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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 900 – 902

WCES 2014

Educational Actors’ Involvement In The Democratization

Process Of The Romanian Education System
Mariana Constantinescu a*
a
Assistant Student PhD, The Teacher Training Department,”Dunărea de Jos” University of Galaţi, str Garii, no 63-65, 800003

Abstract

The present study aimed to assess the educational actors’ attitude (students and teachers) from the pre-university educational
system. This investigation, analysis of attitudes and behaviours of both teachers and students, is required because of the
numerous implemented in the educational system. Research analyses revealed a tendency changes to conserve traditional aspects
among teachers over the age of 45, and a positive implementation of these reforms among actors under 45 years old. It was a real
challenge to analyse this path of reform implementation from its exposure to its materialization
©©2015
2014TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014
Keywords: educational reforms; educational actors; educational sistem; resistance to change;

1. Main text

The educational reforms and changes of the secondary education system have the following main objectives:
professionalizing through initial and continuing training, occupational redeployment, ensuring education quality and
educational decentralization. In order to achieve these objectives, educational reforms involve the implementation of
a set of principles, provisions, methodologies, actions, measures, institutional commitments and tools to ensure
achieving quality education and training processes at both the provider (institution, school ), as well as at the
system-wide.

*Mariana Constantinescu. Tel.:+04-072-675-0873; fax:+04-023- 613-0164.

E-mail address:arsenimariana@yahoo.com

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of WCES 2014
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.546
 Mariana Constantinescu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 900 – 902 901

The first aspect to point out from the beginning is that changes in the secondary education system, as well as the
educational reforms, meet the needs and the educational demands that both teachers and students have. This
‘change’ phenomenon is extremely complex because every change involves a profound transformation of a
particular balance system. Educational actors are the most important in this process of change because of their
beliefs, attitudes, ideologies and behaviours. In order to analyze the affective, cognitive and behavioural attitudes of
the educational actors (teachers and students) towards educational reforms, we meant to investigate and measure the
attitudes of both teachers and students in the secondary education system.
The methodology we applied in the present study is complex because we used a set of methods: analysis of
institutional reform documents, interviews with teachers and students, focus-group method, the questionnaire
investigation method etc.
The research highlights the fact that educational actors in the secondary education system (teachers and students)
are involved in the change process differently: accepts educational reforms, or denies the change. Ascertaining
approaches illustrate that actors’ personality is crucial for the implementation of educational reforms. Besides, there
were significant differences due to the actors’ age. Students represent the category that was more likely to change
and offered no resistance. They are the ones who readily accept their new life. They perceive and understand these
educational changes as needed for a good personal development and take an appropriate position in favour of
change. In addition, the other members of the same age group tend to adopt the same attitude. This tendency is the
key factor in changing attitudes and easily accepting the educational reforms in the secondary education system.
Due to this quantitative and qualitative analysis of the obtained data, some striking aspects should be mentioned:
60% of respondents with teaching status in the secondary education system were available, they wanted change, and
they readily accepted the educational reforms. These teachers were aged between 25 and 45 years old. In this
category of respondents, the change phenomenon is more marked because teachers had anticipated and even
struggled to change. They argue that the changes meet the educational agents’ needs and even the society’s demands
as a whole. This has led to a rapid acceptance of the change. An intrinsic and positive motivation can be observed,
as well as an affective and cognitive attitude that lead to the implementation of new instructional methods and
strategies. A slight increase in the job satisfaction coefficient was easy to observe. I was surprised to see that most of
these respondents were still committed to optimizing the reform. 30% of respondents with teaching status in the
secondary education system stated the desire for change, but when they had to adopt new behaviours, to change
certain strategies, to use modern methods, they were reserved. When they had to adopt new behaviours and abandon
habits and stereotypes, or change the context, they were afraid of the new experiences and psychological discomfort
that arise from several associated aspects. This tendency towards conservation was intensively motivated by
examples. Because of the qualitative assessment of the arguments mentioned by the respondents, we could say that
the resistance to change is derived from the desire to maintain balance, consistency, status and competence already
acquired. They listed many personal successes and students’ performances. These teachers display an unhealthy
amount of overconfidence in themselves, as well as aspects of vanity. 10% of respondents are resistant to change
and adopt a neutral stance, refusing to change not to disrupt their balance. It can be observed, in this group, a lack of
informational support regarding educational reforms. These respondents exaggerated when they brought forward too
many examples of students’ performances. They used expressions showing respect for their own achievements,
successes in their personal life and profound respect for the “classical pedagogy” every time they were interviewed.
The effect of this change process has triggered feelings of anxiety and deep nostalgia in them. These issues provide
identity and meaning, but all these are in contradiction with the change. Regarding the resistance to change of this
category of respondents, another possible cause that generates and feeds it may derive from their dependence on
originally acquired (through education) concepts. This aspect is far more difficult and it is known to be much easier
to create new attitudes than to change old attitudes. Furthermore, another factor that caused resistance to change is
the lack of trust in others and sometimes even in themselves. Most of the respondents in this category had a neutral,
ambivalent attitude. They directly stated this, recognizing the inability to define a clear attitude, this being a reason
for refusing the alternative. This negative reaction, named by some social psychologists reactance or negative
attitudinal change, is related to the respondents’ judgments. In some cases, these issues were spontaneous, in other
circumstances they have been very carefully developed with arguments like: “hidden intentions of change”,
“personal attacks on the freedom to think, evaluate and act'”. This study certifies the idea that educational actors, i.e.
the respondents, who are exposed to the change, process the information and elaborate cognitive, affective and
behavioural responses, depending on their interests, prior attitudes, reference groups, the specific context in which
the educational reform is analyzed and age features. Apart from these issues, we might add the specific capabilities
902 Mariana Constantinescu / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 191 (2015) 900 – 902

and intellectual concerns that everyone might have. These have a relatively high contribution and are meant to direct
the individual towards change or resistance to change.

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