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Rethinking transition through ideas of “community” in Hungarian kindergarten curriculum

Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)Reading the Global in Comparative Education

ISBN: 978-0-85724-417-8, eISBN: 978-0-85724-418-5

Publication date: 13 December 2010

Abstract

This chapter provides a Foucauldian genealogical analysis of the concept of “community” in three curriculum documents signposting major changes in the conceptualization of kindergarten education in Hungary. Our approach is to closely examine the discourses of the core curriculum documents and their sociopolitical contexts in order to explore the shifts in the ideas of “community” and “communitarianism” contained within the texts, focusing particularly on the period of “transition” in Hungary. This chapter interrogates the shifting ideas of “community” and finds that the meaning of “transition” in the context of post-World War II (WWII) Hungary needs to be radically reassessed. Furthermore, the study suggests that the “transition” in Hungary has been in fact a drawn out process, one beginning well before the early 1990s and involving major reforms throughout the post-WWII period. By outlining the shifts in the conceptualizations of “community” embedded in kindergarten curriculum, the chapter explores what political problems were attempted to be solved through the changing conception of this early education. Furthermore, the study examines whether these reconceptualizations can be considered to be directly linked to the transition of particular political ideologies – from socialism to neoliberal capitalism – or rather, do they represent much smoother transitions to a new era after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Keywords

Citation

Millei, Z. and Imre, R.J. (2010), "Rethinking transition through ideas of “community” in Hungarian kindergarten curriculum", Silova, I. (Ed.) Post-Socialism is not Dead: (Re)Reading the Global in Comparative Education (International Perspectives on Education and Society, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 125-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000014008

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited