Literature as identity educational strategy in the globalization age

After 1989, the educational policies entailed by the curricula of the ex-communist countries have been fundamentally reorganized to focus the drastic change enhanced by the deep educational reform, from the institutional structure up to the curricular desiderates. Inevitably, these specific reformatory laws have changed the identity perspective on the educational process itself, even if these - sometimes over belaboured - turns in focus have not always echoed positive values. This study points out the transformation carried out by the Romanian educational system after 1989, with a special focus on the principles and policies applied to the identity-oriented education and its future consequences. Within the Romanian cultural space, the causes of these changes have two main motifs. On the one hand, there is the globalisation phenomenon denoting an integration process, including that of the educational systems also. In Romania, even if the political national reactions to these integrative acts should have been highly institutionalised, the official attitude tends to get excessively cosmopolite, distorting the main two key-elements of the identity-focused education process: the Romanian history and literature. On the other hand, the perspective on the national literature in the Post-War period displayed the general opinion according to which it is nothing but the product of the political commandment serving the communist nationalism overruling in the last two decades of the totalitarian regime. Out of the juncture of these two factors, the educational status of the Romanian literature dramatically changes as it constantly loses both its aesthetic values of forming human personalities and its role played in maintaining the identity desiderates, absolutely necessary when coping with the "global village" reality (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Ayse Cakir Ilhan