Dr. Stefan Popenici

From January 2001 until July 2002, Stefan Popenici was an advisor to the Minister of Education and Research on matters of educational politics and sciences and on relations with national educational institutions. He now serves as a researcher for the Institute for Educational Sciences, Bucharest. He was previously an associate lecturer in the Department of Communication and Public Relations at Bucharest University and an associate professor of educational politics at the University "Al. I. Cuza," Iasi. Dr. Popenici holds a Ph.D. in educational sciences, completed in 2001, from Bucharest University. The title of his thesis is Educational Imagery: A study on Romanian Fairy Tales.

Abstract:
Teaching responsible citizenship through imagination and narrative mythological structures

Education is placed nowadays in a new social, cultural and institutional context were the monopoly of public education was broken and partially replaced by the formative actions of mass media, television, street-culture, and computer games. The new social and cultural realities of our new century overwhelm public education's paradigms and reveal the incapacity of the school to offer attractive and alive role models. However, profit oriented industries cannot be responsible from an educational and moral point of view.

We need a new narrative context for citizenship education, more attractive and comprehensive in order to have a real influence in the student's beliefs and behaviors. Moral and civic virtues can be enlightened in a story where the lecturer is actively involved: restorying the educational narratives using the power of mythical narrative structures. Fairy tales - a possible source for alternative stories - imagine the journey of a very serious and responsible adventure, which comes, in fact, to scenery of a moral and knowledge profound initiation. These educational-narrative mythical structures embody the archetypes of human experience in the purest, barest and most concentrated form.

Education for values and responsible citizenship can apply the results of a profound study on these imaginative pedagogical archetypes. This perspective can offer a real alternative for a new generation that is facing the explosion of uncontrolled and often disruptive educational influences wrapped in the attractive package used by the industries of the informational age.

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