This book provides an unconventional account of post-1989 education reform in Romania. By
drawing on policy documentation interviews with key players qualitative data from everyday
school contexts and extensive textbook analysis this groundbreaking study explores change
within the Romanian education system as a process that institutionalises world culture through
symbolic mediation of the concept 'Europe'. The book argues that the education system's
structural and organisational evolution through time is decoupled from its self-depiction by
ultimately serving a nation-building agenda. It does so despite notable changes in the
discourse reflecting increasingly transnational definitions of the mission of the school in the
post-1989 era. The book also suggests that the notions of 'nation' and 'citizen'
institutionalised by the school are gradually being redefined as cosmopolitan matching
post-war patterns of post-national affiliations on a worldwide level.
