Abstract
This chapter is based on research concerning changes in the educational approach to ethnic and cultural diversity in relation to substantial social changes in nationally/ethnically and culturally plural Croatian society. The analysis deals with the three multinational states in which Croatia was incorporated, and it shows that, despite significant changes in the political and ideological framework, the culturally pluralistic approach to education in Croatian schools sustained a certain continuity. Although each type of state treated the ethnic minorities differently, they were officially recognized and formally equal. The aim of this chapter is to discuss and/or open discussions on the following topics: Under what circumstances and in what forms did cultural plurality in education occur? Is it possible to learn from these experiences and to use that knowledge in new integration processes?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The analytical unit in this chapter is Croatia (in its present borders), and this concept will be used for all periods and state framework(s) through which Croatia has passed. Croatia was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until its break-up in 1918; later, until World War II, the country was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia , and finally it was included in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, until the latter’s disintegration in 1991.
- 2.
The Monarchy was divided into an Austrian and a Hungarian part, and the Croatian lands found themselves under both administrations. Istria and Dalmatia were under Austrian administration, the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia had a particular type of self-rule within the Hungarian part of the Monarchy, Međimurje and Baranja were under direct Hungarian rule, as was the city of Rijeka, which had a special status. The Military Frontier, until its demilitarization in 1881, when it was incorporated into the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia, was under specific Austrian military administration.
- 3.
Here we will be dealing with the territory of present-day Croatia without Istria, Zadar, and several islands that were given to Italy in the peace treaty following World War I.
- 4.
Croatia , in its present borders, was one of the federal republics of Socialist Yugoslavia , and was defined in its last Constitution from that period (1974) as “the nation state of the Croat people, the state of the Serb people in Croatia and the state of the nationalities that live in it.”
- 5.
The question of ethnic affiliation was posed in censuses during the eighteenth century. The census of 1857 is considered the first modern census in the Habsburg Monarchy, but it only posed the question of religious confession. Later censuses asked respondents to declare their mother tongue and confession, and it is therefore possible, on the basis of these data, to estimate ethnic affiliation. From 1948 onwards, respondents could choose to declare or not to declare their ethnic affiliation.
- 6.
The Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities of 2002 regulated the rights of 22 recognized national minorities in Croatia .
- 7.
If we recall Thomas’s study of Polish peasants, education first has to become a general phenomenon before the peasants can recognize its usefulness in people’s lives. Only then can it be accepted by the conservative village environment (see Thomas 1966).
- 8.
This increase in the school population is considered a result of the First School Law (1874), the first modern Croatian autonomous legal act, which applied to the territory of the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia. Whereas, for example, during the absolutist period, in the 1850s, only about 30% of all persons obliged to attend school in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia actually did so (Gross 1985, p. 288), in the school year 1885/1886 this percentage rose to 63.6% (Statistički podatci o stanju pučkoga školstva… 1887, p. 36).
- 9.
The constitutive Yugoslav peoples were Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Muslims (after the break-up of Yugoslavia —Bosniaks), Serbs, and Slovenes.
- 10.
Material concerning the history, geography, literature, art, and music of all constitutive Yugoslav peoples was added to the curriculum, although it was not equally represented. In the 1980s the political elite assessed that it was necessary to increase the level of unity, and thus prescribed an obligatory “common core” of material that was to be introduced into the curricula in all Yugoslav republics (Socijalistički samoupravni preobražaj odgoja i obrazovanja … 1985).
- 11.
Archer distinguishes two strategies for reducing the monopoly of dominant groups in education: the substitutive and the restrictive strategy. By changing regulations in a restrictive manner, the monopoly of the dominant group is reduced through force, not through competition (Archer 1979). The main factor that enables a group to apply restrictive policies is that it has access, to a certain degree, to the state’s legislative mechanisms.
- 12.
Examples of such consequences can also be found in the Croatian school system, although available analyses primarily deal with the present period (see NDC… 2005), which is not treated in this chapter.
- 13.
The effect of schools on shaping identity is weaker than the effect that factors of primary socialization have on the individual (Berger and Luckmann 1966). In connection with this, the relative success of separate minority schools in nurturing and preserving ethnic identities in the Croatian school system can be explained precisely by the connection between factors of primary socialization, the schools and the state, which through legislative means regulated and institutionalized the visibility of ethnic minorities, and in so doing designated separate identity as a social value.
References
Abdallah-Pretceille, M. (1999). L’éducation interculturelle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Archer, M. S. (1979). Social origins of educational systems. London: Sage.
Archer, M. S. (1983). Process without system. Archives européennes de sociologie, 24(1), 196–221.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality. Garden City: Doubleday.
Brubaker, R. (2000). Accidental diasporas and external ‘homelands’ in Central and Eastern Europe: Past and present. Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies (Political Science Series 71). http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/brubaker/Publications/19_Accidental_Diasporas.pdf.
Čačić-Kumpes, J. (2004). Multiculturality in Croatian education. In M. Mesić (Ed.), Perspectives of multiculturalism – Western and transitional countries (pp. 315–329). Zagreb: Faculty of Philosophy Press & Croatian Commission for UNESCO.
Čop, M. (1988). Riječko školstvo (1848–1918). Rijeka: Izdavački centar Rijeka.
Cтaтиcтикa шкoлa пoд Mиниcтapcтвoм пpocвете нa дaн 15 мaja 1932 гoд. (Изpaдиo H. C. Tyjкoвић). (1933). Бeoгpaд: Mиниcтapcтвo пpocвeтe Кpaљeвинe Jyrocлaвиje.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: Macmillan.
Димић, Љ. (1997). Култуpнa пoлитикa у Кpaљeвини Jугocлaвиjи 1918–1941 (Vols. 2–3). Бeoгpaд: Cтубoви култуpe.
Eriksen, T. H. (2002). Ethnicity and nationalism (2nd ed.). London: Pluto Press.
Franković, D. et al. (1958). Povijest školstva i pedagogije u Hrvatskoj. Zagreb: Pedagoško-književni zbor.
Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Green, A. (1990). Education and state formation: The rise of education systems in England, France and the USA. London: Macmillan Press.
Gross, M. (1985). Počeci moderne Hrvatske: Neoapsolutizam u civilnoj Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji 1850–1860. Zagreb: Globus.
Gross, M. (1988). Zakon o osnovnim školama 1874. i srpsko pravoslavno školstvo. In Zbornik radova o povijesti i kulturi srpskog naroda u Socijalističkoj Republici Hrvatskoj, Vol. 1 (pp. 75–117). Zagreb: JAZU.
Hallinan, M. T. (2000). On the linkages between sociology of race and ethnicity and sociology of education. In M. T. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 65–84). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Heršak, E. (1993). Panoptikum migracija. Migracijske teme, 9(3–4), 227–302.
Hobsbawm, E. J. (1975). The age of capital: 1848–1875. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Hroch, M. (1985). Social preconditions of national revival in Europe: A comparative analysis of the social composition of patriotic groups among the smaller European nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iz statistike o pučkoj školi. (1909). Narodna prosvjeta, 4.
Klodič-Sabladoski, A. (1910). Povijest školstva u austrijskom Primorju [Istra]. Narodna prosvjeta, 5.
Kokolj, M., & Horvat, B. (1977). Prekmursko šolstvo: Od začetka reformacije do zloma nacizma. Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba.
Macartney, C. A. (1934). National states and national minorities. London: Oxford University Press.
Mann, M. (1998). The sources of social power: Vol. 2. The rise of classes and nation-states, 1760–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Naredba od 24. kolovoza 1875. broj 2949., kojom se izdaju naukovne osnove za obće pučke i gradjanske škole u kraljevinah Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji. (1875). Zagreb: Tiskara “Narodnih novinah”.
Narodnosni i vjerski sastav stanovništva Hrvatske 1880–1991. po naseljima, Vols. 1–5. J. Gelo et al. (Eds.) (1998). Zagreb: Državni zavod za statistiku Republike Hrvatske.
Nastavni plan i program za osnovne škole Kraljevine Jugoslavije. (1933). Zagreb: St. Kugli.
NDC—Nansen dijalog centar. (2005). Ispitivanje odnosa roditelja prema kvaliteti osnovnog školovanja njihove djece u Vukovaru: Izvješće o kvalitativnom istraživanju. Osijek. http://www.ndcosijek.hr/pdf/istrazivanje.pdf
Osnovna škola. Odgojno-obrazovna struktura [1959]. (1960). Zagreb: Školska knjiga.
Pan, Ch., & Pfeil, B. S. (2003). National minorities in Europe: Handbook. Wien: W. Braumüller.
Queiroz, J.-M. de. (1995). L’école et ses sociologies. Paris: Nathan.
Robertson, S., & Dale, R. (2008). Researching education in a globalising era: Beyond methodological nationalism, methodological statism, methodological educationism and spatial fetishism. In J. Resnik (Ed.), The production of educational knowledge in the global era (pp. 19–32). Rotterdam: Sense.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1985). The Government of Poland. (trans. W. Kendall). Indianapolis: Hackett (Original work published 1782 [1771]).
Schnapper, D. (1991). La France de l’intégration: Sociologie de la nation en 1990. Paris: Gallimard.
Schnapper, D. (1994). La communauté des citoyens: Sur l’idée moderne de nation. Paris: Gallimard.
Smith, A. D. (1983). Theories of nationalism (2nd ed.). New York: Holmes & Meier.
Socijalistički samoupravni preobražaj odgoja i obrazovanja u SR Hrvatskoj 1974–1984. (1985). Zagreb: Školska knjiga.
Školstvo u Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji od njegova početka do konca god. 1895. uz pregled humanitarnih i kulturnih zavoda. (1896). Zagreb: Kr. Hrv.-Slav.-Dalm. Zem. vlada.
Statistički godišnjak Republike Hrvatske. (1991). Zagreb: Republički zavod za statistiku Republike Hrvatske.
Statistički ljetopis. (2008). http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/ljetopis/2008/PDF/26-bind.pdf.
Statistički podatci o stanju pučkoga školstva u Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji svršetkom školske godine 1885/6. (1887). Službeni glasnik kr. hrv. slav. dalm. zemaljske vlade, odjela za bogoštovje i nastavu, komad III, 31. ožujka 1887, pp. 23–53.
Thomas, W. I. (1966). On social organization and social personality. Selected papers. M. Janowits (Ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
White paper on intercultural dialogue “Living together as equals in dignity.” (2008). Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Čačić-Kumpes, J. (2012). Social Change and Minority Education: A Sociological and Social Historical View on Minority Education in Croatia. In: Bekerman, Z., Geisen, T. (eds) International Handbook of Migration, Minorities and Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1466-3_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1466-3_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-1465-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-1466-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)