This paper reports on a fragment of a broader research on values education in Polish and Latvian schools. This paper seeks to evaluate data from the European Social Survey (ESS) and elaborate on the frames of references for identification of the aims for future research. The paper highlights the findings of an action research carried out in two Polish schools. The values of European countries are analysed in the context of educational research in Europe and other regions of the world. The frames of references constructed during the study and data from European Social Survey were the grounds for creating a questionnaire for an action research to find out the tendencies that derive from the experience of students. The survey was preceded by a special training session for the teaching staff about evaluation and its significance for increasing the quality of school performance.