Constructing the role of schools in educating for democratic citizenship through cross-cultural experiences: A case study of five Polish educators

Following the fall of communism in 1989, Poland began the process of evaluating and redesigning its social, political, and economic underpinnings in a democratic light. One aspect of this process was to redefine citizenship education through a collaborative, multi-faceted educational project between the Polish Ministry of National Education and the Mershon Center of The Ohio State University.; As a part of the project, five Polish teacher educators came to The Ohio State University for 14 weeks in the fall of 1992 to write the draft of a preservice teacher education course plan entitled "Schools and Democratic Society." This study focused on the cross-cultural experiences of the Polish educators while in the United States.; As Project Coordinator, the author's proximity to the respondents allowed him to conduct a naturalistic study with a hermeneutic approach to the Polish educators' changing superordinate constructs of the role of schools in educating for democratic citizenship. He gathered qualitative data through interviews, observations, reflective journals written by the Poles and himself, and project documents. George Kelly's theory of personal constructs acted as the framework for data analysis.; Three major categories, or sub-constructs, emerged from the data that related to the Polish educators' superordinate constructions of the role of schools in educating for democratic citizenship. These categories were knowledge, skills, and attitudes. This report contains case studies of the five Polish educators' changing constructs.; The findings of the study indicated that (a) the Polish educators pre-existing knowledge of democratic theory was greater than anticipated; (b) their abstractions from their cross-cultural experiences concentrated on skill and attitude development as a requirement for schooling in a developing democracy; and (c) their previous experiences in a communist society influenced their changing constructs.; The findings of this study offer recommendations for public policy makers in Central and Eastern European Ministries of National Education and for American public policy makers as they consider future collaboration on educational projects aimed at accelerating democratic citizenship education in post-communist societies. Additionally, the findings indicate the values and limitations of naturalistic inquiry and personal construct theory in cross-cultural psychological research.