A crisis in education? An Arendtian perspective on citizenship and belonging in France and England

ABSTRACT

This article draws together a comparative sociological analysis and a political theory perspective to interpret children’s views on the role of school and being a pupil, and what these tell us about their conceptual representations of citizenship and belonging in France and England. The article presents research findings from a cross-national ethnographic study with children aged 10 and 11 years in two primary schools, one in France and one in England. This article shows that children’s views generally reflected national value orientations around citizenship and belonging, but that these conceptions of citizenship were not always fully understood by children, and masked, in some cases, deeper mechanisms of exclusion. This raises questions about the place of citizenship in education in France and England, and calls for a deeper understanding of the ways in which conceptions of citizenship are formed through children’s experience of school.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizenship
• education
• youth
• Arendt
• France
• England

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Agnes van Zanten and the Observatoire Sociologique du Changement at Sciences Po Paris for welcoming her as a visiting scholar during the time of research and writing of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 These categories correspond to children’s self-identification.

2 This does not correspond to any official ethnic category as ethnic statistics are not allowed in France.

3 When numbered, extracts are from different interviews.