Romanian higher education as a facilitator of Romania's continued formal and informal integration in the European Union

Abstract

This article conducts an exploration of Romania's European integration process through higher education. It contends that integration occurs at formal and informal levels through institutional norms and human agency, respectively. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, the authors discuss the modalities through which normative European integration is undergirded by human transactions stemming from individual experiences with European practices. Romanian higher education serves as an aggregating and filtering system for the formation of an intellectual realm conducive to the country's deeper European integration.

Keywords:

• Romanian higher education
• student mobility
• ERASMUS
• European Union
• European integration
• Europeanization

Notes on contributors

Florin Salajan is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at North Dakota State University, Fargo, USA, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the Teacher Education Program. His areas of research interest are European higher education policies, international and comparative education, comparative e-learning, interactive learning technologies, and educational technology effectiveness for teaching and learning.

Sorina Chiper is Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University, Iasi, Romania, where she teaches courses in professional linguistics. Her research interests are in the areas of cultural studies, applied linguistics, translation studies, intercultural communication, discourse analysis, visual language, international marketing, American literature, linguistic and cultural anthropology, and identity studies.