Reform of Education in Romania in the 1990s: A Retrospective

The author, a well-known Romanian academic and politician, reflects upon the nearly three years, beginning in December 1997, that he served as Minister of National Education. A member of the Democratic Coalition government, he was granted a mandate to undertake a massive and comprehensive reform of the whole Romanian education system. His aim was to remove the last vestiges of the communist heritage from it, to adapt it to European Union norms, and thus to enable Romania to meet the educational criteria for accession to the European Union. He set in motion a reform process that was even more profound than the earlier communist reform of Romanian education in 1948.     

Playing the game: Psychology textbooks speak out about love

Starting in 1958, Harry Harlow published numerous research papers analyzing the emotional and social development of rhesus monkeys. This essay examines the presentation of Harlow's work in introductory psychology textbooks from 1958 to 1975, focusing on whether the textbooks erased the process of research, presented results without hedging, and provided a uniform account of Harlow's work and results. It argues that many textbooks were not passive vehicles of knowledge transmission; instead, they played a role similar to articles of meta-analysis and literature reviews.     

University Interaction in Central and South Eastern Europe

If regional groupings are a legitimate step on the road to European integration, co-operation in education, particularly university education, has a principal role to play in the process. In Central and Eastern Europe, university education is essential for finding solutions to the common problems of adopting a market economy and of achieving scientific and technological parity with the West. Its aims can be furthered by co-operation and emphasis upon multiculturalism and initiatives aimed at furthering the aims of the Bologna Declaration of June 1999 on a European Area of Higher Education.     

"Do I need to know this for the exam?" Using popular media, inquiry-based laboratories, and a community of scientific practice to motivate students to learn developmental biology

One of the greatest challenges instructors face is getting students to connect with the subject in a manner that encourages them to learn. In this essay, we describe the redesign of our Developmental Biology course to foster a deeper connection between students and the field of developmental biology. In our approach, we created a community of scientific practice focused on the investigation of environmental impacts on embryonic development and informed by popular and scientific media, the students' own questions, and the instructor. Our goals were to engage students in meaningful ways with the material, to develop students' science process skills, and to enhance students' understanding of broad principles of developmental biology. Though significant challenges arose during implementation, assessments indicate using this approach to teach undergraduate developmental biology was successful.     

University Reform in Europe: Some Ethical Considerations

European universities must face the crisis of the Humboldtian model, and find new organisational solutions. This paper proceeds from two starting observations. The first is the one according to which we are in a “cultural shift” that makes culture the element on which performance, including technologically and cognitively, depends. The development of societies now depends on the culture shared by human beings more than on their economy or technology. The second observation is that culture itself and its ethical underpinning should be open for consideration. The development of society now depends on culture and on its adaptive capacity.     

Introduction: The secret lives of textbooks

Textbooks have a low status in the history of science because they have been seen as mere repositories for scientific knowledge. But historians have recently shown how they play a number of roles that can illuminate different aspects of the history of science, from priority disputes to pedagogical practices. The essays in this Focus section aim to expand our vision of textbooks further by showing how they perform various hybrid functions in scientific development.     

Experiencing Multicultural Organization: The Case of Babe#st‐Bolyai University

How does a democratic country in eastern Europe undergoing transition to a market economy and pluralist democracy deal with minority claims for cultural and linguistic autonomy? The author, formerly the Rector of the Babes‐Bolyai University of Cluj‐Napoca, and currently the Minister of Education of Romania, describes the way his university dealt with such claims. The solution, resulting from a university‐wide consultation, led to the creation of Romanian, Hungarian, and German sections throughout the university, not only on its main campus, but on several branch campuses, in such a way that the university as a whole did not break up into several ethnically separate institutions but remained one institution. The result, the author argues, is illustrative of a creative switch from ethnic nationalism to civic nationalism and from historical patriotism to constitutional patriotism.     

Guidelines for the Reform of Education 1

Romanian Minister of National Education since December 1997, the author, a distinguished professor of philosophy assumed his post with a mandate and the determination to bring about a massive reform of Romanian education at all levels in order to bring it into line with state‐of‐the‐art western European practice. What follows is a comprehensive report on the elaboration of the reform plan and its unfolding as of the summer of 1998.