This is a submission for a paper presentation on the theoretical study of a four-year-long place-based and practice-oriented empirical research project on citizenship education and diversity in secondary schools. The further description below explains the full project and the contribution of and to literature. While the research project focuses on educational practices in Antwerp, Belgium, the overarching educational questions are relevant and timely across Europe and beyond.

This research project is set in the highly diverse city of Antwerp in Flanders, the Northern Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. At national and European levels, citizenship education is described as a key educational goal carrying high expectations (Joris et al., 2021; European Commission, 2018, p. 4). However, the understandings of citizenship and what constitutes good citizenship education are contested (Joris et al., 2021; Biesta, 2014, p.5). Recently, the Flemish government adopted explicit citizenship education goals as part of a modernised educational programme (Loobuyck, 2020; Vlaams Parlement, 2018). Decisions surrounding the realisation of the citizenship education goals lie at the meso-level of the school and even at the micro-level of the classroom. Prior studies connect macro-level societal processes, including structural socio-economic inequalities, to the micro-level of the classroom (Clycq, 2016; Nouwen & Clycq, 2016). Antwerp has been considered a “majority-minority-city” since 2019 due to a majority of the citizens having a migration background (Geldof, 2019, p. 368). The emergence of majority-minority cities has prompted policymakers’ contradictory responses, also described as diversity approaches (Celeste et al., 2019). While some approaches focus on cultural homogenisation by stressing one national identity, culture and shared values, others focus on cultural heterogenisation, emphasising a global mindset, cultural empathy and interculturality. These tensions are also found in schools in super-diverse urban contexts like Antwerp. This study explores how these diversity approaches in schools converge or diverge with recently implemented citizenship education practices.

This literature study answers how citizenship education and diversity are related theoretically. Overall, the main research question of the full empirical research project is: How are citizenship and diversity enacted in urban Flemish secondary schools, and when and why do difficulties and opportunities arise? This project is part of the broader European research consortium “Solidarity in Diversity” (SOLiDi) that seeks to identify practices of solidarity in ethnic-cultural diversity as alternatives to national new-assimilationism trends.

A pragmatic approach to the role of theory is taken (Biesta, 2020, p. 8). Centralising the researched problem requires building upon the various streams of literature on citizenship (education), diversity and their relation. Banks (2022) and Biesta (2011; 2014) write on citizenship education and diversity. Biesta argues that “plurality and difference” are approached differently when emphasising social or political citizenship. For social citizenship, difference is considered a problem, while conversely, difference and plurality are important and need protection for political citizenship (Biesta, 2014, p. 2). Another relevant concept is Banks’ citizenship education dilemma, occurring when the “democratic ideals taught in citizenship lessons are contradicted by practices such as racism, sexism, social-class stratification, and inequality” (2022, p. 5). Moreover, earlier empirical studies on diversity approaches at secondary schools, both within citizenship education and beyond, are included (Celeste et al., 2019; Sincer et al., 2019). The project is practice-based, and therefore literature on pedagogy, especially critical pedagogy, is built upon (hooks, 1994; Freire, 1921). Finally, a specific theoretical aim includes exploring the relationship between difference (diversity) and sameness or unity (equality) in education. From a theoretical perspective, various authors write on tensions between diversity and equality (Abu E-Haj, 2007; Banks, 2022; Giroux, 1985; Fraser, 1997). It is questioned if, underlying the assumed tensions, forms of abyssal thinking are present (Santos, 2007).

A narrative literature review is conducted to answer the theoretical study's main question. Sources are selected based on an explicit focus on citizenship education and diversity, or on synonyms of these concepts. Literature streams on citizenship education and diversity are broad. The specific relationship between the two themes within the field of education supports narrowing the relevant sources. The full empirical research project that this literature study is part of falls in the interpretive paradigm and is designed following a case study design frame. A small set of cases is selected to be studied in-depth in a natural context (Bassey, 1999; Stake, 1995). A previous study into the diversity aspects of citizenship education explicitly asks for the need for further studies that do not solely consider teacher’s perspectives but instead also include perspectives of school leaders and students to understand possible “whole-school policies and visions” (Sincer et al., 2019, p. 191). Specifically, the case study follows a multiple holistic and embedded design (Yin, 2014). This means that three cases are selected from three distinct research sites. Moreover, all are analysed holistically and from different units of analysis, which are the perspectives derived from students, teachers, heads of schools and policy documents. The first selected case focuses on the contradictions of neutrality and accepted differences in citizenship education practices at an upper-secondary school in Antwerp. Following a case study design, several data-gathering methods are applied, including (lesson) observations, semi-structured in-depth interviews, document analyses and group interviews. At the moment of submission, data gathering at one research site is close to completion after completing twenty-eight visits to the research site spread over three months, from October 10th, 2022, until January 18th, 2023. This project takes an iterative approach with insights from the literature study relevant to the case study research project at various stages, including the design and the analysis stages. The reality of the empirical study and literature study happening side by side demonstrates that this full research project is place-based and practice-oriented, starting from a practical question with the aim of improving educational practice (Biesta, 2020).

This literature study is a work in progress until the end of June 2023, the end of the current academic term. The expected outcomes are, first, further insights into and a problematisation of the “citizenship” and “diversity” concepts. Both concepts are contested, and the way these are implemented in theory, policy and practice can demonstrate certain priorities and preferences. While data-gathering for the full research project is also in process, further support from the literature is necessary to make sense of the empirical insights. For instance, literature on citizenship education dilemmas (Banks, 2022) and approaches to citizenship education (Biesta 2011, 2014) help to understand why certain contradictions, difficulties and opportunities arise. Finally, there is turned to the critical pedagogy literature to question power issues in the educational situations studied. Overall, this research project has empirically demonstrated that citizenship and diversity meet in specific ways in educational practice. The expected findings of this literature study aim to highlight their possible relation from multiple theoretical perspectives, helping to make sense of what is empirically found and for further understanding and imagining possible alternatives.

Please note that due to the word limit, not all references used in the texts above could be included. Following is a selected list of the most important references mentioned. Abu El-Haj, T. R. (2007). Elusive justice: Wrestling with difference and educational equity in everyday practice. Routledge. Banks, J. (2022). Diversity, transformative knowledge and civic education. Routledge. Bassey, M. (1999). Case study research in educational settings. Open University Press. Biesta, G. (2011). Learning democracy in school and society: Education, lifelong learning, and the politics of citizenship. SensePublishers Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6091-512-3 Biesta, G. (2014). Learning in Public Places: Civic Learning for the Twenty-First Century. In G. Biesta, M. De Bie & D. Wildermeersch (Eds), Civic learning, democratic citizenship and the public sphere (pp. 1 – 11). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7259-5 Biesta, G. (2020). Educational research: An unorthodox introduction. Bloomsbury Celeste, L., Baysu, G., Phalet, K., Meeussen, L., & Kende, J. (2019). Can school diversity policies reduce belonging and achievement gaps between minority and majority youth? Multiculturalism, colorblindness, and assimilationism assessed. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(11), 1603-1618. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219838577 Clycq, N. (2016). ‘We value your food but not your language’: Education systems and nation-building processes in Flanders. European Educational Research Journal, 16(4), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904116668885 European Commission, European Education and Culture Executive Agency (2018). Eurydice brief: Citizenship education at school in Europe, 2017. Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2797/536166 Fraser, N. (1997). From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a “Postsocialist” Age. In N. Fraser (Ed), Justice Interruptus (pp. 11 – 40). Routledge. Geldof, D. (2019). De transitie naar superdiversiteit en majority-minority-cities. Over de nood aan interculturalisering van politie en justitie. Panopticon, 40(5), 368–387. Joris, M., Simons, M. & Agirdag, O. (2021). Citizenship-as-competence, what else? Why European citizenship education policy threatens to fall short of its aims. European Educational Research Journal, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904121989470 Loobuyck, P. (2020). The policy shift towards citizenship education in Flanders. How can it be explained? Journal of Curriculum Studies, 53(1), 65–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2020.1820081 Nouwen, Q. & Clyq, N. (2016). The role of teacher-pupil relation in stereotype threat effects in Flemish secondary education. Urban Education, 54(10), 1551–1580. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916646627 Sincer, I., Severiens, S. & Volman, M. (2019). Teaching diversity in citizenship education: Context-related teacher understanding and practices. Teaching and Teacher Education, 78, 183 - 192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2018.11.015 Yin, R. (2014), Case study research: Design and methods (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.