Abstract:

Education in Romania has undergone many changes over time, justified by the political, economic and social context.

Our paper is based on the comparison of elements such as ideologies, political involvement, level of flexibility, individualization or collectivization of the education process; and it involves an observational study, carrying out an analysis of the characteristics of the education system in Romania by studying the legislation in the field (Education Laws of 1978, 1995 and 2011). Thus, we studied how former students and former teachers (N = 662) from the communist period assess the current education system. But the main part which has this theoretical addition, we developed an empirical research study - we wanted to verify the existence of a relationship between nostalgia for the communist period, perception of the present education system and resistance to change, using endorsed and adapted instruments for measuring psychological concepts. Although the results show that in the case of our group, teachers show a low level of nostalgia for the communist period and for the characteristics of the education system of the communist period, both categories of participants consider it necessary to adapt some characteristics of the communist period in the present education system. We consider comparative studies useful to identify elements that can make formal education in contemporary Romania more efficient, as the results can be the basis for projects, strategies and public policies that can orientate all education systems towards its best form today.

Keywords:

Educational system, communist regime, teachers' responsibility, nostalgia, resistance to change.