EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL SPACE

EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION IN THE ROMANIAN SOCIAL SPACE R ducan Ramona Tibiscus University, Faculty of Psyhology, Address: Str. Daliei nr. 1/A, 300558 Timisoara, Romania, E-mail: ramona.lungu@yahoo.com, Phone: +40 202931/119, 202932/119 Popovici Adina West University of Timisoara, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Address: Strada I.H. Pestalozzi 16, 300115 Timisoara, Romania, E-mail: adinap_12@yahoo.com, adina.popovici@fse.uvt.ro, Phone: +40 256 592562 Cisma Laura Mariana West University of Timisoara, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Address: Strada I.H. Pestalozzi 16, 300115 Timisoara, Romania, E-mail: laura13cismas@yahoo.com, laura.cismas@fse.uvt.ro, Phone: +40 256 592562 R ducan Radu Tibiscus University, Faculty of Psyhology, Address: str. Daliei nr. 1/A, 300558 Timisoara, Romania, rraducan@net89.dnttm.ro; rraducan@yahoo.com, Phone: +40 256/202931; +40 0256/202932 Communication in a psycho-pedagogical context is influenced by three major factors: similarity, proximity and group integration. Educational communication lies at the junction between a scientific discourse and an artistical one, because the teacher is also an actor who plays his part so well, that spectators are interested in his performance not only during the ongoing course, but also during the ones that are to follow. Wherever he comes from, the Romanian person can be kind and gentle, hospitable, faithful, and so in love with the nature to the point that the two cannot be separated. Predisposed to meditate, to philosophize, faithful, bold and courageous, silent sometimes, but voluble other times, able to overcome many obstacles, with an extraordinary sense of humour, any Romanian listens with great pleasure to a story and immediately looks for its meanings, respects other people and likes to be respected, and is also endowed by nature with the ability of building beauty. Key words: education, communication, the Romanian social space, the Romanian culture Intercultural educational communication Culture, in any of its meanings, as a process, product or behaviour, fulfils important functions in the formation of man and mankind itself. In this paper, our goal is to present two of them: the function of acquisition of socially useful information, on one side, and the function of communication, on the other side, both within the educational system. Looking at the educational phenomenon from the perspective of interculture leads to its finality: the free, complete and harmonious development of human individuality, the formation of autonomous and creative personality (The Law of Education, no.84/1995). If the subject of knowledge interacts with the values of the cultural patrimonium such as knowledge, capacity, competence, and if the performance of the social factor from the teacher's side is influenced directly by the subject s cultural level, it follows that the educational level can not be separated from the cultural level, just as education forms the individual for himself within social relations systems. Thus, the educational curriculum is permanently configured by general beliefs, norms, activities, institutions and communicational patterns, generally reunited under the name of culture. Intercultural education has the goal of making educated people sensitive to respecting diversity, tolerance, solidarity, all of this with a generous purpose: the harmonious life of (present or future) citizens in multicultural societies. This form of education is not to not be mistaken for the amelioration of emigrants 542

integration, or for the courses which consist of presenting their cultures and language exercise. In other words, it does not imply the positive discrimination of minorities. Moreover, intercultural education has two major objectives: promoting and developing respect for cultural diversity and making the educational institution an intercultural one. Strategies or ways of materializing intercultural education in educational institutions have been developed, among which the professor s adhesion to the values of interculturality plays a central part. Such values are: acceptance of cultural diversity, freedom of choice, praising what one does, implication in action, tolerance, non-violence, self-respect and respect for others alike, empathy, negotiation, cooperation, ability to overcome preconceptions and stereotypes, equality of chances. Why is it so difficult to accept cultural diversity? Social psychology may have an answer. Because of the fact that sometimes cultures differ a lot, it becomes difficult for an individual to completely understand foreign cultural aspects, since he lies under the influence of his own cultural identity. This presents unique culture-specific models of behaviour, which are foreign to people from other cultural environments (Giddens, 2000, p.32). The individual defines himself as a factor of belonging or reference to a given social category and acknowledges its stereotypes, his social identity being a part of his self-conception. The feeling of identity and the self-perception as being different from other members of society lies at the foundation of this difficult tolerance for other people. As if being different one from another as individuals wouldn t be enough, people are also different as groups of individuals. Communication in a psycho-pedagogical context is influenced by three major factors: similarity (persons who find themselves in similar social-educational situations, who share the same interests, activities etc, stand a higher and more acute communicational probability); group integration (intercommunication is easier within the group than between groups, especially because, within a certain group, the status and parts are more clearly outlined); proximity (the possibility of interconnection and communication in the case of persons who are close to one another increases, as compared to them being separated). Social communication plays a fundamental part in the exchanges and interactions which prefigure the setting-up of a consensus-based universe. It represents, in its interindividual, institutional and mediatical aspects, a condition of representation and outlining of social thinking. 85. Educational communication lies at the junction between a scientific discourse and an artistical one, because the teacher is also an actor who plays his role so well, that spectators are interested in both the ongoing performance as well as the ones that are to follow. A teacher s communicational competence is an essential benchmark, very often neglected in validating a fruitful communication. It represents a grafting of linguistic competence overlapping social competence, and it is based on the capacity to establish competent and efficient communication relationships with the students, but also on efficient teaching and evaluation methods. We can easily assimilate the group of students and the teacher with a team, educational communication with an organizational one, especially during seminar activity. There is an obvious similarity between the leader of an academical group and the formal organizational one. It has been known for a long time that the stimulation of the cooperation between members of a group will lead to its cohesion, with integration and acceptance effects on all other members. We can not expect intercultural values to be implemented by limiting ourselves to theoretical presentations. The teachers active implication in their activity at seminars is necessary for stimulating the students active integration and participation to building a genuine team. 85 Jodelet D., 1995, Reprezent rile sociale, un domeniu în expansiune, în Psihologia câmpului social: reprezent rile sociale, Bucure ti, Societazea tiin i Tehnic 543

Productive discussions are necessary for efficient meetings, which are themselves necessary for the teams with special results. Each meeting of the team should include measures to facilitate the unfolding and progress of discussions. Obviously, the leader of the team should use his skills in order to generate fruitful discussions; the team will be more successful if every member of the team learns and uses these measures. The Romanian Social Space Social space movement is ensured by a big number of dependant variables, which stimulate adaptive behaviour and innovative aspiration of any social action agent. It is a movement which depends on the social-cultural evolution of the community, of social experience accumulation and of the system of norms and values which ground communal life on a certain step of its historical development. Researchers of this wide field of social study (H. Garfinkel, P.Berger, T. Lukmann, A.Mucchielli, A. Schutz) 86 have discovered that reality from the perspective of active social subjects is given by all of the social representations which give meaning and consistency to the components of human life. The social environment forecasts an anticipation discourse on any child: long before the subject exists, the place it is assumed he will occupy is pre-invested by a group with the hope the social-cultural model will be ideally transmitted. The subject, on his part, searches and must find in this discourse benchmarks which can allow him to project himself into the future. The ideological verb does not offer to the individual a range of possibilities he can chose from, but a moral truth which it would be disgraceful and unworthy to avoid. In a deified universe, society becomes a system of different roles and social classes, whose members are intrinsically unequal. Only professional competence generates their degree of implication, of participation according to merit, the right of functioning. Switching roles is a way of acquiring competence or of isolating oneself. Within the system, the individual is confronted with pre-established organizations, each with its own rules, settlements and obligations and the feeling that these rules are immutable. There is a proper behaviour for every circumstance, a linguistic formula for every confrontation and right information for any given context 87. The relationship between the living dimension and the reflexive one of social ontology is looked upon from new angles, now that functional amelioration of traditional tools and qualitative diversification of the modern ones have been generated by the current technico-scientifical revolution. The status of the tool as a general social relationship has been reanalyzed, beyond the limit of pragmatism and instrumentalism, because industrialization induces shifts even in the quality of human relationships. Technological rationality receives a status of being praxilogically complementary in the sense of humanizing behavioural patterns initiated by the increase in weight the technique in the social space itself. The man of electronic times seeks salvation in order to escape anonymity, mediocrity and to be able to make himself heard from within a group. The need for selective adhesion to the environment, as well as that of cooperation, is amplified by the alienation through isolation, so specific to modern man. As Octavian Paler said, the paradox of our times in history is that we have more accessories, but less time; we have more functions, but less mind, more knowledge, but less judgement; more experts and still more problems... we have increased our fortune, but reduced our values. We have learnt how to make end s meat, but not how to live a life. We have added years to life and not life to years. We have even reached the moon and returned, but we face problems when we need to cross the street, to meet a neighbour. We have conquered outer space, but not the inner one. We have conquered the atom, but not our prejudices. We have built more computers: to store more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. 86 apud Cristea D., 2001, Tratat de psihologie social, Ed. ProTransilvania 87 Moscovici S., 1995, Fenomenul reprezent rilor sociale, în Psihologia cîmpului social: Reprezent rile sociale 1995, Bucure ti, Societatea tiin i Tehnic 544

Technological civilization has the task to axiologically discover the people who seek themselves in the complexity of their time, when technology must remain a means for rediscovering the inner self, an attitude towards existence. 88. The movement of social systems on all levels and compartments of communal life implies the existence of functional structures, which: should objectivize the axiological, normative and teleological imperatives of social institutions and should assure people s and groups engagement and training in activities leading to achieving the objectives of the respective institutions. The most recent shape of the social space is generated by the virtual component 89, which is generated by the proliferation of ways to produce and administrate information, the most recent tool as a form of interpersonal, communal and institutional networking, endowed with the potentially infinite capacity of amplifying the socializing background. Romanian cultural features have been extensively studied by researchers, who have also identified several peculiarities. C.Radulescu-Motru considers that Romanian soul is welcoming, tolerant, lover of justice, religious; for him, a Romanian is courageous, preoccupied by what the others have to say about him and has a joyous soul. 90. Doina and Alexandru Catana have tried to draw up a cultural matrix of Romanians 91 and have identified positive cultural traits, of which we have decided to mention the following: patience, fatalism, heroism, rapid assimilation of foreign influences, intelligence, adaptability, but also negative features, such as: indifference, indiscipline, lack of courage etc.. In a wide on the field study made in 1994, Ilie Puiu Vasilescu 92 reveals some features of the self-perception that Romanians belonging to the different geographical regions have. Thus, Romanians from all over the country characterize themselves as being open, communicative and energetic people, have a warm and understanding, careful and delicate interpersonal style, although significant scores have been reached with regard to a strong state of stress, anxiety and overwhelming worries; also, more than half of the tested Romanians place themselves in the category of those who are very dedicated to labour. Although the Romanian nation, stricto sensum, has only existed for 87 years, since the Great Union of 1918, the Romanian ethnical identity has preserved itself in all geographical regions where they have lived. While some consider themselves to be Europeans, others see themselves as Romanians, but most of them identify themselves, in fact, with the geographical region they come from and consider themselves as banateni, ardeleni, olteni, moldoveni, regateni, dobrogeni or bucuresteni. All have noticed, empirically, that there are significant differences among them, that in everyday life people ask one another where they are from and that it is enough to deny belonging to one region or another to be immediately labelled, placed in rigid cognitive schemes, whose owner immediately launches the appropriate adaptation behaviour. Maybe this could also be explained by the fact that, for many hundreds of years, the outsider has meant danger or enemy. Wherever he comes from, the Romanian person can be kind and gentle, hospitable, faithful, and so in love with the nature to the point that the two cannot be separated. Predisposed to meditate, to philosophize, faithful, bold and courageous, silent sometimes, but voluble other times, able to overcome many obstacles, with an extraordinary sense of humour, any Romanian listens with great pleasure to a story and immediately looks for its meanings, respects other people and likes to be respected, and is also endowed by nature with the ability of building beauty. Finally, a man among men, artist and philosopher, the Romanian 88 Buz rnescu t., 2003, Sociologia Conducerii, Timi oara, Ed. de Vest 89 Buz rnescu t., 2003, Sociologia Conducerii, Timi oara, Ed. de Vest 90 R dulescu-motru C., 2001, Psihologia poporului român, Bucure ti, Ed. Paideia 91 Catan Al., Catan D., 1996, Matricea cultural a românilor din perspectiva managementului modern, în tribuna Economic nr. 42 92 Vasilescu I.P., 1997, Românii despre ei în i i. Studiu de teren, în Psihologia vie ii cotidiene, Ia i, Ed.Polirom 545

person surprises with calm and patience when facing the difficulties of life. Romanians love nature, good life and above all, God. Suggestions for further research We think that further research should focus on: intercultural education Influence of organizational university culture on students performances Peculiarities of communication (including didactic communication) in Romanian university culture Implementing ethics principles in Romanian university life Causes and effects of organizational change in the Romanian university field References: 1. Catan Al., Catan D., 1996, Matricea cultural a românilor din perspectiva managementului modern, în tribuna Economic nr. 42 2. Cobianu-B canu M., 1994, Cultura si valori in perioada de tranzitie, Bucuresti, Ed.Economica 3. Giust-Despraires, 1995, Subiectul în reprezentarea sociala, in Psihologia campului social: Reprezentarile sociale 1995, Bucuresti, Societatea Stiinta si Tehnica 4. Harris Ph., Moran R., 1991, Managing Cultural Difference, Houston: Gulf Publishin 5. Hofstede G., 1996, Managementul structurilor multiculturale, Bucure ti, Ed.Economic 6. Ionescu Gh. Gh., Toma A., 2001, Cultura organizationala si managementul tranzitiei, Bucure ti, Ed.Economica 7. Jodelet D., 1995, Reprezentarile sociale, un domeniu în expansiune, in Psihologia câmpului social: reprezent rile sociale, Bucure ti, Societatea tiin i Tehnic 8. Law No. 58/05.03.1998, republished in 24.01.2005 regarding banking activity; 9. Moldoveanu M., Ioan-Franc V., 1997, Marketing i cultur, Bucure ti, Ed.Expert 10. Nadler, Tushman, apud Ionescu Gh. Gh., Toma A., 2001, Cultura organizationala si managementul tranzitiei, Bucure ti, Ed.Economic ) 11. Norma Nr. 10 /2005 a B ncii Na ionale a României privind limitarea riscului de credit la creditele destinate persoanelor fizice; 12. Raducan R., 2004, Managementul resurselor umane Elemente de baz, Timi oara, Ed. Orizonturi Universitare 13. Raducan R; 2002, Economia intreprinderii si resursele umane, Timi oara, Ed. Eurobit 14. Radulescu-Motru C., 2001, Psihologia poporului roman, Bucure ti, Ed. Paideia 15. Vasilescu I.P., 1997, Romanii despre ei insisi. Studiu de teren, in Psihologia vietii cotidiene, Ia i, Ed.Polirom 546