In the definition of civic competences which is situated in the Annex to Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 Decem-ber 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning – Key Competences for Life-long Learning – a European Reference Framework it is written: “Full respect for human rights including equality as a basis for democracy, appreciation and understanding of differences between value systems of different religious or ethnic groups lay the foundations for a positive attitude”. Therefore, the question is: Does school education in general premise developing attitudes based on val-ues essential to democracy? The answers to this question can be searched con-ducting various studies. The paper presents the results of analysis of the core curricula conducted by a team of researchers from the Department of School Education, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Poland). Why core curricula have become the object of our research? Basically, for two reasons. Firstly, the school has obligated to implement them, and all school programs and textbooks have to be consistent with them. Second-ly, they are also a kind of articulation and a declaration of competence required from people in the given place and time.

Over the past few years, a great deal of research has been conducted concerning the mathematical skills of children after the first stage of education. In my report, I present a selection of results from this research in order to illustrate the most typical didactical effects of the style in which mathematical education is performed in our schools. Comparing some detailed results from research in a number of chosen fields, I also try to assess whether or not, and how, the level of schoolchildren’s skills has changed in the recent years.