Abstract:

The Romanian education system has faced many battles and changes over the last three decades since the fall of communism. In our study, we acknowledged the main differences between the Romanian communist education system and the actual, democratic education system. After studying the main education laws: the last communist education law, and the first democratic education laws, we questioned former teachers and students about their opinions on the differences of the regimes (N=662), assessing some psychological concepts, such as nostalgia and resistance to change. The main findings of our study comes from the qualitative data we gathered, by asking all of the participants about the features of the education system from both periods of time, the changes they would implement, the description of learning in the communist period. Also, half of the participants were teachers, which highlights the general opinion on using teaching methods and strategies in different ways, both in communism and post-communism.
Although the results show that in the case of our participants group, teachers show a lower level of nostalgia towards the communist period and towards the characteristics of the education system of the communist Era, both categories of participants consider it necessary to adapt certain characteristics of the communist years in the education system, including the need to use the school uniform as a factor of discipline and equalization of students. We consider such comparative studies useful, precisely in order to identify elements that can transform our days formal education more efficient.

Keywords:

Education under communism, post communism nostalgia, perceptions on formal education, resistance to change, challenges for education.