engleski

Minority education in Croatia: outline of the situation and its possible social consequences

Intention of the presentation is to give an insight into the sociohistorical legacy of the minority education in Croatia, contemporary organization of the minority education, to identify problems connected with it, and to present the results of the empirical research that are connected to the possible influence of the minority education upon majority-minority relations. Starting from the assumption that the present cannot be understood without taking into consideration the past, in the first part of the presentation changes of ethnic and religious structures of Croatia shall be placed within the given sociohistorical context, and briefly outlined the development of the minority education from the beginnings of compulsory education (in Croatia) in the 19th century until today. In the follow up, shall be presented three models of minority education that are in effect today in Croatia and complex problems connected to their realisation (from the possible segregation to interculturality). At last, by using the data obtained through the empirical research (survey), the existence of the right to the minority education shall be brought into correlation to the relation between ethnic majority and the minority groups. The survey was conducted in 2009 on representative sample of Croatian adult citizens with intention to examine the perception of the majority-minority relations as well as the perception of the importance of their institutional regulation. The results show that there is a difference among the members of the majority (Croats) and the members of the minority groups in their perception of minority-majority relations in general, and in some aspects with reference to the education, in particular. The main conclusion is that only in the interaction of all stakeholders is possible to organize education through which formal rights on ethnic, cultural and religious diversity would be fully recognized and, at the same time, created conditions for the emancipation of these diversities in the society.

minority education; ethnic diversity; cultural diversity; religious diversity; minority-majority relations; Croatia

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