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National identities have been challenged by European integration, globalisation, migration and regionalisation. More recently, there has been a resurgence of nationhood and national identity which begs the question how education systems, and curricula in particular, are responding to this. This article explores how national identity is reflected in history, geography and civic education curricula in France and Ireland. More specifically, it examines how national, European and international aspects are intertwined in these state curricula. This question is explored through a case study of curriculum units and subunits as well as discourses of how identity is being promoted in the curriculum. Our analysis highlights that French curricula privilege national topics, especially in history and civic education, whereas Irish curricula veer between national, European and international (global) notions. Our analysis explores the extent to which macro-political discourses around national identity are reflected in the shaping of the subject curricula in two countries. While the article focuses on France and Ireland, the discussions are also of interest to other jurisdictions regarding the civic expectations and role of schools in promoting national (or other) identities.

This article investigates how 15-year-old white and Turkish students in two Inner London comprehensive schools, one in a predominantly working-class area (Millroad School) and the other in a more middle-class environment (Darwin School), construct their identities. Drawing on mainly qualitative data from documentary sources, focus groups and semi-structured interviews, the work points to a range of factors affecting identity formation processes, such as macro-political approaches and school dynamics. The research found that at Millroad School, which celebrated diversity and where students' conflict was ethnic or racial, young people found safety in their national(istic) identities. In contrast, at Darwin where there was only low-level ethnic conflict, young people developed hybrid ethno-national identities. This article raises important questions about how to create community cohesion in conflictual environments so as to promote both diversity and solidarity. (Contains 1 table and 4 notes.)

Germany has been reluctant to adapt its education systems to the growing number of minority ethnic students, and politicians and policy makers have only recently officially acknowledged that Germany is an immigration country despite decades of mass immigration. This article first provides a socio-historical analysis of the German responses to migration-related cultural and religious diversity by tracing the development of educational policies from assimilationist notions of "foreigner pedagogy' in the 1960s and 1970s to intercultural education, which slowly emerged in schools in the 1980s and 1990s. However, unlike European education, intercultural education still lacks official support in some German federal states. Drawing upon qualitative data collected in two Stuttgart secondary schools, the article then discusses the ways in which schools and students have mediated such macro-level policies. Goethe Gymnasium (a university-track school) promoted European values alongside multicultural values whereas Tannberg Hauptschule (a vocational-track school) was close to being Eurocentric and positioned minority ethnic students as the "Other". The findings suggest that Germany still has some way to go to overcome cultural insensitivities, to increase minority ethnic representation amongst teachers and to promote both diversity and civic cohesion. (Contains 1 table and 4 notes.)

The Identity of Nations By Montserrat Guibernau Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007, 235 pp., ISBN 13: 978-07456-2662-8. In The Identity of Nations, Montserrat Guibernau engages in the current debates about the [...]