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A Success Story Or a Failure? : Representing the European Integration in the Curricula and Textbooks of Five Countries

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A Success Story Or a Failure? : Representing the European Integration in the Curricula and Textbooks of Five Countries I Inari Sakki A Success Story or a Failure? Representing the European Integration in the Curricula and Textbooks of Five Countries II Social psychological studies 25 Publisher: Social Psychology, Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki Editorial Board: Klaus Helkama, Chair Inga Jasinskaja-Lahti, Editor Karmela Liebkind Anna-Maija Pirttilä-Backman Kari Mikko Vesala Maaret Wager Jukka Lipponen Copyright: Inari Sakki and Unit of Social Psychology University of Helsinki P.O. Box 4 FIN-00014 University of Helsinki I wish to thank the many publishers who have kindly given the permission to use visual material from their textbooks as illustrations of the analysis. All efforts were made to find the copyright holders, but sometimes without success. Thus, I want to apologise for any omissions. ISBN 978-952-10-6423-4 (Print) ISBN 978-952-10-6424-1 (PDF) ISSN 1457-0475 Cover design: Mari Soini Yliopistopaino, Helsinki, 2010 III ABSTRAKTI Euroopan yhdentymisprosessin edetessä ja syventyessä kasvavat myös vaatimukset sen oikeutuksesta. Tästä osoituksena ovat muun muassa viimeaikaiset mediassa käydyt keskustelut EU:n perustuslakiäänestysten seurauksista, kansalaisten EU:ta ja euroa kohtaan osoittamasta ja tuntemasta epäluottamuksesta ja Turkin EU-jäsenyydestä. Taloudelliset ja poliittiset argumentit tiiviimmän yhteistyön puolesta eivät aina riitä kansalaisten tuen saamiseen ja yhdeksi ratkaisuksi on esitetty yhteisen identiteetin etsimistä. Eurooppalaisen identiteetin sanotaan voivan parhaiten muodostua silloin, kun perheen, koulutuksen ja median kautta tapahtuvalla sosialisaatiolla on mahdollisuus juurruttaa myönteisiä mielikuvia ja identiteettejä. Koulu on tärkeä sosialisaatioagentti. Näin ollen ymmärtääksemme ihmisten käsityksiä, asenteita ja epäluuloa on tarpeellista selvittää, miten Euroopan yhdentyminen esitetään kansalaisille eri jäsenmaiden koulujärjestelmissä. Miten ja minkälaisia mielikuvia ja todellisuutta Euroopan unionista luodaan ja tuotetaan? Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin Euroopan yhdentymiseen liitettyjä mielikuvia ja käsityksiä viiden EU-maan opetussuunnitelmissa ja oppikirjoissa. Nämä viisi EU-maata olivat Ranska, Iso-Britannia, Saksa, Suomi ja Ruotsi. Tutkimusaineisto koostui näiden maiden opetussuunnitelmista ja lukioikäisille suunnatuista suurimpien kustantamoiden julkaisemista koulukirjoista. Lisäksi analysoitiin yhteisen eurooppalaisen oppikirjan malliksikin kaavailtu ranskalais- saksalainen oppikirja. Tutkimuksen keskeisen teoreettisen viitekehyksen muodosti sosiaalisten representaatioiden teoria. Euroopan yhdentymisen sosiaalisia representaatioita tarkasteltiin kokonaisvaltaisesti ja useasta eri näkökulmasta sekä määrällisten että laadullisten menetelmien avulla. 1) Ensinnäkin haluttiin selvittää sosiaalisten representaatioiden sisällöt: IV mitä Euroopan yhdentymisestä kirjoitetaan? 2) Toisena tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten ja millä keinoin Euroopan yhdentymisestä tehdään merkityksellistä ja konkreettista: miten sitä ankkuroidaan, objektivoidaan ja naturalisoidaan? 3) Kolmanneksi haluttiin tarkastella, miten Euroopan yhdentymistä visualisoidaan eli tuotetaan kuvalliseen muotoon? 4) Neljäntenä tavoitteena oli tarkastella, miten Euroopan yhdentymisen sosiaaliset representaatiot ovat muuttuneet aikojen kuluessa. Miten maiden historiallinen konteksti ja integraatiokehitys heijastuvat oppikirjojen EU-käsityksiin? 5) Viides tutkimuksen tavoite oli sosiaalisten representaatioiden rakenteen hahmottaminen. Tavoitteena oli löytää representaation ydin, eli se juoni, jonka avulla sosiaalista representaatiota rakennetaan. 6) Kuudenneksi tarkasteltiin oppikirjojen tapoja kommunikoida Euroopan yhdentymisestä. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittivat, että Euroopan yhdentymistä tehdään tutuksi, ymmärrettäväksi ja merkitykselliseksi paljolti eri keinoin viidessä EU-maassa. Euroopan yhdentymisen sosiaalinen representaatio rakentui erilaisten ydinten ympärille: ranskalaiskirjojen EU:ta käsitteleviä tekstejä kuvasi ydin Ranskalainen Eurooppa, brittikirjoja Ambivalentti Eurooppa, saksalaiskirjoja Vaikutusvaltainen ja Yhdistävä EU, suomalaiskirjoja Uhkaava ja Mahdollistava EU, ruotsalaiskirjoja Skeptinen EU ja ranskalais-saksalaisen oppikirjan ydintä kuvasi EU Maailmanmallina. Rauha ja talous ilmenivät kaikkia maita yhdistävinä elementteinä, kun taas Euroopan unioni-ilmiön ideologisten, kulttuuristen ja uhkaavien komponenttien esiintyminen vaihteli maittain. Tutkimusaineistosta käy ilmi, ettei Euroopan yhdentymistä käsitellä monipuolisesti opetussuunnitelmissa ja koulukirjoissa. Euroopan yhdentyminen kuvataan lähinnä taloudellisena ja institutionaalisena prosessina. Yhdentymisprosessin myönteiset puolet liitetäänkin usein talouteen, kun taas kritiikin kohteena ovat sensitiivisemmät asiat kuten kansallisvaltion tulevaisuus, vilppi tai maatalouden epäoikeudenmukaisuus. Kulttuurinen ulottuvuus puuttuu lähes kokonaan Euroopan yhdentymisdiskurssista. EU-jäsenyyden merkitystä oppikirjoja lukevien nuorten ihmisten arkipäivässä käsitellään niukasti. Tutkimus on monitieteellinen ja sen tulokset ovat sovellettavissa ja hyödynnettävissä niin Euroopan yhdentymisen tutkimuksessa, nationalismin tutkimuksessa, koulutuspolitiikan ja opetuksen tutkimuksessa kuin myös sosiaalisten representaatioiden teorian kehittämisessä. V ABSTRACT The economic, political and social face of Europe has been changing rapidly in the past decades. These changes are unique in the history of Europe, but not without challenges for the nation states. The support for the European integration varies among the countries. In order to understand why certain developments or changes are perceived as threatening or as desired by different member countries, we must consider the social representations of the European integration on the national level: how the EU is represented to its citizens in media and in educational systems, particularly in the curricula and textbooks. The current study is concerned with the social representations of the European integration in the curricula and school textbooks in five European countries: France, Britain, Germany, Finland and Sweden. Besides that, the first volume of the common Franco-German history textbook was analyzed, since it has been seen as a model for a common European history textbook. As the collective representations, values and identities are dominantly mediated and imposed through media and educational systems, the national curricula and textbooks make an interesting starting point for the study of the European integration and of national and European identities. Textbooks are not merely based on scientific knowledge, but in fact, largely reflect opinions of the people, a shared understanding of the phenomenon. At the same time, they shape our thinking and attitudes as they contain the scientific and common sense knowledge that an older generation wishes to transmit to a younger generation. The social representations theory provides a comprehensive framework for the study of the European integration. The European integration is a dynamic process that changes quickly and influences the daily life of its citizens. The approach of social representations tries to VI explain what happens when some abstract, unfamiliar or troubling object or phenomenon–like the European integration–is encountered and how we try to understand and explain it. By analyzing the curricula and history and civics textbooks of major educational publishers, the study aimed to demonstrate what is written on the European integration and how it is portrayed–how the European integration is understood, made familiar and concretized in the educational context in the five European countries. To grasp the phenomenon of the European integration in the textbooks in its entirety, it was investigated from various perspectives. The two analysis methods of content analysis, the automatic analysis with ALCESTE and a more qualitative theory-driven content analysis, were carried out to give a more vivid and multifaceted picture of the object of the research. The analysis of the text was complemented with the analysis of visual material. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative methods, the contents, processes, visual images, transformations and structures of the social representations of European integration, as well as the communicative styles of the textbooks were examined. This study showed the divergent social representations of the European integration, anchored in the nation states, in the five member countries of the European Union. The social representations were constructed around different central core elements: French Europe in the French textbooks, Ambivalent Europe in the British textbooks, Influential and Unifying EU in the German textbooks, Enabling and Threatening EU in the Finnish textbooks, Sceptical EU in the Swedish textbooks and EU as a World Model in the Franco-German textbook. Some elements of the representations were shared by all countries such as peace and economic aspects of the European cooperation, whereas other elements of representations were found more frequently in some countries than in others, such as ideological, threatening or social components of the phenomenon European integration. The study also demonstrated the linkage between social representations of the EU and national and European identities. The findings of this study are applicable to the study of the European integration, to the study of education, as well as to the social representation theory. VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincerest appreciation goes to my two supervisors,
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