European identity among ethnic majority and ethnic minority students: understanding the role of the school curriculum

ABSTRACT

Schools are an important setting wherein different identity dimensions are made available to youth. This paper argues that European identity can be a relevant unifying collective identity in ethnically diverse contexts. We study whether (or not) students who are confronted with a European and/or a multicultural dimension in their school curriculum, identify more strongly with a European identity. More specifically, we analyse whether the importance of these dimensions for European identification differs between a sample of ethnic majority and ethnic minority students. The results show that both the European and the multicultural curriculum predicted a stronger European identity for both groups. The effects of both dimensions on European identity were similar for ethnic majority students, while the multicultural dimension had significantly stronger effects on European identity for ethnic minority students. The paper thus highlights how curricula contribute to changing patterns of identification in a diversifying society.

KEYWORDS:

• European identity
• school curriculum
• ethnic diversity
• multicultural education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although the ethnic minority does not have to be a minority group on a global or even local scale, it is seen as a minority group in the country where this study is being conducted. We elaborate on this in the methodology.

2 The remaining 0.6% are of students that did not fill out their sex.

3 The replication package and the dataset can be accessed via https://zenodo.org/communities/europeanidentityandtheschoolcurriculum/.

4 ASO, BSO and TSO.

5 We build on the study of Bergbauer (2018), in which she shows – based on empirical data – that for European inhabitants, identification with ‘Europe’ is something different from identification with the European Union.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Antwerp [grant number DOCPRO 33174].

Notes on contributors

Emma Carey Brummer

Emma Carey Brummer is a doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on belonging, citizenship, and emotions of young people attending secondary education. Other research interests are (in)equality, diversity, intersectionality, sociological theory, and identification processes.

Noel Clycq

Noel Clycq is a research professor in education sciences at the Department of Training and Education Sciences at the University of Antwerp. His main research topics are diversity, identity, globalisation, and the governance of learning.

Ariadne Driezen

Ariadne Driezen is a doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp. Her research interests are in–group and out–group boundary relations, the intersection between gender, ethnicity and religion, identity constructions and the impact of stigmatisation for ethnic minorities. She studies these topics in different settings, in secondary and tertiary education and on the labour market.

Gert Verschraegen

Gert Verschraegen (BA, MA, University of Leuven, MA, University of Hull, PhD, University of Leuven) is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). His research interests are in the areas of social theory, sociology of science, cultural sociology and ethnic relations. His current research focuses on cultural and religious diversity in European cities and on the socio–cultural consequences of the refugee crisis.