Summary

There is currently worldwide interest in citizenship and citizenship education, especially in ethnically and religiously diverse societies.  Yet ‘citizenship’ is a contested concept, with many competing (and overlapping) conceptualisations, including citizenship framed in moral terms, as a legal status, in terms of active participation, and in terms of identifying with the political community (whether this be local, national, or global).

Until fairly recently, the literatures on citizenship and diversity have tended to be distinct from one another, with the exception being the nationalist literature on citizenship which has emphasised the bonds of ethnicity – referred to as the ‘ethnic’ or ‘ethnocultural’ model of nationhood (Brubaker, 1998; Miller, 1995). Civic republican models take as an explicit premise that ethnic and religious diversity must not operate within the public sphere, with France often cited as the classic example. Historically, ‘citizenship’ by definition was an exclusionary concept excluding many categories of people from membership of their community (Heater, 1990). With growing international recognition of the need to challenge such inequalities, there is increasing theoretical interest in developing more inclusive (Kymlicka, 1995; Parekh, 2000) and participative conceptions of citizenship (Crick, 2000). Citizenship is clearly on the national agenda in the UK, not only in the domains of education, immigration and naturalisation, but right across government and with the public at large. Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) continues to be a priority of European institutions as indeed it is internationally in a number of different nation-state contexts (Banks, 2004), including the United States (Ladson-Billings, 2004), Canada (Joshee, 2004; Kymlicka, 1999) Denmark (Mouritsen, 2006), France and Germany (Brubaker, 1998; Kastoryano, 2006; Luchtenberg, 2004; Wieviorka, 1994; Wihtol de Wenden, 2000).

It can be argued that governments are making efforts to reassert the relevance and the significance of ‘national’ (or state-level) citizenship, in the context of forces of perceived internal division – for example, devolution, and in more extreme situations, ethno-religious conflict. For example, in the UK context of increased devolution, and concerns about community cohesion and security threats, there have been citizenship policy developments including the statutory introduction of citizenship education into schools in England in 2002 (QCA, 1998), with recent revisions focussing on  ‘Britishness’ and ‘shared values’ through examining ‘identities and diversity in the UK’ (Ajegbo, Kiwan and Sharma, 2007); in addition, we have also witnessed the recent introduction of new requirements for the acquisition of British citizenship and settlement (Home Office, 2005; Home Office, 2006).  This interdisciplinary seminar series aims to examine such national framings of citizenship in contexts that are perceived to challenge such framing below the nation-state level by juxtaposing three areas as mentioned above that have not previously been brought together before: i) citizenship education in schools, ii) citizenship in the ‘legal’ sense - naturalisation requirements for those applying for national citizenship (citizenship tests and courses), examined in ‘challenging’ contexts of internal division: iii) devolution and ethno-religious conflict. This series will explore these theoretical issues in an international perspective, applied to policy and practice.

References

• Ajegbo, K., Kiwan, D. and Sharma, S.  (2007). Curriculum Review: Diversity and Citizenship.  London:  DfES.

• Banks, J. A. (2004) ‘Introduction: Democratic Citizenship Education’, in: J. A. Banks (Ed) Multicultural Societies in Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass, 3-16.

• Brubaker, R. (1998).  ‘Immigration, citizenship and nation-state in France and Germany’, in G. Shafir (ed.) The Citizenship Debates, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

• Crick, B. (2000). In Defence of Politics. 5th edn, London and New York: Continuum.

• Heater, D. (1990).  Citizenship: The Civic Ideal in World History, Politics and Education.  London: Longman.

• Home Office (2005). Home Office (2005) Life in the United Kingdom: A journey to Citizenship, Published on behalf of the Life in the United Kingdom Advisory Group, London: TSO. Second imprint.

• Home Office (2006) ‘English language ability to be required for visas’, Press release. Online. Available: www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news/learning-english (accessed 11 February 2007).

• Joshee, R. (2004) ‘Citizenship and Multicultural Education in Canada: from assimilation to social cohesion’ in: J. A. Banks (Ed) Multicultural Societies in Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass, 127-156.

• Kastoryano, R. (2006) ‘French secularism and Islam: France’s headscarf affiar’, in T. Modood, A. Triandafyllidou and R. Zapata-Barrero (Eds) Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship:  A European Approach. Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge, 57-69.

• Kymlicka, W. (1995).  Multicultural Citizenship.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Kymlicka, W. (1999).  ‘Education for citizenship’, in: J. M. Halstead and T. H. McLaughlin (Eds) Education in Morality London and New York, Routledge.

• Ladson-Billings, G. (2004) ‘Culture Versus Citizenship: The Challenge of Racialised Citizenship in the United States’, in: J. A. Banks (Ed) Multicultural Societies in Diversity and Citizenship Education: Global Perspectives, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass, 99-126.

• Miller, D. (1995). On nationality.  Oxford:  Clarendon Press.

• Mouritsen, P. (2006) ‘The particular universalism of a Nordic civic nation:  common values, state religion and Islam in Danish political culture’, in: T. Modood, A. Triandafyllidou and R. Zapata-Barrero (Eds) Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship:  A European Approach. Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge, 70-93

• Parekh, B. (2000).  Rethinking Multiculturalism.  Basingstoke and London: MacMillan Press Ltd.

• Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1998).  Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools.  (Crick Report).  London: QCA.

• Wieviorka, M. (1994). ‘Racism in Europe: Unity and Diversity’.  In: Rattansi, A. and Westwood, S. (eds) Racism, Modernity and Identity on the Western Front.  Cambridge: Polity Press.

• Wihtol, de Wenden, C. (2000). ‘Europe: the new melting pot’, in S. Dacyl, C. Westin (eds) Governance and Cultural Diversity, CEIFO, Stockholm University/ UNESCO, 2000.