Old Wine into New Bottles? Europeanization and Diversity in Multi-Ethnic Romanian Schools

Bibliographic Data

ID7927501
AuthorsSimona Szakác (0000-0003-4454-6008, University of Essex, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume3
Issue1
Pages99-127
Publication date2011-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMulticultural Education Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2005-615X • E-ISSN: 2377-0031
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/2005615x.2011.11102881
OpenAlexW2272796606
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited16

After the collapse of the communist regime, Romanian education policy has taken a turn towards Europeanization. Drawing from fieldwork data collected in the multicultural district of Cluj, I focus on diversity as an aspect of Europeanization of schooling in Romania. My findings reveal that Europeanization works symbolically rather than substantially in educational establishments enrolling a multi-ethnic student body. Although diversity is embraced discursively by teachers and staff, school practices fail to demonstrate an incorporation of diversity into the Romanian national narrative which remains marked by the old structures of ethnocentric monoculturalism and self-victimization. Explanatory factors brought into discussion refer to institutional continuity (i.e. the persistence of old habits in everyday school practices) and institutional contradiction (i.e. the coexistence of the distinctive logics of multiculturalism as difference and of integration as social justice in the delivery of educational policy for Hungarian and Roma minorities)

Contradiction · Diversity (politics · Ethnic group · Ethnocentrism · Multicultural education · Multiculturalism · Narrative · Pedagogy · Political science · Romanian · Sociology · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Global Educational Policies and Reforms · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub