Reply to Will Kymlicka: ‘Multicultural citizenship within multination states’

Abstract

The push for citizenship education, not only for school children but also for immi grants as prospective citizens, has been a common agenda in European societies. More than ever, education has been given the mission of creating globally com petitive and nationally cohesive societies. Does this new citizenship agenda under mine the 'binding ties' in multicultural and multinational societies? Kymlicka's thoughtful discussion lays out possible fault lines and the theoretical normative foundations in which we should look for solutions. His is a convincing normative position, but still largely wedded to the Canadian experience that con stitutes the yardstick in much of his writing. Kymlicka's call for a strong 'multi cultural nationhood' does not stand too well in the European context. Canada historically endorsed such a model, partly because its nation-building and negoti ation project was closely entangled with immigration. The postwar transformations of citizenship and nation in Europe have not transpired via immigration, but essentially via a transnational route as a response to its 'horrific past' (Levi and Sznaider, 2004; Soysal, 1994). Europe's 'problematic past' and its commitment to a transnational future rules out a 'strong nation' project, multicultural or not. Indeed, when viewed from the field of education, the long-term trend is the devalorization of confined and unitary notions of the nation in favour of a trans national project that privileges openness and diversity as a common good. This orientation is robustly reflected in school teaching.1 Consider the latest history curricula from England and France, for example. In both cases, we observe a decisive move to depict a diverse nation and citizenship identity, both historically and at present, and to locate it within the broader world. The 2008 French history curriculum states one of its goals as the building of an identity that is 'rich, multiple, and open to otherness'. It furthermore confirms that