Raising European Citizens? Identification with Europe in European Schools

With the recent economic crisis, the EU self-diagnosed a need for restored confidence of European citizens in integration. While a widespread European identity could consolidate the advancement of integration, this identity remains unsettled both at the EU and the citizens’ level. The paper will present the theoretical baseline as well as the first empirical results of the doctoral research project, which investigates individuals’ European and national identities in European Schools, i.e. schools of the European Commission that provide education for children of EU personnel. Theories of collective identities and identity construction and, most importantly, of individual identification with Europe form the basis of the research project. Hypotheses deduced from these theories allow investigating the development of identities among students in European Schools. On the one hand, top-down constructions of European citizenship and the promotion of a European identity are assessed by means of elite interviews on the EU level and with teachers in European Schools. On the other hand, children’s stances towards European and national citizenship are analysed on the basis of individual and group interviews in those schools. Here, notions of different levels of identities on the individual level are taken into consideration. Overall, this project’s goal is to contribute to the understanding of how European citizens are raised in this specific, multinational and European, school setting. The paper takes a first step into this direction by giving an overview on the theoretical foundations and empirical findings of this research project.