Doctoral Dissertation Research: Youth and Politics in Communist Romania (1980- 1989)

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This dissertation examines the effects of state controlled communist political socialization in communist totalitarian regimes. The research will take place in Romania and involves a triangulated and mixed methods research design consisting of archival research on the education curriculum, secondary data analysis of post-1989 surveys and approximately one hundred in-depth interviews with former high-school students and their teachers, focusing on the 1975-1989 interval. The interviews will be conducted in Bucharest and Cluj and will focus on the teaching and learning process as well as other relevant experiences of youth coming of age under communism. This project's broader impacts lie in its contribution to social science understanding of everyday life under socialism and the factors that led to its downfall. The research also seeks to address contemporary debates on the effectiveness of political socialization through research on a communist and totalitarian context, providing a necessary background and useful lessons for contemporary teaching of democratic civic education.