The Impact of the 'Conservative Modernization' on the Educational System in Croatia: The Conceptual and Implementational Pressures in the Process of Comprehensive Curricular Reform

Abstract

This paper points to different modes of agency that aimed and are still aiming at the transformation of social, political and economic discourse in the direction of 'conservative modernization' in most Western countries. The paper begins with a brief historical sketch of the socio-political circumstances that provided fertile ground for the emergence and development of 'conservative modernization', and continues to further elaborate the concept through the analysis of the categories that draw from works of the Michael W. Apple. The Apple's theoretical apparatus is applied as a 'tool' for the analysis of neoliberal, neoconservative, authoritarian-populist and expert conceptual and implementation pressures in the process of Comprehensive Curricular Reform in Croatia. The concluding section of the paper presents the results of the analysis of conceptual and implementation pressures in the process of Comprehensive Curricular Reform in Croatia.

Digital Citizenship in Croatia: Analysis of Strategic Documents of the National Education Policy and the Citizenship Education Curricula

“…Presented research sought to analyze representation of categories on conceptual and contextual level in selected document, and therefore above mentioned changes in coding procedure were made. (Beroš & Pongračić, 2018) and that position give this policy document leading position in shaping education in Croatia on system-wide policy level.…”

“…After rejecting the thesis of the educational policy on the importance of the CE (Beroš & Pongračić, 2019) and digital citizenship for a quality and modern educational system, we are faced with the question of motivation for such action by the national educational policy? Educational systems can take on various orientations: conservative, liberal and transformative (Apple, 2006; related to the dominant social values (Petričusić et al, 2017;Beroš & Pongračić, 2018). An analysis of the category of CE curricula referring to the vision of students pointed to the dominant understanding of students by educational policy as individuals active in local community (Beroš & Pongračić, 2019).…”

“…Within the CE curriculum from 2019 students' political participation is construed as knowledge of certain political developments at national and international level, individual action driven by interest in certain political and social issues and participation in elections (NN, 2019;Ekman & Amnå, 2012). The above mentioned activities corresponds with the dominant values that influenced the process of educational reform in Croatia (Beroš & Pongračić, 2018), which resulted in the CE curriculum from 2019. Activism and protest, as a legitimate forms of direct political and civic participation (Verba et al, 1995;Norris, 2002;Zukin et al, 2006;Ekman & Amnå, 2012), are not present in the categories of knowledge, attitudes and values that CE curiculum from 2019 strives to develop in students.…”

Education of Teachers for the Implementation of the Citizenship Education in Finland and Estonia

“…The precondition for the practical realization of the abovementioned is the active participation of citizens in various forms of democracy in practice, where the socialization role of civil society actors is extremely important (Putnam & Leonardi, 1993;Putnam, 2000). In the analysed countries, the education of students for assuming the role of democratic and active citizens is achieved through the national educational system and civil society (Beroš & Pongračić, 2018). There are some differences in the methodology of conducting CE in schools, but the results of the 2016 International Citizenship Education Survey do not indicate that there are significant differences in the results of students from Estonia and Finland in the categories of citizen self-efficiency, conventional citizenship, participation in school and the school climate.…”