland, a petty-bourgeois nationalism in the Czech Republic, a Bulgarian andSerbian populist-peasant nationalism, and nally a bureaucratic nationalism orthe Romanians and the Greeks (Neumann, 2001, p. 50).

4. Herder replaced the traditional concept o a juridical-political state with that

o the olk-nation as organic in its historical growth, ethnically and linguisticallyhomogeneous. Herderianism opposed cultural pluralism and undervaluedthe relevance o social actors. His works were requently cited by Czechs,Hungarians, Romanians, Serbs, and Greeks and contributed to a widespread useo the ethnonationalistic thesis, which became a major ingredient o the politicalcultures o this area.

5. Traditional pedagogy implies rontal teaching o the whole group o students,teaching ex-cathedra, while herbartian pedagogy is mainly associated with theorganization o lesson in highly articulated phases.

6. Samanatorism is a Romanian literary strand rom the early twentieth

century, cultivating the rural and historical inspiration. Proletcultism is a Sovietliterary strand linked with the October Revolution and supporting the idea o apurely proletarian culture.

7. The sources o the post-1989 perectionist discourses in Eastern Europeare the ethos o the communist collectivism still partially active and some moreupdated communitarian stances, mainly linked with Catholic culture. For such adenition o perectionism see Metz (2001).


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sPRInG 2009 75

8. These principles are educational ideology, detailed state curriculum, statemonopoly o schooling, uniorm school structure, and hierarchically centralizedmanagement.

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