Same old story or citizenship redefined? European citizenship narratives in British, German and Polish civics textbooks, 1981-2010

This chapter examines how the representation of European Citizenship has developed in educational narratives in the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland. Using the foundations of grounded theory and emergent coding, this qualitative case study analyzes the narratives in state-approved civics textbooks for secondary schools published between 1981 and 2010, thus
covering a period of major developments in European integration before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In line with world cultural trends, European Citizenship has increasingly become a part of educational narratives and is a theme in all textbooks published after 1995. However, few textbooks represent a narrative of European Citizenship that moves beyond an
outline of formal entitlements. While Polish narratives reflect the country’s complex challenge of simultaneously redefining “Polishness” and integrating in an international community, and British ones exhibit considerable Euro-skepticism, the German narrative compares as endorsing the concept of European Citizenship most extensively. Overall, both the restrictedness and crosscultural differences of the European Citizenship narratives suggest that traditional nation-statebound
notions of citizenship in European schools remain largely untouched.