Search

A number of countries in Europe, including the UK, have adopted language and citizenship tests or courses as a requirement for granting citizenship to immigrants. To acquire citizenship, immigrants to the UK must pass a test on British society and culture, or demonstrate progress in the English language. For those with an insufficient command of the language, there is the option in the UK of taking an English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) with citizenship course. These language and citizenship tests and courses are seen by governments as a way of encouraging immigrants to develop the competences believed necessary for social integration. Equally, these are seen as a means for immigrants to demonstrate their willingness to integrate. However, two types of criticisms have been made against compulsory tests and language programmes. The first questions the need for these. The second focuses on whether they are a genuine contribution to preparation for citizenship or whether these, in effect, constitute a gatekeeping mechanism, or otherwise lead to social injustice; related to this is the question of whether the emphasis on language as defining of nationhood and citizenship is a move away from multiculturalism towards a policy of assimilation. In addition, there are issues relating to funding. This paper presents the results of a study of a 'skills for life' ESOL course at a community college in London that is specifically intended to help immigrants seeking to qualify for British citizenship. An interview was carried out with staff involved in ESOL at the college, and a focus group discussion was conducted with a student group. The aim of the paper is to provide an account of the experiences of the students in the light of the criticisms that have made against compulsory tests and language programmes. We also examine the impact of policy changes, including funding cuts, on the college and students. Although we found the language and citizenship class to be a positive experience, we note inconsistencies and contradictions in policies and discourses around language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores questions of citizenship and the role of universities in the context of the policy changes in the UK and in Europe over the last two decades. Twenty fi ve years after the political transitions in Eastern Europe, and 70 years since the end of the Second World War, Europe is more united than ever before. New political, social and economic configurations across the continent are bringing expectations and pressures to its citizens and institutions, with universities at the front of many economic and social projects. What do these new conditions mean for citizenship in the context of European universities, and how do member states respond to this changing context? The article will use England as a national case study within the EU to illustrate the tensions between the humanistic visions still carried out by many universities, although interpreted differently across the sector, and the pressures for the creation of the 'knowledge economy' that are shared at the national and transnational levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public discourses on citizenship, identity and nationality, which link geographical borders and the political boundaries of a community, are infused with tensions and contradictions. This paper illustrates how these tensions are interwoven with multilayered notions of home, belonging, migration, citizenship and individual's ‘longing just to be’, focusing on the Dutch and the British context. The narratives of a number of Dutch and British women, who either immigrated to the respective countries or were born to immigrants, illustrate how the growing rigid integration and assimilative discourses in Europe contradict an individual anchoring in national and local communities. The narratives of women participating in these studies show multilayered angles of belonging presenting an alternative to the increasing strong argument for a fixed notion of positioning and national belonging. The female ‘new’ citizens in our study tell stories of individual choices, social mobility and a sense of multiple belonging in and across different communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the new millennium there has been a shift away from multiculturalism and the politics of difference towards integration, assimilation and a gradual 'thickening' of political belonging. The alleged weaknesses of the multicultural model and advantages of thicker, communitarian notions of community are highlighted in recent discourses on migrant incorporation and increasingly reflected in citizenship and migration policies across European countries. In this paper I critically examine citizenship reform and civic integration policies in the United Kingdom and argue that the fashionable language of integration represents a politically dated and normatively deficient approach to ethnic diversity. I furnish the basic tenets of an alternative pluralist mode of inclusion based on respectful symbiosis and the 'letting be' of groups of migrant origin, and examine the conditions for such a model's empirical implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]