The Danish Philosophy of Integration and Citizenship Education

Research trying to explain why certain immigrant integration policies are adopted, has largely restricted itself to look at requirements for residence and citizenship. This paper seeks to widen the horizon for the national models approach – both widely used and criticized within the field – to citizenship education policies. Indeed, citizenship education may be the area where the national philosophy of integration stands out most clearly. Because schooling is mandatory for everyone, everyone starts at the same early age, and is not tied to the achievement of important political, social or civil rights, it is less controversial to shape the curriculum and teaching according to an deterministic idea of the national culture. Focusing on Denmark, it will be a question of analyzing a non-decision. That is, why was it decided in the mid-2000s not to implement a citizenship education course in primary school despite loud concern from politicians that descendants of immigrants where not developing good citizenship skills. Denmark has experienced widespread public skepticism towards cultural pluralism, has restricted access to residence and citizenship and refrained from changing an officially monocultural approach to common schooling with low degree of accommodation of ethno-religious diversity. On the surface, it seems to conform to the civic-assimilationist approach Denmark has adopted to other integration requirements; yet we do not know whether the decision not to change common schooling with a citizenship education subject and a more accommodating approach actually reflect concerns about national identity and social cohesion.