‘We Must Demonstrate Intolerance toward the Intolerant’: Boundary Liberalism in Citizenship Education for Immigrants in Germany

Abstract

Following the decline of ethnic notions of national identity, the extent to which immigrants are believed to have acceptably liberal values has become a site of boundary making in Western Europe. Much scholarly work has focused on ‘boundary liberalism’ in European media/policy discourse, and the ways that Muslim migrants in particular are framed as carriers of unacceptable ideologies. There has, however, been little exploration of how these ideas shape practice in the mandatory citizenship training that is an increasingly common feature of European integration regimes. This article examines boundary liberalism in citizenship education as it took place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Attention is paid to how instructors interpret the mandate to enforce tolerance in others in light of Germany’s own problematic history, how curricula and classroom interactions define normative liberalism, and how lessons on these values still draw the symbolic boundaries of national and supranational identities to exclude Muslims.