Developing Schools for Democracy in Europe

Contents

John Sayer. Introduction

Part I. The TEMPUS DSDE Project

The DSDE Project: background, proposals, and outcomes

DSDE Report: the preparation and continuing development of teachers

Part II. The Development of CDVU at Brno

Jitka Kazelleová. Our Centre and the TEMPUS Programme

Jitka Kazelleová & Jaroslava Tomancová. CDVU MU Activity and the Influence of the TEMPUS Programme

John Sayer. The Continuing Professional Development of Teachers and the Role of the University

Jan Beran & Jana Kohnová. Proposal for a Conception of In-service Teacher Education and Training

Jan Beran. Transformation of the Czech Educational System: the ‘common school’ project

Part III. Aspects of the TEMPUS Programme in Krakow

Roman Dorczak & Andrzej Szyjewski. Where the Reform of the Polish Education System is Going: between ideology and economic limitations

Roman Dorczak. A New Model of Initial Teacher Training: chances for development of Polish schools

Grzegorz Chomicki. Does the Krakow Education System Need Democracy?

Aleksandra Kwieciñska. Professional Career Development at a Time of Political and Economic Change

Dawid Friedmann. Students’ Influence on Changes in Teachers’ Attitudes and Methods of Work

Malgorzata Niemczyñska. The Teacher’s Authority and the Foundations of Students’ Personality Development

Andrzej Mirski. Does the Polish School Teach Tolerance and Cultural Openness?

Part IV. Bilateral Studies: home and school

Milada Rabusicová. Influence of the Family on Educational Achievement

Milada Rabusicová. On Relationships Between the School and the Family

Tatyana Bourmina. Research and Development on Home-School Relations

Part V. Citizenship and Values

David Martin. Values and Assessment

Eva Foldes Travers. The Challenges for Civic Education in Hungary

Hugh Starkey. Re-inventing Citizenship Education in a New Europe

Postscript

Introduction

The relationship of comparative studies and transnational development work is just one aspect of that between academic and professional activity in education. It has become increasingly important in European contexts, where the European Union (EU) is now added to the major agencies for both cooperative research and joint development work in education, through separate funding mechanisms.

Since 1990, the EU Trans-European Mobility Schemes for University Studies (TEMPUS) programmes have been a vehicle for joint educational projects (JEPs), and a few of them have been focused on teacher education and training (ATEE, 1994). This number of Oxford Studies in Comparative Education offers a sample of work from one such project, Developing Schools for Democracy in Europe (DSDE). It is hoped to illustrate the many levels of activity and perception necessarily brought together: personal, professional, organisational, political and academic.

This may serve as a case study of joint work not only across four European universities in very different social, economic, political and cultural settings, but in and around each of the four universities across contributors from schools, local authorities and different disciplines. It is also an example of an attempt among equals to address issues relating to a common future rather than to transfer 'know how' assumed to exist in the part of Europe which provides the funding. The illumination of joint work in DSDE has had as much influence, for example, on the arguments in the UK about school testing and assessment as on issues which have preoccupied colleagues in Brno or Krakow. The project is also distinctive in having been located outside capital cities and away from the centres habitually used by central government.

There is much, no doubt, that can be brought to joint development work by the disciplines of comparative studies in education; equally, there is much material in such work for study and research in the comparative mode. It is hoped that such study may flow from the project, and indeed some beginnings of research are illustrated in the texts here.

Part I offers a background and description of the DSDE project as formally constituted, and for the first time publishes the final text of its report on the preparation and continuing development of teachers. This is the result of an interim consultative document (DSDE, 1993), evaluation of Europe-wide responses (Bourmina, 1993) and revision prompted by practical pilot projects over three years.

In Part II, the focus is on joint work to support a university contribution to teachers' continuing education, on the organisation required for a university centre and the proposals which that centre is prompted to make for a national framework. It has to be remembered that teachers' in-service education and training was previously directed by the Czech Ministry of the Interior, that its centres were abolished along with its school inspectorate and that a large proportion of school leaders were removed from their postshortly after the 'velvet revolution'. The TEMPUS DSDE project has been involved in a critical moment of major change affecting persons, institutions and policies.

Part III is devoted to examples of joint work and personal perceptions among teachers, tutors and researchers in Krakow, where the DSDE project began with small pilot experiments connected in a continuum of teachers' initial and continuing education, and associated support for school leadership peer-development. The writers share their viewpoints of educational reform in Poland, the DSDE initial teacher training experiment, and the situation in schools as viewed by teachers and researchers.

Part IV illustrates just one of the eight areas of the DSDE project, the examination across and within centres of home-school relationships. It is an area which has been designated for follow-up study and research, and the papers included may also be seen as part of a preliminary mapping exercise for work beyond the project, as well as offering pointers which have in part been adopted in the DSDE final document of recommendations and conclusions.

Part V, on aspects of citizenship and values, crucial to the title of the project, is also an example of the external connecting points vital if full use is to made of any one TEMPUS programme. The DSDE project has sought both to inform and to be informed by parallel work through other organisations.

It is hope that something of the spirit of the DSDE experiment may come through these pages, and that readers may wish to share in some of the work continuing among the project partners. Enquiries will be most welcome. David Phillips

References

ATEE (1994) Survey on the Joint European Projects in Teacher Education. Brussels: Heuras.

Bourmina, T. (1993) An Evaluation of Responses to the Interim Report : Training and Development of Teachers. Oxford: Oxford University, Department of Educational Studies.

DSDE (1993) The Training and Development of Teachers: Interim Consultative Document. Oxford: Oxford University, Department of Educational Studies.

Contributors

Jan Beran is Director of the Masaryk University Centre for Teachers’ Professional Development, (CDVU) in Brno, and a psychologist.

Tatyana Bourmina, a teacher of history in Moscow and recently an advanced student in the Governance of Education at Oxford, now works for aid programmes in the Russian Federation.

Grzegorz Chomicki is a lecturer in education and history at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow.

Roman Dorczak is a lecturer and researcher in the Institute of Psychology at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, and assistant coordinator of the Krakow DSDE programme. He was Farmington East European Fellow at Manchester College, Oxford, in 1994.

Dawid Friedmann is a beginning secondary school teacher in Krakow, Liceum II.

Jitka Kazelleová, is a modern linguist and a deputy director of the Masaryk University Centre for Teachers’ Professional Development.

Jana Kohnová is a lecturer in the Prague Institute for School Development.

Aleksandra Kwieciñska is a teacher of foreign languages in Krakow Liceum XIV secondary schools.

David Martin is Head of Chenderit School, Northamptonshire, England, and chairs the National Coordinating Committee for Learning and Assessment.

Andrzej Mirski is a lecturer in education and psychology at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, and was a visiting academic student of management at Templeton College, Oxford, in 1991-1992.

Adam Niemczyñski Professor and Director of the Institute of Psychology at the Jagiellonian University, is the DSDE coordinator in Krakow.

Malgorzata Niemczyñska a teacher of Polish in Krakow Liceum II secondary school.

Milada Rabusicová is a lecturer in sociology in the Philosophical Faculty of the Masaryk University, Brno.

John Sayer directs EU TEMPUS projects from the University of Oxford Department of Educational Studies, co-directs the European School of Educational Management, and is Vice-Chair of the General Teaching Council Initiative for England and Wales.

Hugh Starkey is lecturer and European Officer at Westminster College, Oxford, and coordinates the UK Human Rights in Education Network.

Andrzej Szyjewski is an anthropologist and lecturer in comparative religions. He was Farmington East European Fellow at Manchester College, Oxford, in 1994.

Jaroslava Tomancová an economist, is deputy director of the Masaryk University Centre for Teachers Professional Development.

Eva Foldes Travers is an Associate Professor of Education at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, where she is the Chair of the Education Program. She has a BA from Connecticut College and an MAT and an EdD from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has published articles in the areas of political socialization, teacher education, women’s development and educational policy.

Johan Vanderhoeven from the Centre for Policy and Innovation has coordinated the links of the DSDE project between the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and reform groups in secondary schools, and chairs the Flemish parents’ association.

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