Education as the Mirror of Culture

This article is an attempt to answer the question of relationships between culture and education, not only on the level of assumptions and declarations but also in various dimensions of social life and social science. The first issue is the question of the place of education in our country’s development strategies. The author compares two such strategies: one based on the notion of development dependent on financial markets, European Union policies, labour efficiency and Gross Domestic Product (the notion of continuity of the current development path as presented in official documents) and another notion, i.e. that of mental-cultural change. The author analyses the place and role of education in each of these notions of development. The second issue is axiology of education. The major task in this part of the paper is to present tensions and divergences between declared description of educational practices and theories that legitimise them on the one hand and the actually realised axio-normative orientation or other value-based human actions and choices on the other. The third problem is an attempt to show education and school in the process of cultural change. The subject of critical analysis is a dominant educational policy and practice, which is linked to the practically realised notion of the country’s development, and based on requirements of usefulness, effectiveness and applicability. As an illustration of this, the author examines opposition between humanities and technical sciences, which is constructed and maintained in public debate. Plenary speeches from the 2nd Congress of Education that took place in Warsaw in June 2013, are also subject to analysis in relation to this opposition. In conclusions, the author poses the question whether education remains perceived as a cultural practice or it has become yet another tool of production submitted to requirements of the market, economic development and GDP growth.