Europe Turned Local, the Local Turned European? Constructions of “Europe” in Social Studies Curricula Across Europe

• In Event: Roundtable Session 32
  In Roundtable Session: International Perspectives on Systemic Improvement

Abstract

This paper draws theoretically and methodologically from the sociology of curriculum, educational policy, and comparative education to meta-analyse the findings of ten separate studies which explored constructions of ‘Europe’ in the social studies secondary school curricula of a respective number of European educational systems: Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany), Slovenia, Greece, France, Poland, Cyprus, Northern Ireland (UK), Sweden, Ireland and the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Spain). Findings exemplify the europeanisation, as a manifestation of globalisation, of national curricula through similarities and dissimilarities between cases. They also indicate continuities, discontinuities, contradictions and conflicts between European education policy and the ways in which it is re-contextualized in the cases in focus, because of the idiosyncracy and complexities of each locality.

Authors

• Stavroula Philippou, University of Cyprus

• Loizos Symeou, European University Cyprus