A comparative study on education for democratic citizenship (EDC) competences in the Icelandic and Romanian context

Abstract

This comparative study has a two-fold aim. On the one hand, it provides a description of the national educational framework – legislative provisions, institutional strategies and policies – and the regional and local practices regarding the presence of Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) competences in the educational process. On the other hand, it brings together two educational systems that share a full commitment to European values and principles, but which are based on historically different and distant cultures. More specifically, this research starts from the presentation of EDC in the two contexts, comparing the presence of the EDC competences in policy and strategy documents, academic curricula and syllabi of study programmes relevant for EDC, focusing on the role and importance of education as a site of learning for democratic citizenship. Overall, it capitalizes the results obtained in the joint research work carried out within the international joint project “A Comparative and Transferable Approach to Education for Democratic Citizenship (ACTA)”, funded under the EEA Grants - Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 and implemented during September 2018-April 2020 by the University of Craiova, in partnership with the University of Iceland and Bifröst University.