Pedagogical Indoctrination in Romania. Perceptions of Pre-Service and In-Service Teachers

Formal education means, among other things, to influence learner’s minds through ideologies and doctrines. The connection between ideology and teaching is often theorized through the concept of pedagogical indoctrination, but empirical data on this phenomenon are missing. Acknowledging the crucial importance of indoctrination in school, the major purpose of this study was to empirically explore teachers’ and future teachers’ perceptions about pedagogical indoctrination in Romanian education system. Starting from two theoretical models of school indoctrination, we elaborated a self-report questionnaire, describing three dimensions and 17 behaviours that reflect indoctrinative teaching situations. 260 subjects, 171 undergraduate pre-service teachers and 89 in-service teachers from the North-Eastern region of Romania participated in the study. The results indicate that both in-service teachers and pre-service teachers acknowledge the existence of indoctrination in schools, yet the phenomenon is not perceived as widespread. However, further statistical analyse reveal significant difference between pre-service and in-service teachers’ perception about behavioural and dimensional indoctrinative teaching and learning. The age, the faculty profile and the residence add significant information about subjects’ representation of indoctrinative teaching in Romanian school system. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.