European Association for Education Law and Policy

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the European Union concluded association agreements with Europe's new democracies to support the restructuring of institutions that guarantee human rights and respect for minorities. The status and the rights of ethnic groups were one of the most pressing issues. The outline of this article will be limited to a panoramic view of the initiatives taken by educational institutions in guaranteeing the rights to education of members of different ethnic groups. Part 1 of the article focuses on the need to promote cultural diversity in education: the importance of cultural membership for individual freedom, of having access to one's own culture and of providing education on minority cultures. Part 2 focuses on the measures taken by educational institutions to meet the needs related to the assertion of ethnic communities' cultural identity: implementing changes to the educational curriculum and to the academic management and financing of educational institutions. Part 3 contains an assessment of the use of the minority language in education. Finally, Part 4 deals with the problems of multicultural higher education institutions.