Examining Legitimate Aims of Education on Europe: Should Education Serve to Foster a European Identity?

This paper aims at critically examining the idea of promoting a European identity through education. The question of an “education on Europe” and of how to think about it has been receiving increased attention in political and public debates in recent years. At the EU level, this form of education has been regularly put in terms of promoting a European identity. Emphasized since the 1980s, the idea has gained particular importance since the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen and in the light of developments such as Brexit and the rise of right-wing populism in Europe. Although the concept of European identity has also been critically discussed in academia, the EU largely assumes the appropriateness of this aim. There is no systematic analysis of this purpose with respect to other possible ways of dealing with the EU in education. This paper builds on this observation. It belongs to the field of normative political theory and aims at examining whether the promotion of a European identity is a legitimate educational aim. This involves studying the implications of this teaching and assessing both its benefits and its risks, also in relation with other possible purposes of education. Drawing upon contemporary debates in European studies and philosophy of education, I argue that there are good reasons to replace the emphasis on the promotion of a European identity by a focus on education for European citizenship. Prioritizing the teaching of rights and participatory competences in a transnational democracy allows for mitigating risks associated with fostering a European identity. It also brings the potential to stimulate critical reflection, to enhance public deliberation and to strengthen involvement of citizens from different backgrounds and contexts. In sum, this paper offers a critical reflection on teaching objectives often taken for granted in Europe’s political and public debates.