Democratic Aspects of Communist and Post-communist Schooling in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

An education system is democratic inasmuch as it advances and embraces key democratic values. In this chapter, I use a conceptual framework that comprises the values of equality, participation, choice and diversity to analyse schooling in eastern and central Europe during the communist and post-communist eras. Claims are often made that schooling in the region was and continues to be undemocratic. While these claims have some merit, comprehensive analysis based on a range of democratic values shows that the education systems of eastern and central Europe had and have many democratic features. Under the communist era, these education systems placed a strong emphasis on equality of opportunity. In the post-communist era, the democratic values of choice and diversity are being further advanced while retaining a commitment to equality in education. The analysis also shows that in some regards, schooling in eastern and central Europe is (and was) more democratic than schooling elsewhere.