This chapter examines how certain cultural conditions shaped one of the policiestypically included in the efforts to strengthen these emerging political regimes: theemplacement of civic education programs in official curricula to acquaint students withtheir new rights and the workings of democratic institutions. Following Birzea’s analysis(1994), we address one of the less commonly explored factors that strongly conditionedthis agenda in most nations. Namely, the prevailing political attitudes and principleswithin each society that shaped the design and implementation of this type of curricularreform. This perspective highlights the fact that changes in political and economic systems donot automatically transform the shared substrate of attitudes and principles institutedduring authoritarian periods. Instead, these factors tend to condition transition processes,becoming particularly influential in shaping the possibilities and limitations met by theattempts to include civic education in schools’ study plans