I S IT STILL ABOUT THE E AST AND THE W EST THEN ?

‘Ach, Guy, you are not suggesting that it is still about East and West, are you? Get over it, it happened almost thirty years ago! We are dealing now with diff erent realities, the old divides are becoming more and more irrelevant…’

‘I hate to say you are wrong, my dear friend. You of all people should know better. Plus, the author herself indicated the signifi cance of this divide for setting up the whole project. What I learned from the book is that, much to the author’s own surprise, the division between East and West was still very much present and defi ning the shape and the outcomes of citizenship education policy in so many ways! And this divide between Europe and ‘the other’ Europe (Michaels & Stevick, 2009) is a major sort of frustration to me! Th is is where the deeper explanation of the diff erent patterns of teachers’ views in the three countries should be sought.’

Nina sighed. She knew Guy had a point. She also knew that the inevitable moment has come, when she would be addressed as a stand-in for all East-Eu- ropeans, just because she happened to be Romanian. Like all others living in the West and sharing her plight, she was very ambivalent about the situation. She prepared to listen carefully.

‘I think, Nina, that citizenship education as an European project remained pretty much an East European thing, a sort of integration course for new mem- bers to be allowed to join the club. Not only that citizenship education remained largely tokenistic, it eff ectively impeded and side-tracked the democratization of these countries, to the extent education has a role to play in this process! Exactly the fact that citizenship education programs were imposed from outside, provid- ed these countries with the ‘borrowed’ discourse, needed to pay lip service to the process of political education and to stay on the safe side, avoiding controversy. ‘ ‘Wait, wait, this is a harsh estimate. You will have to be more specifi c, this is an academic conversation, in spite of the pastries and the nice view. Can you substantiate your claim?’

‘Certainly, ’ Guy smiled. He knew he had struck a nerve and that the discus- sion might become heated from now on. ‘Let me state that the processes are similar, but not identical for Bulgaria and Croatia. To begin with Bulgaria, we saw a dis- course, which was all over the place. Th is was discussed, of course, but if we move beyond the specifi c data, we will fi nd something that is a reason for great concern.’

‘Do you mean the empirical study on Bulgarian teachers’ and students’ atti- tudes towards citizenship education lead by Kabakchieva (Kabakchieva, 2011)?’

‘Partly, yes. Two things are interesting, as they relate to the book we discuss. Th e fi rst one is that Bulgarian students exhibit exactly the same negative attitude towards politics as their teachers. Th e students mistrust the political class in Bul- garia and more importantly, do not have faith in their own power to change the course of events in any way. At the same time, the research team observes that students, in their turn, do not describe their activity in terms of what they see as ‘the empty terminology’ of citizenship education. Th ey do not recognize it ass political and they cannot make use of the conceptual apparatus acquired at school to discuss political events (Yakimova, 2011).’

‘I have seen this study as well, Guy. What the study mentioned about the ambivalent attitude towards Europe, is confi rmed there as well. Young people thought of European institutions as something very far from their life, some- thing that did not apply to Bulgaria, since there no one obeyed the law (Kabak- chieva, 2011, p. 136).’

‘Exactly, Nina. European practices are seen as something alien, something that does not match Bulgarian political reality. As a result, citizenship is of- ten seen as a project, detached from Bulgaria’s political reality: ‘Students make

projects and that’s what citizenship is about.’ In this, she shares the harsh assess- ment of Bulgarian citizenship education given by others who called it ‘a naïve idyllic democratic ideological lullaby’ (Vatsov, 2011, p. 16).

‘Yes, I recognize the paradox: the considerable eff ort to introduce citizen- ship education was aimed at promoting democracy and easing the process of transition. Instead, it off ered a neutral, ‘politically correct’ and abstract language to pretend talking about politics. Th e one specifi c topic which could not pos- sibly be addressed by the European policymakers due to a lack of awareness and experience, was the communist past of the East European countries. Citizenship education, instead of providing instruments for refl ecting upon and coming to terms with the communist past, in fact provided a safe escape from dealing with this painful theme: the excuse was compliance to European demands!’

‘Similarly, in Croatia, the past is not talked about, but infl uences every facet of the process of introducing citizenship education in the country. You have read, of course, that the interviews with the teachers were taken at the time, when the pilot on citizenship education was running, so it was assumed it would get im- plemented. And then it didn’t.’

‘Yes, Nina, I heard about that. Th e pilot was postponed, and then postponed again, and it is very unlikely now that it will be implemented (Spajić-Vrkaš, 2014). I think that it will be interesting to do a detailed policy case study on the whole process and the dynamics that lead to its failure, as many stakeholders are involved and had their share. Citizenship education is mainly pushed by inter- national and local non-profi t organizations outside the mainstream education system. Th e eff ort is thus unsystematic and depending on individual initiatives of schools and teachers34_{, working in a still highly centralized school system, in-}

herited from former Yugoslavia (Pantić, 2012).’

‘Th is is interesting indeed, let’s not forget to add to our list of research projects at the end,’ interjected Nina somewhat impatiently.

‘But this is just the superfi cial part. My version is that the same underly- ing mechanism, which we see at play in Bulgaria is visible in Croatia as well – a discrepancy between a dominant national discourse and a ‘imported’ European idea of citizenship. In Croatia, this discrepancy has taken then form of a clash be- tween citizenship education and religious education. Th e attempt to address core values through citizenship education results in a true battle between the Catholic Church, the main motor of religious education in Croatia, and the secular part of society. Both are fi ghting on moral grounds for an evaluation of the country’s past and of its newly gained place in the European Union.’

34 _{Th e names of a handful of people (literally) and a few NGOs pop up in all projects, regardless of who}

‘But where is the paradox then?’

‘Th e paradox is that, like in many East European countries, nothing is what it seems and a lot can be explained by looking back at the times of communist rule. It thus becomes clear that the Catholic Church35 _{is seen as progressive and}

pro-Western, because it is associated with anticommunism and the fi ght against Yugoslavia (Bacevic, 2014, p. 95-100). It is an unlikely marriage of conservatism, anticommunism and openly anti-European moralism that leads to a successful blockage to introduce citizenship education at schools. Th e latter is presented as a direct threat to religious education, religious freedom, and independence at all! Do you see it now, Nina?’

‘I see it, Guy, but these issues do not concern Western countries. We see a diff erent, solid, uncomplicated pattern of moderate and self-confi dent teachers in the Netherlands. Th e other countries will get there eventually, I think.’

‘Sorry, Nina, but your idea of the West is slightly naïve, too. Th is self-con- fi dence may be not so deep-rooted as it appears. Maybe it is more reticent, in the face of a poor track-record of citizenship education in remedying acute social problems. In this sense, there is not too much ground for high hopes in citizen- ship education as a corrective of neoliberalism and global social injustice (Camp- bell, 2006; Dorf, 2008; Moutsios, 2008; Olssen, 2008; Papastephanou, 2008). If a state is failing in all other basic ways, economically, politically, morally, you cannot expect miracles from education alone. Th is would inevitably place a dis- proportionately high burden on teachers to correct social wrongs. As Ross notes, it is so easy to expect schools to just tell children the virtues of democracy and then to blame the schools when things go wrong (Ross, 2002, in Scott & Law- son, 2002, p. 48).