TURKISH YOUTH IN THE EUROPEAN
KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
An exploration of their responses to Europe and the role
of social class and school dynamics for their identities
Daniel Faas
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 2PQ, UK
ABSTRACT: Globalisation and Europeanisation are complementary and partly
overlapping processes that identify the increasingly supranational context in
which political and educational systems are operating. This article explores
how Turkish youth in two German and English secondary schools relate to the
European knowledge economy, and how their political identities are shaped
by school dynamics (ethos, curriculum and peer cultures) and social class
positioning.1 Drawing upon mainly qualitative data, the paper indicates that
when the concept of Europe is allied to multiculturalism, there is the
possibility of including minority ethnic groups like the Turkish Muslims and
giving them the opportunity of relating to the European knowledge economy.
If, however, Europe is understood as a white Christian concept, then Turkish
teenagers will struggle to relate positively to Europe as a political identity. The
article not only gives voice to young Turkish Muslims in Europe but also
assesses the potential for Europe to be a common ground for all youth to
negotiate their identities.
Key words: European knowledge economy; Turkish youth; political identities;
social class; school dynamics; comparative research
1. Introduction
Europe is undergoing considerable demographic, economic, cultural and socio‐
political change. Many European countries have become culturally diverse societies
1
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the European Conference on Educational Research
(ECER) in Dublin, September 2005. The presentation was highlighted in the Times Educational
Supplement, 16 September 2005 (No. 4652).
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and, at the same time, the increasingly supranational context in which political and
educational systems are operating has challenged national identities. The latest in a
series of developments towards European integration – the 1957 formation of the
European Economic Community, the 1992 establishment of the European Union
(EU) as a political entity and the 2002 launch of the Euro as a single currency – was
the notion of a European Constitution, which had been ratified by 18 member states
(of the EU‐27) before it was put on hold and replaced by a simpler treaty. As Turkey
gets politically closer to Europe and entered membership negotiations in October
2005, the debate where the eastern boundaries of the continent of Europe lie has
intensified. In Germany, for instance, the Social Democratic‐led government under
Chancellor Schröder (1998‐2005) argued strongly in favour of full Turkish EU
membership whereas the new grand coalition government under Chancellor Merkel
has adopted a more pragmatic approach given that the conservative Christian
Democrats prefer a so‐called ‘privileged partnership’ (Middel 2004). This debate
about the shifting boundaries of Europe is an important one and is likely to impact
on the ways in which Turkish youth negotiate their political identities.
At the same time, educational institutions across Europe are facing the challenge
to meet the needs of the knowledge economy, one based on services and
information rather than manufacture (Coulby 2000). One of the ways in which
European institutions responded is by emphasizing European citizenship and identity
(Ryba 1995; Arnot 1998). Arguably, the most important inter‐governmental
agreement on the European dimension in education was the 1988 Resolution
adopted by the Council of Ministers of Education, prompting educators to
‘strengthen in young people a sense of European identity and make clear to them
the value of European civilisation’ (Council of Ministers of Education 1988: 5).
Another way of responding to the demands of the new knowledge‐based economy
includes the increased movement of students and students across Europe and the
world. The European Commission has promoted action programmes including
school and higher education exchange schemes (e.g., Socrates, Tempus, Erasmus
Mundus); vocational training (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci); and programmes for young
people in non‐formal learning contexts (European Commission 1998).
The aim of this paper is to show how Turkish youth in Germany and England
relate to Europe; and to analyse the ways in which their political identities are
shaped by school dynamics and social class. The data I draw upon derive from a
larger exploratory comparative case study of 15‐year‐old native and Turkish
students, located in two English and two German secondary schools (Faas 2007a,b).
I chose to focus on Turkish youth because (a) it is fascinating to explore their shifting
identities as Turkey gets politically closer to Europe; (b) this is the only minority
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ethnic group with sufficiently large numbers in both German and English schools;
and (c) this is a particularly under‐researched and disadvantaged community. Enneli,
Modood and Bradley (2005), for instance, argue that England’s young Turkish
Muslims are even more disadvantaged in housing, employment and education than
the Bangladeshis (who are widely regarded as the least integrated community in
England; cf. Modood et al. 1997). None of the scant research on the Turkish
community in both Germany (e.g., Auernheimer 1990; Şen and Goldberg 1994; Şen
2002) and England (e.g., Sonyel 1988; Küçükcan 1999; Enneli, Modood and Bradley
2005) has hitherto explored their responses to Europe and the factors affecting their
identity formation processes. The fact that the Turkish Muslims are the largest
immigrant group in Germany (2.4 million people) but a relatively small and
heterogeneous in England (200,000 people) has little significance in the context of
this study because most of the fieldwork was conducted at the institutional level in
an inner‐city borough of Stuttgart and London where the Turkish Muslims formed
the largest minority ethnic community.
The Turkish community within Europe has always had a very complex history. The
Turkish Muslims were physically brought into the European project as ‘guest
workers’ (Gastarbeiter) by the Germans who increasingly needed labour after the
construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The 31 October 1961 bilateral agreement
between Germany and Turkey, which Şen and Goldberg (1994: 10) referred to as
‘one of the most important milestones in the history of German‐Turkish relations’,
stated that Turkish workers should return to their home country within two years.
However, because of the need of workers beyond the initially agreed date, many of
these young men continued to stay in Germany and were joined by their families in
subsequent decades (Königseder 2001). By 1980, the Turkish Muslims formed the
largest minority ethnic community in Germany (1,462,000) and, because of family
reunions, their number increased to more than two million by the late 1990s
(Statistisches Bundesamt 2002). Many 15‐year‐old Turkish youths in Germany are
now in their second generation.
In England, however, it was mainly for political reasons that mainland Turkish
people, Turkish Cypriots and Kurds sought refuge. As a result of the British
occupation of Cyprus between 1878 and 1959, the Turkish community is much more
heterogeneous and some of the refugees had British passports. The first wave of
mainly male Turkish Cypriots fled their increasingly politically unstable island to seek
refuge in England in the 1950s and 1960s, when the National Organisation of Cypriot
Fighters fought for union with Greece (Sonyel 1988). The wave of migration from
mainland Turkey only gained momentum after the military coup by General Evren in
1980 (Mehmet Ali 2001). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the Kurds
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arrived in England as refugees. As a result of this migration, many young Turkish
Cypriots are now in their second generation whereas most first‐generation mainland
Turkish people were born in Turkey. Despite different histories of migration, Turkish
Muslims have faced enormous conflict and marginalisation in both European
countries in terms of employment and education (e.g., Kagitçibasi 1991) and have
often been the victims of racism and Islamophobia (e.g., Piper 1998; Archer 2003;
Wilpert 2003; Dodd 2005).
2. Theorising and researching political identities
This paper draws upon post‐structuralist notions of a fragmented society, in which
identities are multidimensional, hybrid and shifting (e.g., Hall 1992; Caglar 1997;
Mac an Ghaill 1999; Dolby 2001; Tizard and Phoenix 2002) to explore how Turkish
youth in Germany and England relate to notions of Europeanness and the European
knowledge economy. The advantages of a post‐structuralist approach to the study
of youth political identities were that it opened up the possibility of a non‐unitary
subject with multidimensional identities and also reflected the shifting nature of
society. Crucially, in a post‐structuralist framework, identities are not fixed, static
and of a binary nature (e.g., white/black) but discursively negotiated and
renegotiated. The notion of performativity (Butler 1997) was important for the
design of the broader study because, from a deconstructionist position,
performative suggests that ethnic and political identities are a continual
establishment and articulation of binaries. The linking of techniques of the self
(Foucault 1988) and performance opens up an exploration of the ways in which the
social context (e.g., schools, governmental policies) mediates how subjects deal with
the lived realities of specific institutional locations (Mac an Ghaill 1999).
The concept of identity/identities, meaning the communities young people felt
they belong to, was also crucial for the conceptualisation of this study. In contrast,
the notion of identification (Skeggs 1997) refers to the reasons and discourses
students employed to identify with a particular community (e.g., Europe). It is also
important to differentiate between hybrid (e.g., Hall 1992; Mercer 2000; Tizard and
Phoenix 2002) and hyphenated identities (e.g., Caglar 1997). Hybrid identities,
according to Bhabha (1990), can be understood as ‘mixed’ identities which emerge
as a result of the interconnections between diasporic or ethnic affiliations and
political identities such as ‘being European’. In contrast, the notion of hyphenated
identities, as understood by Caglar (1997), relates more to territorial or political
identities, such as African American, rather than the emergence of a new identity.
The fact that many young people in this study constructed their identities along
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ethnic and political dimensions, rather than mediating between two territories,
suggests that the notion of hybrid identities is perhaps more accurate when
analysing contemporary youth identities. One of the theoretical implications of this
article is thus the need for researchers to reconceptualise the way we think about
identity formation and to consider the interconnections between ethnic and political
citizenship identities. Previous research focused on either white and minority ethnic
identities (e.g., Phoenix 1997; Sewell 1997; Connolly 1998) or citizenship identities
(e.g., Convery et al . 1997; Osler and Starkey 2001), thus missing the ways in which
these identities intersect.
The model of research into young people’s responses to Europe was developed
by a series of six Eurobarometer surveys on request of the European Commission
(The Young Europeans). The latest of these surveys showed that being able to work,
live and study in any member state were the three main advantages young people
saw in European citizenship. Angvik and von Borries (1997) and von Borries (1999)
found that students perceived national history to be more important to them than
European history, and that some countries including England and Greece seemed to
neglect the European dimension in school curricula. This, according to them, is one
of the reasons why young people distanced themselves from Europe as a political
identity and instead identified more strongly with closer societies (e.g., family,
friends). The EU‐funded project ‘Orientations of Young Men and Women to
Citizenship and European Identity’ highlighted that both national location and
schooling played an important role in shaping young people’s responses to Europe.
The study found that European identity was most marked amongst German and
Czech youth; it was lowest in Spain and England.
In contrast to these quantitative studies, the predominantly qualitative design of
my project offers in‐depth insights into the political and ethnic dynamics of youth
located in four different secondary schools in two countries. First, I distributed a
questionnaire to about 100 students in each of the schools to obtain broad insights
into young people’s political identities. Then, I conducted six focus group interviews
of four to five students in each school (male, female and mixed‐sex groups) and I
interviewed eight students (four boys and four girls) to listen to the discourses
students employed when talking about Europe and their identities. The data analysis
revealed that many of the student discourses around identity cut across gender
divisions. Additional interviews were conducted with the head, the citizenship
education coordinator, head of geography and head of religious education in each of
the schools were conducted to gain insights into the role schools play in shaping
youth political identities. The identities of all schools, teachers and students in the
study were protected from outsiders by using pseudonyms.
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In this article, I draw mainly on the qualitative data obtained from student focus
groups and semi‐structured interviews with students and teachers. I chose four
schools (two inner‐city multi‐ethnic secondary schools in Stuttgart and two
comprehensives in an Inner London borough) that had some attempt to relate to
the European project.2 The schools had some similarities and differences in relating
to Europe, as summarised in Table 1.
The Turkish youth therefore will have experienced quite contradictory and
different messages about multiculturalism and Europe in the four secondary
schools. The school approaches emphasise either diversity or commonality. Not only
is the history of migration different between Germany and England, but so too are
the school approaches as a result of the different prioritisation of European and
multicultural agendas at national government level.
3. Turkish students’ responses to Europe in Germany
Germany was a founding member of the European integration project and, as a
result, schools and the curriculum throughout the 1980s and 1990s were used to
construct a ‘Europeanised national identity’ (cf. Risse and Engelmann‐Martin 2002).
Building on various earlier initiatives to implement a European dimension in German
schools (e.g., the 1978 ‘Europe in the Classroom’ document), in 1990 the Standing
Conference of the Ministers of Education (KMK) published the revised document
‘Europe in the Classroom’ (Europa im Unterricht). The document stated that the goal
of education must be ‘to awaken in young people the consciousness of a European
identity; to prepare them to be aware of their responsibilities as citizens of the
European Community; and to promote mutual learning with young foreigners to
foster the ability to feel mutual solidarity’ (KMK 1990). In 1992, the KMK published a
further review of progress and recommendations. The particular areas for
development were identified as foreign languages as part of vocational
qualifications; political and cultural education; school exchanges; school links; and
teacher exchanges (KMK 1992). Several German federal states subsequently
overhauled their curricula to implement a European dimension.
2
To get an idea of the socio‐economic status or class of each of the four schools, I looked at the
percentages of pupils eligible for free school meals, compared the achievement levels in terms of
five or more A* to C in the GCSE examinations and, most importantly, asked students in the survey
to classify their parents’ occupations.
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At the same time, Germany was reluctant to respond to the presence of ‘guest
workers’ and fitting minority ethnic communities like the Turkish Muslims into its
Europeanised concept of nationhood. ‘Integrating guest worker children’ into the
German school system while preparing them for a possible return to their country of
origin, known as ‘foreigner pedagogy’ (Ausländerpädagogik), was the guiding
principle of education in the 1960s and early 1970s (Luchtenberg 1997). Despite
mass immigration, it was not until the 1980s that a concept of multicultural
education was developed in response to the presence of ‘guest worker children’ and
it was only in 1996 that the KMK published the guideline ‘Intercultural Education at
School’ (Interkulturelle Bildung und Erziehung in der Schule), stating that the federal
states should ‘overhaul and further develop their curricula and guidelines of all
subjects with regard to an intercultural dimension; develop teaching materials which
address intercultural aspects as an integral part of school and education; and only
allow school textbooks that do not marginalise or discriminate against other
cultures’ (KMK 1996). However, during the past ten years, schools like Tannberg
Hauptschule and Goethe Gymnasium in Stuttgart continued to promote
Europeanness over and above German identities and multicultural agendas, albeit
with different emphases. This sets the context for the responses of Turkish youth.
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Goethe Gymnasium, located in a predominantly middle‐class area with 54% of
students having professional middle‐class and routine non‐manual parents,
promoted European values alongside multicultural values, as shown in the school
prospectus which stated that:
The ethos of our school is characterised by mutual respect, confidence and tolerance
towards other people. Our students, which come from diverse backgrounds, practice
intercultural tolerance and community; they learn the manifoldness of European
languages, cultures and mentalities and can thus develop their own identity within our
school. The internationality of our school community alongside its location next to
libraries, museums, opera houses, archives, theatres and galleries characterise our
profile. Europe as a cultural area is one of our guiding principles. (School brochure;
translated from German)
The teachers I interviewed had a deeply ambivalent relationship towards German
national identity and referred to Germany’s Europeanised national identity. This
submerged national identity was reflected in the school’s approach of ‘multicultural
Europeanness’ which emphasized Europe as a common bond but, at the same time,
allowed individuals to keep their cultural and ethnic identities. Following the
national political pattern, Miss Weber (the head of religious education) and Mr.
Meier (the citizenship coordinator) promoted Europeanness rather than German
identities and emphasised a European educational dimension:
DF: Citizenship, as well as other subjects, should include experiencing the European
dimension. What do you make of that?
MS. WEBER: Very important. I don’t teach national religious education. There’s not just a
European but a liberal way of seeing things. I mean it’s obvious that you also debate with
your students what Europe could mean and whether it’s an advantage to have a united
Europe, as it promotes peace, human rights, or a disadvantage in terms of excluding
some religions and countries. Is a united Europe an advantage for the rest of the world
or a disadvantage? That’s the kind of ethical questions we also deal with.
[. . .]
MR. MEIER: That’s an important question. On 1 May this year is the Eastern expansion of
the EU; and then we have Europe Day. It’s not very difficult for us because our school
ethos is very European. We have school partnerships, literature and music projects in
France, Italy and Poland. We have even had exchanges with Latin America and have
provided our students with a dimension that is part of our everyday lives and teaching.
We’ve long been part of Europe and our students feel they are part of Europe.
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However, some teachers at Goethe admitted that it is difficult to ‘teach’ a sense of
European identity, arguing that travelling, school partnerships and exchanges, as
well as modern foreign language learning, also helped students develop a sense of
European identity. Whilst young people at Goethe Gymnasium had access to all
these European activities because of their privileged socio‐economic backgrounds,
students at Tannberg Hauptschule were largely deprived of such opportunities, as
we shall see further below.
The concept of ‘multicultural Europeanness’ promoted at Goethe Gymnasium
shaped Turkish students’ political discourses and the ways in which they perceived
their identities. Unlike in the other three schools, where young people preferred
national governments, a majority of Turkish respondents argued for more European
integration (e.g., ‘national laws would be subordinated to the European Constitution
which would be good’). Nerhim alluded to the notion of a family arguing that ‘I find
the EU, the unification of all these countries, a good thing. It’s just the same within a
family; for example, when you have a problem then you discuss that amongst four
or five people and so; and I find it good that Europe is doing the same generally
speaking’. Other examples which were suggestive of Turkish students’ positioning
within national and European discourses emerged from the discussions I had with
Melik and the group of four Turkish boys. Melik argued that if there was further
European integration, ‘the language would have to be the same too’, thus alluding
to the status of English as a ‘lingua franca’ for Europe. When asked about Germany’s
relationship with Europe and the EU, the group of Turkish boys argued from a
German perspective that Germany is at the heart of Europe and an important and
powerful country, as shown in the following excerpt:
DF: How would you describe Germany’s relationship with Europe and the European
Union?
ZAFER: Well, I’d say Germany is a very powerful country; one of the big countries. You
can see that with the European Central Bank which is in Frankfurt. It’s just in the middle
of Europe.
YENER: Germany is the driving force in Europe and the EU was founded by Germany and
the European Central Bank’s in Germany. They’ve close political ties with other European
countries, like France.
SEVILIN: I think that if Hitler hadn’t existed, Germany would today lead Europe and so.
They had a few historical problems but I think they’d lead Europe, although it would still
be called Europe. Germany would have the say, but now they have to be cautious and
hold back. Germany is at the heart of Europe and without Germany today’s Europe
wouldn’t be what it is.
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The school’s interpretation of ‘Europeanness’ to include multiculturalism and
students’ privileged backgrounds allowed many Turkish students to relate positively
to Europe, to think of Europe as being part of their multidimensional political
identities, and to benefit from the opportunities created by the European
knowledge economy. Many students I interviewed engaged in a discussion about
Europe rather than just listing concepts that came to their mind when they heard
the word Europe. For example, Semra alluded to the European Union’s official
motto United in Diversity and the girls also compared and contrasted the current
political structure of Europe with that of America, thus referring to the decade‐long
debate amongst policy‐makers and politicians about the future structure of Europe:
DF: What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Europe’?
SEMRA: Well, Europe consists of countries that have got together, a community with the
same currency. But you can’t say that that’s a giant country cos there are different
languages and you can’t say that Europe is one culture. The people are kind of similar but
there are nevertheless other cultures and France isn’t like Germany and it’s different in
England. Europe just has the same currency but not the same language and culture.
NILGÜN: For me, Europe is more geographical. It’s also more simple that you can move
from one country to another. There’s the Euro, but I don’t really like it. I mean, people
think that all Europeans are the same but, in reality, there are quite different cultures.
I’ve got relatives in France and when we crossed the border it looked quite different. It’s
not one country.
SEVILIN: You can’t change the cultures, only the laws. I don’t think there‘ll ever be
something like a United States of Europe. That’s somehow not possible. Maybe it’s just a
term cos in America each state has its own laws too but the language and culture is the
same, and that’s not the case in Europe.
ZEYNEP: They all see themselves as Americans.
Despite engaging in European political discourses, most students made identification
with Europe dependent on stays abroad (e.g., ‘I only know Germany; if I was living in
Spain for a few years, then I’d more say that I’m European cos I’d be familiar with
different countries’), parental influence (e.g., ‘my parents experienced a lot and tell
me a lot about other countries and culture; Europe plays an important role for me
too cos I’m interested in getting to know these other countries’), and the school
curriculum (e.g., ‘we learn a lot of European languages here in school and talking in
Italian, English and French makes me feel partly European’). The following excerpts
indicate that the young people felt positive about Europe:
DF: To what extent do you see yourself as European?
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ALI: Erm, of course I’m European. Europe is very big and is getting bigger and bigger. And
when Turkey joins the EU it’ll be even bigger. Europe is getting more and more important
to me cos of Turkey.
[. . .]
MARIAM: I feel European because of the Euro. The Euro impacts on your life and that’s
why Europe is important. I mean, in the newspaper they always talk about the Euro,
Eurozone, Europe and I’ve noticed that the countries are getting closer and closer and
not every country has its own policy. And the economy has grown together too. And you
can travel to other countries without any problems at the borders.
The above statements were suggestive of the fact that the processes of European
integration, be it the expansion to include countries like Turkey (e.g., Ali) or deeper
political and economic co‐operation (e.g., Mariam), seemed to contribute to
students’ identification with Europe.
In contrast with the Gymnasium, Tannberg Hauptschule, located in a
predominantly working‐class residential area of Stuttgart with 57% of students
having skilled and unskilled parents, mediated national and citizenship agendas
through a dominantly European and arguably, at times, a Eurocentric approach. Mr.
Koch, the citizenship coordinator, maintained that there was no alternative to the
European dimension and that it was essential to deal with Europe in school, as
shown in the following passage:
DF: Citizenship should include experiencing the European dimension. What do
you make of that?
MR. KOCH: Must, must; not should. The curriculum must have a European
dimension. We are living in a united Europe, a multicultural society, especially
here at this school and the European spirit must be promoted stronger than ever
before. There is no alternative to that. The only problem we have is that we do
everything on a theoretical level. For example, it’s very problematic when I visit
Strasbourg with my Turkish students; they need a visa. Same problem occurs
when I want to travel to England; I have a lot of trouble at the border. That
shouldn’t be the case in a united Europe; all countries should have the same
rules. But it’s absolutely necessary to deal with Europe in school.
Despite some intercultural teaching, the teachers I interviewed seemed to struggle
to combine the notion of multiculturalism with the dominant European agenda. For
example, while eating with the students in the canteen, I witnessed cultural
insensitivity amongst some Tannberg Hauptschule teachers towards Turkish Muslim
students. On that particular day, there was pork and beef sauce available for the
583
students and the teachers on duty told a male German student who wanted to help
himself to some beef sauce that this is ‘Muslim sauce’ (Moslemsoße) and that he
should rather take some ‘non‐Muslim sauce’ and when the German student asked
why he shouldn’t eat beef sauce the supervising teacher replied that ‘you will get
impotent from that’. Besides this lunchtime remark, I sat in some lessons where
teachers occasionally spoke German with a foreign accent (Ausländerdeutsch), and
thus either intentionally or unintentionally ridiculed some minority ethnic students
in class. These examples indicated the ways in which some teachers marginalised
and oppressed minority ethnic students.
Although there was no obvious hostility towards Turkish students at Tannberg
Hauptschule, there were other suggestions that Turkish people were still considered
strangers and not part of the European project. For example, Miss Klein (the head of
religious education) referred to the white Christian roots of Germany and Europe
and established a racial/religious hierarchy which privileged the Christian cross over
the Muslim hijab. She also showed little understanding for the dilemma Muslim
teachers faced in German schools:
DF: How do you feel about wearing headscarves or crosses in school?
MS. KLEIN: I think that we are still Christian Occidental [i.e., white and European] here
with our basic values. I am of the opinion that if a religious symbol was allowed in class
then it should be the cross. Islam, for me, has both a religious and political dimension
and I’m not allowed to wear the cross in a Muslim context. Then why should we allow
things, despite being a democracy, that are not possible in other countries either. I
mean, I can only argue from my religious viewpoint. When children wear the headscarf I
have no problem with that but I think that as a teacher I have a political function. As our
constitution demands neutrality, and teachers are meant to be role models, I cannot
accept that. And if teachers were allowed to show their religious‐political background,
then it should be the cross and not the headscarf.
Arguably, such a Eurocentric educational approach and ethos made it very difficult
for the Turkish students to identify with the concept of Europe/European
citizenship. The Turkish students I interviewed mostly adopted a German
perspective when talking about the possibility of a Turkish EU membership, which
was not only suggestive of their familiarity with national socio‐political debates but
also indicated the ways in which they brought together ethnic identities with
national identities. A similarly distant approach was adopted by both Sema and
Zerrin, who thought of Turkey as a largely backward country and not only distanced
themselves from those Turkish people who live in Turkey and who, according to
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them, know little about life in Germany, but also rejected some of the customs
associated with the Muslim religion, as shown in the following passage:
DF: How do you feel about Turkey joining the EU?
SEMA: I don’t want Turkey to join the EU.
ZERRIN: Me neither.
SEMA: Germany, Turkey is bankrupt anyway. What do they want in the EU? In Turkey,
they think that everything is fine in Germany. There, Turkish people approach me and
ask me where I was from and when I say ‘from Germany’ they . . .
ZERRIN: (interrupting) They want to marry you, want to follow you to Germany and lead
a better life here. That was the case with my brother‐in‐law too. Well some things are
better here (. . .)
SEMA: Some Germans also think that the Muslim religion is a bit stupid. I find it stupid
too. The fact that you can’t eat pork or have a boyfriend, which is the case amongst
Turks, I mean you are only allowed to have a boyfriend when you’re engaged. That’s just
nonsense.
Although Turkish students engaged in a discussion about the possibilities of a
Turkish EU membership, their general knowledge about Europe seemed rather
limited despite the school’s promotion of strong European agendas and identities.
The young people in this school listed some concepts including ‘the euro’, ‘the EU’,
‘western world’ and ‘advanced rich countries’, but were unable to engage in a wider
discussion about Europe. Tamer alluded to the ‘united in diversity’ motto of the EU
and Ugur referred to the EU’s peace‐keeping role:
DF: What do you know about Europe, about the European Union?
TAMER: It’s a community.
YELIZ: That’s what I think too.
UMAY: I don’t know. I’m not so sure.
TAMER: It’s a community of different countries.
CARI: EU, countries that belong together; they talk about politics of different countries;
they have negotiations and debate what they can do. It’s a strong, political team.
YELIZ: If a country needs help then the other EU countries will help. They have treaties
with each other.
UGUR: The European Union is a good thing; we don’t have war today.
Given Germany’s commitment to Europe and European politics, it was not surprising
that nearly all Turkish students I interviewed in Tannberg Hauptschule thought that
Germany should get closer to Europe. For example, Tamer thought that ‘Germany
belongs to Europe, we are the EU, Europe, I think’ whereas Cari was slightly less
585
emphatic saying that ‘the US is fierce. I think it’s ok the way it’s right now’. Tamer
used the inclusive first person plural form we to describe Germany’s relationship
with Europe, thus revealing his level of integration and the extent to which he
adapted to the German way of life and thinking.
Paradoxically, despite having some knowledge about Europe and being able to
talk about Germany’s role in Europe and the possibilities of a Turkish EU
membership, none of the students I interviewed really saw themselves as
‘European’. Perhaps, the Eurocentric approach of some of the teachers at Tannberg
made it very difficult for the Turkish students in particular to relate positively to
Europe as a political identity. Some teachers clearly constructed Turkish youth as
originating from a non‐Europeanised Muslim country. Europeanness, for these
Turkish students, was not separate from the concept of being German. Hence, most
of the Turkish students I interviewed argued that they felt European only ‘because I
live here in Germany (…) we are Germans and Germany is part of the EU’. In
contrast, each of the four Turkish boys in one focus group claimed that ‘I don’t think
I feel part of Europe (…) I feel more Turkish’. These findings suggest that Turkish
students who privileged their Turkishness over German national identity had no
connection to Europe whereas those who prioritised the German part of their hybrid
political identities were able to feel European.
4. Turkish students’ responses to Europe in England
Turning now to the English example, where multicultural agendas are strong and the
concept of Europe is marginalised in political and educational discourses, it seems
unlikely that (middle‐class) Turkish youth have the same access to the European
knowledge economy. There was little reason why the country should
reconceptualise her national identity in European terms and the processes of
European integration have not seriously affected policy‐makers. The
Europeanisation of British national identity was undercut by the special relationship
with the United States; the geographical detachment from continental Europe; and
England’s post‐war role in the Commonwealth (Katzenstein 1997; Geddes 1999).
Europe did not appear amongst the cross‐curricular themes of the 1988 National
Curriculum. The Department of Education and Science (DES) responded to the 1988
Resolution of the Council of Ministers of Education on the European dimension in
education, stating that the government’s policies were aimed at ‘promoting a sense
of European identity; encouraging interest in and improving competence in other
European languages; and helping students to acquire a view of Europe as a
multicultural, multilingual community which includes the UK’ (DES 1991). However,
586
advice and curriculum guidance on precisely what content and form the European
dimension should assume has not matched official British concerns with
multicultural issues.
Unlike Germany, England had to develop approaches to migration‐related
diversity after the 1948 arrival of the Empire Windrush from the Caribbean because
it recruited labourers on who initially had the right to reside permanently in the host
country. Although both countries initially developed assimilationist approaches (i.e.,
‘foreigner’ pedagogy in Germany; assimilation and integration in England), the
integrationist approach in England attempted to recognise, albeit to a limited
extent, cultural and ethnic differences within the concept of Britishness. In 1988,
multicultural education (unlike European education) became one of three cross‐
curricular dimensions of the English National Curriculum (DES 1988). The anti‐racist
movement was also far stronger in England where schools, particularly in inner‐city
areas, were deeply implicated in the development of multicultural and anti‐racist
initiatives. The murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 marked a
new stage in the already decade‐long anti‐racist movement. The 2000 Race
Relations Amendment Act required all schools, colleges and local education
authorities to draw up a race equality policy before May 2002
(www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk), exemplifying the Blair government’s aim to achieve
equal access to knowledge and opportunity. Unlike in Germany, the concept of
nationhood mediated through multicultural values was primary in English schools.
The ethos of Darwin School in London, for example, suggested that young people
were encouraged to think of themselves as liberal democratic British citizens living
in a multi‐ethnic international community. These messages were highlighted in the
school prospectus:
The school strives to be a high‐performing inclusive community school, fully committed
to active citizenship and academic excellence. We value all who learn and work here;
promoting a strong sense of community within and beyond the school. (…) Bilingualism is
actively encouraged and supported and opportunities offered to be examined in
community languages. (…) All students are of equal concern and the school promotes
self‐discipline and empathy for others, both within the school and the wider community.
(…) The teacher cannot be neutral towards those values which underpin liberal
democracy. Values such as freedom of speech and discussion, respect for truth an
reasoning, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, are the means whereby indoctrination is
combated and prevented.
Despite this inclusive approach, or perhaps because of it, Darwin School made little
effort to integrate students on the basis of common European membership. The
587
deputy head not only acknowledged that the notion of Europe ‘is an area we don’t
address explicitly in citizenship’, but she also admitted that Darwin School has done
little teaching about Europe:
DF: How important do you think a European dimension or agenda is in the curriculum
here?
MS. WILLIAMS: It’s not. We haven’t done it. We don’t do it. I think we address it
inexplicitly, through some of our curriculum, but we don’t, we certainly haven’t taken on
board, I think, in terms of citizenship, there are bits that we do very well, there are bits
we have yet to develop and one of the areas we have to develop is the whole idea of
Europe, and the whole idea of looking at the European community, looking at the
European parliament, we don’t to my knowledge, at least, teach that to our students.
Now the citizenship curriculum has only been developed this year and we need to talk
about to include that within it. One of the things I’m quite keen to do is, obviously, we’ve
got the election coming up on the 10th June and I’m quite keen we actually do
something within the school around that. I am going to be using external events to try
and kick‐start that within school. We don’t do that explicitly and I think we should. We’re
going to have a referendum within this country about the issues, and I think that our
students need to be able to engage with that information to be able to understand what
the issues are.
The sample of teachers I interviewed also had agreed that the curriculum should
include more of a European dimension. Mr. Davis, the citizenship coordinator, for
example provided an excellent summary of the difficulties of implementing a
European curricular dimension, arguing that ‘the trouble is that this country
[England] has got quite a proud history, and with history as a major subject; history
tends to be national history, you know what I mean, and if it’s international it’s to do
with wars’. Mr. Davis perceived citizenship as an ideal subject for promoting
European values; but when asked about the European topics he actually teaches, he
said that ‘we don’t sort of, well, I suppose look towards the European Common
Market’. The main reason for this educational imbalance, he argued, is ‘the tension
in this country between Europeanisation and Americanisation.
The promotion of national agendas (i.e., Britishness) in a school which celebrates
similarity made it difficult for most Turkish students to relate to the European
agenda. Despite the mild pro‐European approach of the Blair government in recent
years, the processes of Europeanisation continued to receive little, if any, attention
in schools. Consequently, in their discussions about Europe and the EU, many
Turkish teenagers had difficulties to engage in European political discourses. Some
students referred to ‘power’, ‘opposition to America’ and ‘community of countries’.
588
Typically, however, Turkish interviewees neither knew the purpose of the EU nor
how European institutions work. This can be seen in the following quotation from
the discussion with a group of male and female students:
DF: What do you know about the European Union or Europe actually?
ADEM: It happened after World War Two; France and Germany, they like made an
agreement, and then loads of other countries joined or something.
NEYLAN: What happens when you’re in the EU anyway?
AFET: Nothing, you’re just
ADEM: No, you get to, the United Nations.
NEYLAN: What do you get?
ADEM: You get into the United Nations.
NEYLAN: So what, who cares? Why can’t the whole world be in it? That’s not fair.
ADEM: Cos they’re not.
[one of them speaks indecipherably]
NEYLAN: It’s just stupid!
Arguably, the limited coverage of European issues in the British mass media as well
as the ignorance of British educationalists and schools to promote a European
dimension in the National Curriculum were all responsible for this partial and
confused political view of students. In contrast, Turkish students I talked to
frequently drew on national political discourses when talking about England’s role in
Europe and within the wider world. In the following excerpts, both Mustafa and
Mehmet (Turkish Cypriots) talked about monetary issues while Safak (Turkish
Cypriot) focused upon England’s geo‐political relation with Europe:
MEHMET: Britain should be in the EU but I don’t think they should change the currencies,
cos that would affect Britain dramatically, you know, because the British pound is, you
know, really valuable and if this happened, yeah, the economy of Britain’s going to drop,
so it’s not going to be good for us. [. . .]
MUSTAFA: Yeah, I think they’re more distant cos, erm, like firstly they wanted to keep
the pound here. Everyone wants to keep the pound. But if we did actually take like, the
Euro, our economy would be stronger, and it would help other countries as well because
it would make our economy work because we’ll have a stronger force, because the
whole of Europe is our working force. [. . .]
SAFAK: I think they’re kind of part of it, but in a way they’re not they’re just kind of ‘are’
with Europe as in, because, they’re like, they’re in the EU and stuff, and you know,
Britain is in the continent of Europe, so they should be involved with their own continent
instead of going off somewhere else.
589
As a result of England’s lukewarm approach to the EU, young people’s Turkish British
identities did not easily fit with Europe so that this political identity played a less
important role in the lives of students I interviewed. However, (first‐generation)
mainland Turkish and (second‐generation) Turkish Cypriot students were able to
identify with Europe so long as Turkey was included in the notion of Europe.
Typically, respondents argued that ‘if Turkey was in the European Union, then I
would see myself as more of a European’ and ‘I see myself wherever Turkey belongs
in Asia or whatever’. A number of Turkish Cypriot interviewees, such as Mustafa and
Safak, referred to British insularity and separateness from Europe arguing that ‘I am
European ‘cos I’m in Europe, and I’m in Britain which is in Europe and part of the
European society; but I don’t see myself as a European because Britain is separate
from Europe’. Here, Mustafa and Safak tried to position themselves within the
British national discourse. These discourses were suggestive of students’ Turkish
British identities.
Mustafa analysed fully England’s position within Europe, alluding to the
referenda on the single currency and the proposed Constitution and evaluating the
consequences of a ‘no’ vote for England. His explanations could just as easily come
from a British student:
DF: To what extent would you see yourself as European?
MUSTAFA: I don’t really see myself as European, because, erm, I don’t know, I just, erm,
I’m not sure because I’d sort of be like failing my argument now if I said that, erm, I don’t
count myself as European because if I was born in Europe, I’d count myself as European,
but I’m not born there so I guess I call myself British, cos I was born here and, like
growing up here, since day one. That’s it.
DF: That’s interesting that you are saying that, because you were born in England, and
England has been part of the EU for decades, and now you were just saying ‘‘I’m not
born in Europe’’?
MUSTAFA: But the thing is, I don’t see England being a strong . . . I know they’re quite
strong in Europe, but I guess like I think like Europe’s sort of latching onto England, and I
think England’s more distant from Europe, even though they’re quite strong contenders
in the European Union. Now if you’ve seen the news, they’re actually thinking to vote
not to be key contenders in the European Union, so they’ll be more of the people that’s
on the marginal lines of Europe, instead of the core players like Germany or France.
The fact that first‐ and second‐generation Turkish students at Darwin (especially
compared with the other London school in the study, Millroad School) appeared to
be receptive of the notion of Europe may have to do with their socio‐economic
background which enabled them to travel much more within Europe. Other
590
evidence for this came, for instance, from the head of geography at Darwin, who
argued that ‘we’re a bit more privileged in terms of the [travelling] experiences
some of our kids have had’.
In contrast with Darwin School, Millroad mediated national identities through the
politics of cultural and ethnic diversity whilst offering only limited acknowledgement
of the processes of Europeanisation. The school prospects stated that:
We recognise that the social, cultural and linguistic diversity in our community is an
important resource and an aspect of our ethos we seek to promote and celebrate. We
give our students opportunities to take responsibility and develop citizenship within the
school community and beyond. (…) An important part of our work is giving our young
people the knowledge and personal strength to be good citizens in a multicultural world
which is fast changing. (…) Everything we do is geared to our two central aims: to raise
standards and expectations, and to develop the school campus as a distinctive
pioneering learning environment for students and the community – in short to make it a
magnet for the community.
Although the Modern Foreign Languages Department displayed a number of posters
with the different languages the school teaches (i.e., French, German, Turkish,
Spanish) and posters regarding the eastern enlargement of the EU, the following
excerpt from an interview with the head of history clearly shows that the
multicultural agenda is the dominant one in Millroad School and favoured over the
concept of a European educational dimension:
DF: Like geography, history should include a European dimension. What do you make of
that?
MR. GREEN: I think history should include a world dimension. I mean, there’s been a
debate in history, with the development of the national curriculum, about the extent to
which it should be British history. When the National Curriculum was first introduced,
there was an attempt to introduce a greater element of Britishness. This was resisted by
history teachers. However, it’s still the case that the National Curriculum has a much
stronger bias in terms of British history. I don’t think there are a great deal of
opportunities for a specifically European dimension. Does that bother me? Not so much
that there aren’t opportunities for a European dimension because I’m interested in
African history, for example, we look at African civilisation. I’d be interested at
developing a unit based around Islamic civilisations, I’d be fascinated to be able to do
something around Turkish history. I think that the history that we do, we need to try and
relate it to the students we have in the school and their cultural backgrounds.
Nevertheless, some teachers I interviewed were more receptive of the need to
educate for, and about, Europe. The head of geography was keen to stress that ‘I’m
591
actually developing a change in the schemes of work that we teach and the
structure I’ve had, (…) it needs a European dimension’ but so far ‘well, we’ve [only]
touched on Europe’. The challenge for Millroad School thus appears to be how to
combine the politics of cultural diversity with the new European agenda and this is
perhaps best expressed by Mr. Taylor, the head of geography who argued that ‘the
curriculum is in a developing stage; changes are necessary because of the changes in
the European Union’.
The Turkish youth faced substantial conflict at Millroad and were subject to
verbal (e.g., ‘fucking Turk’) and physical abuse including gang fights with the African
Caribbean community in their struggle for power and control of the school. As a
result of these conflicts, the Turkish students formed an ethnic solidarity group on
the basis of common religion, language, culture and physical appearance and found
safety in their national (Turkish) identities. This ethnically charged context made it
extremely difficult for first‐ and second‐generation Turkish students to identify with
England or Britain, let alone Europe. Consequently, Turkish respondents struggled to
talk about Europe and the EU in political terms, as the following quotation from the
discussion with four boys and girls underlines:
DF: What do you know about the European Union or Europe?
BARIS: European Union, what’s that?
SARILA: Well, nobody knows nothing about it basically.
BARIS: What’s the European Union?
SARILA: You think I know?
BARIS: I heard about it, but I don’t know what it is.
SARILA: Me neither.
HALIL: Is it the power?
BARIS: I’m asking you.
SARILA: I don’t really know, no.
BARIS: The Union’s a bunch of people that decides something, but I don’t know.
HALIL: It’s the only power.
Other students in the sample, such as Olcay, referred to the Turkish EU membership
bid when asked what they know about Europe in political terms, thus seeing Europe
through a Turkish national (i.e., familiar) lens. Those who argued against
membership typically said that Turkey’s laws and morals do not meet European
standards and that the country is very poor with a great deal of people being
homeless. Also, respondents pointed towards the financial costs, saying that a
membership would mean ‘improving their [Turkey’s] economic conditions at the
expense of the rest’. Those students who wanted Turkey to join the EU pointed
592
towards the societal changes that have taken place in Turkey (e.g., more rights) or
the fact that a large number of Turkish people already live in Europe.
The concept of Europe as a political identity did not easily fit with Turkish
national identities at Millroad School. The group of four Turkish boys construed the
notion of Europe in monocultural terms, arguing that Europeans are essentially
white Christian people:
YILDIRAN: Let’s say I go to India or something, or I don’t know, I’m just giving Egypt or
America or any other Canada, Canada or something then I would say ‘‘ah, I’m coming
from Europe’’, basically that’s about ‘‘I’m coming from Europe’’ but I’m not like, you
know European or anything.
MUHAMMAD: I wouldn’t even say Europe, you can’t say I’m European.
DF: Why not?
MUHAMMAD: Unless your races country is a European country as well … like where
you’re from, whether your first country is in Europe cos basically we’re used to seeing
white people, white people as European, so basically‐
YILDIRAN: English people.
MUHAMMAD: I would say I live in Europe but I’m not European.
ONAN: Yeah same, because you’re not living all around Europe, you’re just living in one
country.
KHAN: Erm, the thing is that if you was Europe, yeah, you’d like understand that, you
know, I come from Europe, cos you know yeah, but I can’t say I’m European cos I’m not
Christian.
MUHAMMAD: I don’t say I’m Christian, I say I believe in Christianity but I don’t say I’m
Christian, that’s the same as saying I’m from Europe but I’m not European.
The notion of ‘being European’ did not sit comfortably with any of the Turkish boys
in this group, most notably Muhammad, for whom identification is based upon the
concept of ‘race’ rather than residence. The use of the word ‘race’ is particularly
interesting here as it underlines that the students were aware of the racial
differences in society. The explicit use of ‘race’ as a means of distancing themselves
from white Christians might be linked to the school dynamics and the conflict there;
it was not used by any of the Darwinian students.
5. Youth identities in the European knowledge economy
This article suggests that Turkish youth had no singular identity but employed hybrid
ethno‐national, ethno‐local and national‐European identities as a result of their
national location and, especially, schooling and social class positioning (rather than
migration histories). By looking at four different school settings in two European
593
countries, we have also learnt that there were far greater tensions and frictions in
the two working‐class localities, which contributed to students’ privileging the
ethnic dimensions (e.g., Turkishness) over and above the political dimensions (e.g.,
Britishness) of hybridity. In contrast, there was much greater homogeneity in the
two middle‐class schools. The Turkish youth in the two higher‐achieving schools
benefited to a greater extent from their privileged environment than their
counterparts at Tannberg and Millroad. The labour market chances of those
students in the two working‐class dominated schools are likely to be much worse
due to their relatively lower educational qualifications (Hauptschule and GCSE)
compared to Goethe and Darwinian students. Because of their socio‐ethnic
marginalisation, 15‐year‐olds in the predominantly working‐class schools were more
likely to be caught up in ethnic tensions and, in the case of Millroad, tended to have
their own ethnic solidarity groups in school. Table 2 summarises what was learnt
about the ways in which Turkish youth forged their political identities.
The ways in which social class worked within these different school contexts
could also be seen in the extent to which students related positively to the political
dimensions of the concept of hybridity, including Europe, rather than the ethnic
dimensions. Turkish youth at Goethe Gymnasium in Stuttgart, which promoted
European alongside multicultural values, had the best opportunities of relating to
Europe as a political identity. Their privileged socio‐economic background allowed
them to take part in European school exchanges and to travel across Europe and
thus benefit from the opportunities associated with the European knowledge
economy. Turkish students at Darwin School in London also benefited from their
socio‐economically advantaged background and the school’s promotion of an inclu‐
594
sive multi‐ethnic national identity. However, as a result of England’s lukewarm
approach to Europe as well as a curricular emphasis on national and multicultural
values, the Turkish middle‐class students I interviewed had much more limited
opportunities than their German counterparts. In contrast, as a result of their
predominantly working‐class backgrounds, Turkish youth at Tannberg Hauptschule
did not seem to gain the same access to the opportunities associated with the
European knowledge economy than their peers at Goethe despite a similar
curriculum emphasis on Europe. Turkish youth at Millroad seem to have lost out on
both the European and multicultural agendas and as a result, the students I
interviewed privileged their Turkishness.
The article also showed that when schools constructed an inclusive multi‐ethnic
concept of Europe, like Goethe Gymnasium, Turkish youth engaged with Europe as a
political identity and developed national‐European identities. If however, Europe is
conceptualised as an exclusionary monocultural (i.e., white, Christian) concept, as it
was the case in Tannberg Hauptschule, then Turkish students will struggle to relate
positively to Europe as a political identity. Politicians, policy‐makers and educators
are therefore presented with the challenge of constructing and promoting an
inclusive, multi‐religious model of Europe – one which addresses the issue of
marginalised Muslim communities and promotes multicultural alongside traditional
European values. There is potential for the concept of Europe to be a source for
cultural and linguistic enrichment and minority ethnic youth like the Turkish Muslims
seemed to be able to gain from the opportunities associated with the European
knowledge economy if Europe is reconceptualised in multicultural terms. This might
not only help prevent Eurocentric education but could also help Turkish and other
teenagers forge a loyalty to Europe.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Madeleine Arnot for her great interest in my
work and her detailed comments on earlier versions of this article. I also thank the
Economic and Social Research Council (Award No.: PTA‐030‐2002‐00853), the
Cambridge European Trust and Clare Hall College Cambridge for their financial
contributions.
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Daniel Faas is Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European
and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) under the European Union’s Sixth Framework
Programme. He received his PhD in Sociology of Education from the University of
Cambridge in 2006. His main areas of research and teaching include European
integration and citizenship; policy developments in relation to education and
immigration at national and European levels; the interaction between national
majorities and Muslim immigrant minorities across Europe; and the impacts of
Europeanisation and globalisation on the political identities of youth and the
curriculum. Daniel Faas is a member of the British Educational Research
Association (BERA), the European Educational Research Association (EERA), the
British Sociological Association (BSA), the European Sociological Association
(ESA), the European Education Policy Network (EEPN) and the Marie Curie
Fellowship Association (MCFA).
Address for correspondence: Daniel Faas, Hellenic Foundation for European and
Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), 49 Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, 10676 Athens, Greece. Tel:
+30 210 7257110. E‐mail: daniel.faas@cantab.net
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