ABSTRACT
According to the European Union (EU) treaties, the EU’s educational policy has been excluded from the exclusive competence of the EU and left out of the EU harmonisation procedure. Consequently, it is regulated at the level of the EU member states. Educational policy is a powerful tool for social modelling of citizens’ attitudes and their multi-faceted identity. This process determines the formation of the meaning of European citizenship, active citizenship, openness to diversity as well as an understanding of the social, political and economic processes taking place in the EU, and the perception of Europe as a common place to live. In this chapter I examine the problem of the place of patriotic education and the formation of national identity in the light of Polish educational reform after 2017. The chapter offers an analysis of the Law and Justice government’s educational policy being framed by the conservative-sovereigntist as well as nationalist-populist party rhetoric that surrounds the educational policy reform introduced in Poland in 2017, the reform that fundamentally changed the vision of the education system in Poland and the patterns of identity construction within current Polish society.
