The values of 21st-Century Primary-School Teachers

The study of the values guiding and supporting the activity of primary-school teachers is highly relevant for their initial and continuous training process, as well as for the formative impact of their activity in building the personality of lower elementary students. The identification of the values held by primary-school teachers and relating them to the time of their initial training (before or after 1989, the year of social, political and economic change in Romania) may highlight the presence/absence of relevant differences in their axiological systems. The study aims at discovering whether there may be highlighted a structured set of values cherished by primary-school teachers. The specific hypothesis is the following: are there any relevant differences between the values representing the teachers trained before 1989 and those trained after 1989? The main method we have used was the questionnaire-based inquiry. The questionnaire was applied during the 2013-2014 school year. We investigated a group of 200 subjects, primary-school teachers, from the rural and urban environment. The processing and interpretation of results will enable the formulation of conclusions regarding the socio-cultural impact of the (explicit and implicit) values supported by the initial training programmes of primary-school teachers in Romania, before and after 1989, as well as the formulation of concrete suggestions for integrating the axiological dimensions, respectively the axiology of education, at the level of the elements of initial and continuous training of primary-school teachers.