The European Commission, in the last 20 years or so, has been trying to promote the creation of a sense of European identity among its citizens, by using education as its main tool (CEC, 2001 and EC, 2002). The creation of a European identity or citizenship has been seen as a search for legitimacy of new and traditional political institutions (Shore, 2004 and Bruter, 2005) and as ´a parallel development of the construction of a European Union´ (Garcia, 1993: 1). However, its formation and meaning are contested (Wintle, 1996). The issue of European identity is probably more topical than ever in an increasingly multicultural, multi-faith Europe. In 2006, one of the things the Muhammad cartoon dispute in Denmark brought into light was the question of European identity and its values such as freedom of speech. The future of Europe has been put into question after the lowest ever turnout in the last European elections in June 2009 which has been considerably decreasing over the years raising questions on how relevant Europe and the EU are to Europeans. The EU, having now 27 member states, faces perhaps its biggest challenge with the ongoing rise of Islamophobia in Europe (Archer, 2003) which has raised some ongoing debates about whether Islam is compatible with European values. All these events and issues demonstrate that the question of European identity is current and relevant. This paper explores how students (aged 15-19) in state and European schools (institutions set up for the children of EU officials) in Luxembourg, Belgium and England construct and negotiate European identities. It explores the processes of the formation and sustenance of a European identity among young people by taking a social constructivist approach (Potter and Wetherell, 1987; Shotter, 1993 and Gergen, 1999) with particular emphasis on the intersection of gender, social class and national context.

The sample consisted of 90 pupils, aged 15-19 years, of which 42 girls and 48 boys. The study included nine schools in England, Belgium and Luxembourg. Each country included three schools: two state schools (one mainly working-class and one middle-class) and a European School (almost exclusively middle-class). Qualitative methods were employed in data collection, namely: 18 focus groups/paired interviews with 79 pupils and 36 individual semi-structured interviews. The conceptual framework adopted is social constructivist. A combination of a discourse analytic approach and a thematic analysis is used (Burr, 1995 and Burman and Parker, 1993).

The deconstruction of the concept ‘European identity’ into two components (emotive – feeling European – and civic – being European) led to the identification of three discursive European identities, which I termed ‘objective’, ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘detached’ Europeans. Pupils’ constructions of European identities were largely structured by the discursive identity they embraced, sometimes entailing Eurocentric assumptions. Europeans were constructed as being both culturally and ideologically superior to other cultures, specifically American and Muslim cultures which were clear opposites to pupils’ definitions of European identities. The othering of Americans and Islam suggests that European identities are relational, defined in relation to ‘others’. In this study, European identities were equally voiced by both girls and boys. However, issues of social class, national and school contexts structured young people’s sense of Europeanness. Generally, pupils showing a greater enthusiasm about feeling European were more likely to be from European Schools and middle-class schools in Luxembourg and Belgium. Findings suggest that European identities are classed identities as some pupils constructed these along middle-class lines (i.e. as having access to cultural capital such as mobility and cultural competence) but also because these identities were more readily embraced by middle-class students.