The Role of Formal Education in Croatia in the Identity Process Formation

On June 1, 2016 more than 50,000 people across major Croatian cities protested in support of educational reform and the new curriculum. It was the culmination of a controversy over the design of curricular reform, which marked the public discussions in Croatia between 2015 and 2020. The public debate resulted in a strong polarization of attitudes in the political arena, as well as in the whole society towards the role and purpose of education. The main point of contention was the relation to modern history, which is interpreted as the basis of modern Croatian national identity. On one hand, the importance of including certain topics as compulsory educational content is emphasized, while on the other hand, there is an intention to give professors more freedom in the choice of content to be transmitted to students. This represents a continuation of the ideological conflict in the public space that has characterized the development of Croatian society since gaining independence in 1991. The basis of the conflict lies in different interpretations of World War II and the period of socialist Yugoslavia. It deepens further in different approaches to the analysis of the 1991-1995 war for independence, which is followed by disagreements about the strategies necessary to use in order to preserve the national identity in the context of EU membership and given the wider process of globalization. The latter has in recent years resulted in strong emigration of young people from Croatia, and on the other hand the increasing arrival of migrants from the Middle East within the European migrant crisis, which has opened a new area for a conflict. The aim of this paper is to analyse the discourse of political actors as well as interested public in the process of designing curricular reform. It is based on the analysis of reactions presented in the public debate that took place on Government of Croatia's online application "e-Consulting", as well as in the media, which will be contextualized by the analysis of key policy documents. According to the thesis, the research will confirm the importance that social actors attach to formal education in the identity process formation. In doing so, different approaches to the topic of national identity will be mapped and interpreted through the prism of the political and social positions from which individual actors operate. Within the interpretation we are going to contextualise our observations with the results of a survey taken among high school students across the Republic of Croatia (n = 2000) conducted as a part of the Cultural Heritage and Identities of Europe's Future project (Horizon 2020) and interviews with students (n =60) conducted at three locations (urban, semi-urban and rural) within the same project. This will allow us to make conclusions about the (in)validity of the theses presented in the discussions around curriculum reform.