The research presented here was undertaken at the City Hall of Vitoria-Gasteiz (the capital of the Autonomous Community of Euskadi in the north of Spain) within the project known as “Developing Vitoria-Gasteiz as an Educating City”. The methodology used for the research involved collaborative research-action, aimed at contributing to a systematic reflection on municipal educational practices with the view to improving on the achievements of the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz as a truly Educating City. The fundamental questions are: Should values be taught from the local municipal authority? If so, what values? Does it make sense to teach values that are not the ones that dominate in society? How are (these) values to be taught? The city should and can teach values. In fact, whether we like it or not, values are learnt and taught in the city. So far, so good but what are these values that an Educating City should encourage or teach? In principle and in our case they should be the values underlined in the Charter of Educating Cities itself. The twenty principles set out in the Charter put forward those transversal themes of education in values that are no less than those universal values that should be taken into account in constructing citizenship and capable of facing the challenges of society in a responsible manner and with solidarity. On the question whether or not it makes sense to teach values that are not dominant in society, there is absolutely no doubt that it does. In the first place it should be said that, although a determined value may not prevail at a historic moment in time and within a given society, it is a value that exists and is legitimate and as such should be nurtured and encouraged. Also, a value is something that is not easy to achieve fully. This is why that, just as important as achieving it, the very process of building this value be present, a process of construction in which the support of the city is fundamental. Finally, how can the city educate in values? The answer to this is: through many of its activities. Some of these are more related to what we can call educational activities (programmes and plans) and others do it in an indirect manner through decisions and measures which boost values (or not) or even does it in a negative manner. With the goal of having a set of values that is the basis of the Charter of Educating Cities, signed by the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz, a thorough analysis was carried out of each and every one of the 20 principles outlined in the Charter. Based on the analysis carried out, a series of 15 educational values were extracted which relate to the four pillars formulated by Delors: learn to be, learn to do, learn to know and learn to live together. The values considered to be the underlying ones in the Charter of Educating Cities are the following: participation, training, solidarity, peace, equality, creativity, respect, civic responsibility, quality of life, innovation, identity, integration, sustainability, inclusiveness, responsibility.

1.- Textual analysis of each one of the principles of the EC Charter. 2.- Analysis of the documents showing a series of activities that the various Departments of the City Council of Vitoria-Gasteiz had organised for the public during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years. From the analysis of these documents those values which in principle had been worked on in the various programmes were extracted. The variables of the study: in this documental analysis the information provided by these documents has been taken into account: objectives (general and specific), description of the programmes, content, target users, organisational aspects, etc. 3.- Descriptive statistic analysis, both of the values corresponding to each activity, as well as of the distribution thereof by each Department. 4.- Comparison of results obtained in the statistic analysis with the opinions of persons who took part in the drawing up and development of the programmes.

1. The values most worked on within the series of programmes were training, quality of life and responsibility. On the contrary, the values least worked on were peace and integration, participation and solidarity. 2. The type of education mostly worked on was Health Education, followed by Lifelong Learning, Civic Responsibility, Education for active life and Emotional Education 3. Pupils at the Infant school stage prioritised values of creativity and quality of life. The most worked on in Primary Education were values of creativity and quality of life together with training; while peace, integration and inclusiveness were the least worked on. 4. At Secondary level, the values most worked on were training, quality of life and responsibility. 5. Prioritised values: There are discrepancies but it appears that the need for participation is one of the predominating values. 6. Peace is not a value that has been worked on to a great degree.