social sciences $€ £ ¥ Article Citizenship Educational Policy: A Case of Russophone Minority in Estonia Nikolai Kunitsõn * and Leif Kalev School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: In the contemporary era, societies are divided, and political polarization is increasing. One of the most powerful instruments the government can use is general standard education, specifically citizenship education. We will look at the case of Estonia, because Estonia’s main political cleavage is the ethnic cleavage between the Estonian and the Russophone community. Our main research question is as follows: How would it be possible to use democratic citizenship education to decrease in the future the socio-economic inequality between different communities in Estonia? We will outline the context of ethnic socio-economic inequality in Estonia and show how these differences have been at least partially influenced by the current education system in Estonia and how citizenship education can be used to reduce these inequalities in the future. We will conduct an empirical analysis of the curriculum, and this will be followed by semi-structured qualitative interviews. In the discussion, we will make suggestions to the current Estonian citizenship education policy and offer various insights into tackling this issue. Citation: Kunitsõn, Nikolai, and Leif Keywords: citizenship education; inequality; minority education; democratic citizenship Kalev. 2021. Citizenship Educational Policy: A Case of Russophone Minority in Estonia. Social Sciences 10: 131. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci 1. Introduction 10040131 When Estonia regained its independence in 1991, it inherited a rather segmented Academic Editors: Liyuan Liu, society where the Russophone minorities made up more than one-third of its population. Steven Donbavand, Bryony Hoskins, During the following decades, various policies have been implemented to improve the Jan Germen Janmaat and integration of different communities in Estonia. Although there have been some improve- Dimokritos Kavadias ments (e.g., increased proficiency in the state language), the socio-economic status of the Russophone minority is still considerably lower. In addition, the Estonian de facto bilingual Received: 27 February 2021 education system, which separates those two communities from an early age, raises the Accepted: 1 April 2021 question: Can the Estonian education system offer equal opportunities for young people Published: 6 April 2021 from different ethnic backgrounds? On a broader scale, in the contemporary era of heterogeneous lifestyles and increasing Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral political polarization, having a common societal culture and basic political coherence is with regard to jurisdictional claims in increasingly a challenge for the whole society as political community. Citizens have grown published maps and institutional affil- distrustful of politicians and of the democratic institutions and process in general (e.g., iations. Dalton 2004; Hay 2007; Papadopoulos 2013). As Hay(2007, p. 11) has noted, “Our sense of political citizenship in national democracies appears to be under threat.” One of the most powerful instruments the governments can use to balance these trends is the general standard education, through which a common societal frame of reference Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. is developed. A democratic state needs conscious citizens with knowledge, skills, and Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. attitudes. These are mostly generated via the education system, which usually includes This article is an open access article some kind of civic and citizenship education, whether it be a separate course, a cross- distributed under the terms and curricular topic, or something else (e.g., Crick 1998; Stoker et al. 2012; Stoker [2006] 2016). conditions of the Creative Commons This kind of democratic citizenship is vital for common identity in multi-cultural societies. Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// At the same time, these abstract ideas need to be implemented in concrete contexts, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ which can not ignore the realities of inequalities of different groups in society. Schools are 4.0/). Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 131. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10040131 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, x FOR PEER REVIEW 2 of 16 At the same time, these abstract ideas need to be implemented in concrete contexts, Soc. Sci. 2021, 10, 131 which can not ignore the realities of inequalities of different groups in society. Schools 2are of 16 seen as a place wherein students from different socio-economic backgrounds could have a sense of common democratic citizenship, which is crucial for democratic citizens in the state. Empowering minorities goes beyond language skills and personal contacts; people seen as a place wherein students from different socio-economic backgrounds could have a also need competences to act as proactive societal, political, and economic citizens in a sense of common democratic citizenship, which is crucial for democratic citizens in the democracy.state. Empowering Those who minorities lack those goes knowledge, beyond language skills, and skills values and are personal in danger contacts; of further people marginalization,also need competences including to socio-economic act as proactive aspects. societal, political, and economic citizens in a democracy.In this article, Those we who will lack study those the knowledge,case of Estonia, skills, analyze and values the citizenship are in danger educational of further policymarginalization, with a special including focus on socio-economic democratic citizenship aspects. in the case of minorities. 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