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Volume 3 / Issue 5/ 2016 

 

 

99 

 

The European Dimension of Education – axiological 

component of the European educational policies 
           

 

Corina Gheorghiu 

”Ștefan cel Mare” University of Suceava 

corinagheorghiu2003@yahoo.com 

 

 

 

Abstract 

The axiological dimension of the curriculum supposes on the one hand the spreading of some 

specific internal values and on the other hand the potentiality of connecting and giving a meaning to the 

external values, to the totally different cultural and social stimuli.   

 

Keywords: values and attitudes, European dimension of education, European citizenship 

 

In the last decades of the 20
th
 century, by changing the priorities in the classical triad of the 

educational goals (knowledge, abilities, skills, habits, attitudes) advanced by the teacher G. Văideanu 

during his activity under the UNESCO aegis, there has been put an emphasis on the importance of the 

final component values and attitudes, in the compulsory structure of the curriculum, in the European 

context. (G.Văideanu, 1988, p. 82). 

The International Commission on Education for the 21
st
 century in its Report to UNESCO 

warned that the future of the mankind depends on the options which the individuals make from the 

values perspective, options which are generated essentially in the context of the formal education.   

             Consequently, the axiological climate feeds the educational goals consistently, imprinting them 

with a specific dynamic which contaminates all the other components of the curriculum, contents, 

didactic strategies and assessment.   

 

              The educational European programmes planned for the next years, reflect the concern for 

promoting the European values along with the economy globalization and the knowledge society.  

In an epilogue of the Commission Report, Z. Nanzhao makes an inventory of the values which 

have to be formed through the curricular contents in order to build a global moral profile:  

 Being conscious about the human rights, supported by the social responsibility feeling; 

▪ Appreciating the idea of social equality and democratic participation in the process of 

governing and taking decisions; 

▪ Understanding and tolerating the cultural differences and the pluralism, a fundamental 

condition for the social cohesion; 

▪ A spirit of being open towards the otherness; 

▪ Having a spirit of collaboration in the context of promoting a strong solidarity towards the 

world’s problems; 

▪ Entrepreneurial spirit, both on the economic market and in everyday life; 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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▪ Openness towards the idea of non discrimination of the gender, considered as both goal 

and way towards the human development; 

▪ Receptivity and openness towards change (J. Delors, 2000, pp. 213 – 214).      

              An important problem in this context is how students with different cultural backgrounds, who 

don’t share the same values, can learn to integrate?  The first answer is that these students have to be 

educated through values and co(shared) ethical principles, associated with the multiculturalism, the 

human rights, the solidarity and the social cohesion  (Robert Fullinwider, 1996, Gutmann, 1996, Taylor, 

1992). These aspects must be found in the teachers’ training as well as in the curricular design. 

Furthermore, the democratic education, the education for the human rights, the intercultural education 

and the education for a global citizenship, as premises for forming the global citizenship, built up on 

solid ethical principles and shared human values can also be feasible solutions.  

 

               In 1988, a resolution was adopted by the European Council whose general purpose was the 

development of the European dimension of education through which the young generation has to 

assume a European identity and become familiar with the values of the European culture and 

civilization (CEC, 1988).           

           Even since the first use of the concept the European dimension of education, in the Council 

Resolution of the European Ministries of Education from 1976, it has gone, as M. Vorbeck (2000) 

declared, beyond the study of the European Union’s institutions. In the quoted meeting it was stated the 

necessity to confirm the European dimension as an integrated part in forming the European 

citizenship by developing the intercultural skills at the level of the relationships and interpersonal 

communication.      

 

            The European dimension of education was present as a concept persistently and more constantly 

in the vocabulary of the European educational policies, at the end of the 80’s. In the beginning, in the 

articles 149-150 of the European Union Agreement, it referred to the efforts of mutual contact or to the 

common exchanges and projects concluded by the institutions of the compulsory education from the 

countries of the European Union. Obviously, it was about a “European extension of the state policies” 

because education and training were supervised on a national scale.  Thus, the European dimension 

was becoming an auxiliary feature of the state policies in the education field, associated with more 

openness and cooperation within the European space.    

 

             Another step of this evolution corresponds to the political changes from 1989. All the European 

countries became members of the European Council, a Pan-European organisation, totally different 

from the European Union. Consequently, the meaning of the European dimension widened 

significantly, the European dimension becoming a common goal for all the educational systems in 

Europe, enhanced by the three values which offered an identity to the European Council, such as 

human rights, pluralism and rule of law.     

 

             Beginning with 1993, in the Charter of the New Europe, adopted at the same time with the 

Maastricht Treaty, the concept was processed, getting the meaning of:  

 Education in Europe, asserting itself as belonging to a common cultural space;    

 Education about Europe referring to the contents and the subjects which study the 

different aspects of the European civilization; 



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 Education for Europe aiming to form the identity and the European citizenship. 

            Another important step in the evolution of the European dimension was marked by the closeness 

of the two zones of European concern, the European Union and the European Council, especially after 

the considerable extension of both organizations. It can be noticed that during this phase, the European 

dimension was becoming the way of being for the European educational systems.    

            It has to be mentioned that beginning with the year 2000, the European Commission adopted a 

series of recommendations concerning the promotion within each European state of an education which 

encourages, through goals, contents and methodological approaches, common European values. In 

this context there has also been asserted the necessity of a democratic education. The first common 

educational dimensions, provided by the European documents, were the education for democracy, life-

long learning and the intercultural education.   

            Christine Winter identified the key-words through which the European dimension of education 

becomes operational, these being, in most cases, values and important messages bearers: culture, 

division, communities, empathy, cooperation, respect, geography, tradition, partnership, globalism, 

freedom, understating, common patrimony, tolerance, positive attitudes, solidarity, identity, exchange, 

justice, integration, multiculturalism, politics, impregnation, interculturality, sensitivity, openness, 

citizenship, civic sense.  

            Other important terms in order to define the concept of the European dimension are:  

▪ European culture;  

▪ European consciousness, meaning the feeling of belonging to a common civilisation; 

▪ European citizenship, considered as a result of the education construction within the 

European space; 

▪ European society, for which the European Council was submitting in 1996 a series of 

common values such as: human rights, human dignity, democratic legitimacy, pluralism, 

diplomacy, dialogue, human solidarity, equality of chances, individual responsibility (R. 

Tudorică, 2004, p. 27). 

             

  In the European educational context there was underlined especially the sense which explains the 

European dimension of education as an orientation of the educational policy having the purpose of 

training and developing the personality according to the European values. The European dimension of 

education is also defined in the European context as a common feature of the educational European 

systems, as a common project which takes into account the democracy, the pluralism and the 

intercultural approach of the diversity (R. Chivu, 2008, p. 15). 

 

            In the curriculum structure, the European dimension is a part which is carried out by 

transmitting knowledge, shaping skills, values and attitudes, through some specific subjects or by 

promoting the cross-curricular approaches, aiming at the education according to the European 

values.  

 

            A lot of reports from different countries concerning the education, and didactic principles (Eşi, 

2010, 41-50) supervised by the European organisations show the development degree of the European 

dimension of education, as a goal oriented towards values in the structure of the compulsory curriculum: 

In Lithuania, for example, the new curricular features for the primary and secondary level of the 

compulsory education aim to synchronize with the European cultural heritage. The syllabuses for civic, 



International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

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ecological or moral education concur to the implementation of the values and to the training of the 

skills connected with the European dimension of education (Z. Jackunas). 

In Slovenia, on the topic of the European dimension of the curriculum there were introduced 

contents concerning the humanist values, including: the human rights, the respect for the others, the 

tolerance, the education for peace and cooperation, the gender equality, the concern for the 

environment, etc.  The idea of a European curriculum was applied in study fields such as: history, 

geography, arts, civic education (D. Piciga, 1995, p. 38). 

 

In Switzerland, at the Conference of the Districts’ Managers, the economic managers of the 

public districts adopted two important recommendations which aim to structure a federal educational 

frame. They tried to cover the following aspects of education: values, history, cultural heritage, 

common shared future, etc. They encouraged the internal and external exchanges in the education field 

(R. Sauthier, 1995, p. 37). 

 

In the Netherlands, The Resolution of the Ministries of Education from the European 

Community was followed by the proposal of creating a national common platform for all the educational 

activities which include important features for the development of the European dimension of 

education in the structure of the compulsory curriculum (K. Broekhof, 1995, p. 41). 

 

In England, understanding and applying the European dimension of the education was inserted 

in all the structures of the curriculum (J. Singh, 1995, p. 29). 

In Ireland, the new curriculum for the secondary compulsory education enhances the presence 

of the European dimension in the cross-curricular themes. Consequently, there was promoted an 

important number of curricular projects carried out in partnerships with other European countries (J. 

Koolahan, 1995, pp. 35-36). 

 

In Scotland, the introduction of  the European dimension has the highest degree of success there 

where the direct experience is put into practice. One can understand that the connections between the 

schools of the countries members of the European union, the use of the didactic materials from abroad, 

the face to face contact with people from other countries, the use of the modern communication 

technologies, support a high European integration  (J.Mitchell, 1996, p. 56). 

 

In Denmark, one of the benefits for promoting the European dimension was to strengthen the 

importance of the inter and transdisciplinary approaches within the compulsory education. On the 

other hand, there was increased the importance of the extracurricular activities in order to promote the 

European dimension. The exchanges between schools and groups of students were appreciated at an 

international level, so that each student of the secondary education must participate in a study visit 

during his three years of compulsory secondary education.  

 

In other European countries, there are fewer opportunities from this perspective and we consider 

here especially the countries from the Central and Eastern Europe. The geographic distance or the lack 

of consistent contacts with the schools from the Western European countries, still determine low 

performances regarding the European dimension of education. 

 



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             The European dimension of education becomes subsequently, in a continuous and systematic 

manner a basic component of the European educational policies, with important value accents through 

which one aims at the training of the European citizens, with a European identity, able to manage a 

European society. Due to its nature, based on openness, cooperation, interculturality and innovation, 

this component represents an important feature for the curricular reforms all over Europe.      

             The project of the European Constitution, adopted by consensus by the European Convention in 

2003, advanced the idea of rendering substance and motivation to the European model, through values. 

Europe has always been a global, over national project, a synthesis of four essentially European values– 

Germanic freedom, Roman order, Christian faith and Greek thinking, the European Union being 

created on the values of the human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, cohesion, legality and 

human rights.  

 

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3. Bîrzea, C., 2005, Cetăţenia europeană, Editura Politeia – SNSPA, Bucureşti 

 

4. Carnoy, M., 1999, Mondialisation et reforme de l’éducation: ce que les planificateurs 

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