Education and National Identity. The Local Cultural Heritage and its Effects Upon Present Local educAtional Policies in Arad County from Romania

AbstractThe study is focused upon the concept of local cultural heritage from Arad county in Romania. It opens a debate upon an issue which was little investigated in Romania: the impact of local cultural legacy upon the concept of national identity. This cultural heritage was created for the future generations by some leading scholars from Arad county in Romania, scholars which in the past played a key role in building Romania as a unitary and national state. This legacy had a direct impact upon the concept of national identity on the level of educational policies and also upon the issue of multiculturalism. We used a combined empirical and historical method whit the purpose of disclosing palpable effects at some local educational policies from the present Arad county in Romania. These effects, as we discovered, have solid roots in Vasile Goldiş thought. We argue that for the actual European debate upon the integration process is crucial to understand the fact that the goal of maintaining national identity at cultural and educational levels could be achieved significantly easy by accepting the visions of those who contributed in the past in the building of some present national states from Europe. These visions, we argue, are compatible with the concept of Euro region. However, the results shows that in the near future will be necessary, on the one hand, to consolidate the actual achievements and, on the other, also will be necessary a strong process of decentralization the political decision about educational policies at the Euro regional level