Between Eurocentrism and Euroscepticism: A comparison of German and English national political and student responses to the European education agenda

Faas, Daniel. (2007) Between Eurocentrism and Euroscepticism: A comparison of German and English national political and student responses to the European education agenda. In: UNSPECIFIED, Montreal, Canada. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

National political and educational agendas have been reshaped by the processes of European integration. European policies, such as the 1988 Resolution by the Council of Ministers of Education, have encouraged educators to develop a European dimension in education and have contributed to the institutionalisation of education at European level. Drawing upon qualitative data from documentary sources, focus groups and semi-structured interviews, this paper compares the German and English educational responses to Europe and discusses how these different historical engagements affect contemporary student responses. It shows that Europe has been central for the organisation of the German educational system whereas English policy-makers and politicians have been more Eurosceptic, and refrained from including a European dimension in the National Curriculum. This resulted, for instance, in English students having lower levels of knowledge about Europe than their German peers. However, student responses within one country also differ from school to school, depending on issues such as social class positioning and institutional interpretations of macro-level policies. This paper suggests that developing European educational standards may be one way of addressing these knowledge gaps and disparities between national educational systems in Europe without violating the autonomy of nation-states in education policy.

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