Over the past decades, European societies have become more ethno-culturally diverse. This diversification intensified discussions on social cohesion and the meaning and position of national identities throughout Europe (Bauböck, 2018). Due to their strong focus on national history, language and other curriculum elements, national education systems continue to play a key role in national identity formation processes and policy makers expect schools to socialize students into becoming ‘good’ citizens primarily able to navigate and identify with national societies (Green, 2013). At the same time citizenship education policies are justified by claiming that some form of consensus is needed to unite the diverse society where we are living in and that the broader notion of citizenship rather than a more exclusive national identity is the fundament for a shared notion of belonging in superdiverse societies (Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). However, in everyday school life, citizenship is still often interpreted through a ‘national’ framework. Substantial literature has revealed the often normative nature of citizenship education and explored how schools contribute to the transmission of civic/citizenship knowledge, the national language, and the promotion of particular values (e.g. Joris & Agirdag, 2019). At the same time, recent research reveals that minority youth construct different collective identities than majority students (Agirdag, Phalet, & Van Houtte, 2016) and national identities are less attractive  for them (De Vroome, Verkuyten, & Martinovic, 2014; Fleischmann & Phalet, 2018; Jugert, Šerek, & Stollberg, 2019). Dominant understandings of national identities often make it difficult to include all citizens in a shared national imagination (Alba & Foner, 2015), which may result in ethnic minorities showing lower levels of national belonging in ‘nation-states’ and sometimes raises questions on their ‘national loyalty’ (Faas, 2017). Thus, studies mainly focusing on cognitive knowledge or behavioral aspects related to identity and citizenship, do not grasp the more covert emotional processes related to issues of belonging and citizenship. Different notions of citizenship and citizenship education, emotional dimensions of belonging in society as well as the power relations and inequalities involved are rarely scrutinised in education (Arnot & Swartz, 2012). This illustrates the need to further elucidate the concept of belonging in relation to the concept of citizenship in education. The current study aims to fill this gap by paying attention to schools’ ‘hidden’ understandings of citizenship and belonging together by critically examining the local, national and political contexts in which policies are enacted.

We focus on the context of Flanders – the northern part of Belgium – where on the one hand the government wants to develop a ‘Flemish canon’ with mainstays from the ‘Flemish culture, history, and sciences’ to be used for both educational purposes and integration trajectories. On the other hand, significant changes regarding citizenship education have been introduced and implemented in schools that promote ethno-cultural diversity and multi-layered identity constructs (Loobuyck, 2019). Tensions between both policies arise, since explicit choices are made about the inclusion and exclusion of benchmarks in the curriculum.

In this study, we are generally interested in studying the processes of how both policy makers working at sector organizations and autonomous secondary schools in Flanders construct, interpret, and negotiate belonging, citizenship education, and collective identities within existing discourses and political pressures targeting education. Prominent questions we aim to answer are 1) How is citizenship interpreted and how is this understanding of citizenship reflected in their citizenship education (policies)?  2) In what ways are national and political discussions reflected in these policies of (urban) schools? 3) How does school management understand their positioning in relation to existing policies concerning citizenship? 4) What existing tensions arise in this field? 

The aim of this study is to understand which notions of citizenship, belonging and collective identities are conveyed in schools in Flanders and how these are aligned and/or embedded within their citizenship education policies. Specific attention is paid to multiple contextual aspects which shape how headteachers respond to the mandated requirements to promote citizenship education, since the enactment of policies cannot be considered in isolation from the social and political context in which it is generated (Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012). In this study, we rely on the analytical differentiation between belonging and the politics of belonging (see Yuval-Davis, 2006) to understand how national and political discourses on citizenship, belonging, and social cohesion affect policies and practices of secondary schools in Flanders. Notions of belonging depend on social location, emotional attachments, ethical and political values and legal issues such as citizenship (Yuval-Davis, 2006). The politics of belonging concern the boundaries set by hegemonic political powers and the struggles around the determination of what is involved in being a member of a community. We aim to critically examine how the notions of belonging intersect with the broader hegemonic power relations and political and ethical values that are disseminated in schools in different contexts. The data presented will be drawn from the analysis of a data set of 10-15 interviews with headteachers and policymakers and policy documents on citizenship education. Differences between schools were taken into account as we selected schools in both urban and more rural areas in Flanders. Insights from policy makers working at sector organizations will elucidate how their vision and policy texts on concepts as citizenship and belonging are distributed to their affiliated schools. Sector organizations translate national learning requirements set by the government into curricula in a way that these curricula align their broader vision. Affiliated schools use these curricula but are still autonomous and thus may interpret and enact these learning requirements in different ways. Interviews with headteachers aim to illuminate how schools position themselves regarding debates held at the local and national levels. In order to identify how citizenship and belonging together is understood and how this interacts with existing power hierarchies in education, inductive and deductive coding is used to identify emerging themes and categories (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008).

The Flemish Minister of Education (the first from the Flemish nationalist-separatist party N-VA), proposed to develop a Flemish Canon to implement in the curriculum of Flemish schools with the objective to promote social cohesion and a common (sub)national Flemish identity. This policy, together with the newly implemented citizenship competences in education, is justified by claiming that some form of consensus is needed to unite the diverse society where we are living in (Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2012). Perceptions of ‘Flemishness’ are strongly emphasised in dominant political discourses, while it seems large parts of youth in diverse cities are less attracted to this ‘Flemishness’. This could lead to hierarchical structuring, (re)creates labels of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and comes into conflict with certain notions of citizenship and belonging. Whilst school staff may focus on developing a sense of school belonging, this won’t be an assurance that their students feel that they belong in/to Flanders (Healy, 2019; Vincent, 2019). This study presents a variety of notions on how national and political discourses on citizenship, belonging, and social cohesion affect policies and practices in secondary schools in Flanders by taking into account national and school level policy documents and the understandings of the concepts citizenship and belonging of policy makers at sector organizations and headteachers. The results show that citizenship education is not a rational process and does not only include transferring knowledge about ‘the nation’ to students. These findings allow us to further conceptualize citizenship and belonging as processes that include both emotional attachments as well as power hierarchies in education. We believe that this study fills the gap by paying attention to less rational aspects of citizenship education and illuminating how schools enact policies concerning citizenship, belonging and collective identities.

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