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Stratification is an important design feature of many studies using complex sampling designs and it is often used in large-scale assessment (LSA) studies, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for two main reasons. First, stratification variables that achieve a high between and low within strata variance can improve the efficiency of a survey design. Second, stratification allows one to, explicitly or implicitly, control for sample sizes across subpopulations. It ensures that some parts of a population are in the sample in predetermined proportions. In this study, we determine through simulation which stratification scheme is best for PISA in Germany. For this, we consider the constraints imposed by the international sampling design, the available information about schools, and specific national characteristics of the German educational system. We examine seven different stratification designs selected based on scenarios used in past LSAs in Germany and theoretical considerations for future implementations. The chosen scenarios were compared with two reference scenarios: (1) an unstratified design and (2) a synthetic optimal stratification design. The simulation study reveals that the stratification design currently applied in PISA produces satisfactory results regarding sampling precision. The present stratification design is based on Germany's federal states and school types. However, this approach leads to small strata, which has been problematic for estimating sampling variance in previous cycles. Therefore, alternative stratification scenarios were considered and, in addition to overcoming the small-strata problem, also led to smaller standard errors for estimates of student mean performance in mathematics, science, and reading. As a result of this study, we recommend considering three different stratification designs for Germany in future cycles of PISA. These recommendations aim to: (1) improve the sampling efficiency while keeping the sample size constant, (2) follow a sound methodological approach, and (3) make conservative and cautious changes while maintaining a reflection of the structure of the German federal school system with different school types. These suggestions include a reinvented stratification of grouped German federal states and designs with school types as explicit stratifiers and federal states as implicit stratifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article asks what role National Socialism and the Holocaust play in Germany's everyday discourse today. How does the population deal with this historical legacy, and how does it evaluate the hegemonic public commemoration of the National Socialist era, especially those parts of the population that do not want to remember it? Based on the concept of mnemonic hegemony and qualitative research, the article argues that National Socialism as a collective frame of reference is still constitutive for constructing national identity in very different ways. This finding is differentiated by a typology of ideal discourse communities within Germany's population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Populists believe in the sovereignty of the people. Yet, the people can be construed in ethnic terms or in civic terms. Using a novel wording experiment in Germany (N = 7,034), we examine whether ethnic or civic conceptions of 'the people' affect respondents' adherence to key populist attitude items. 'Volk' in German has an ethno‐nationalist connotation and has been used throughout history to signify 'ethnic Germans'. The concept 'Bürger', or citizens, by contrast, lacks an ethnic undercurrent. Similar ethnic connotations of 'the people' are also common in other languages. We find that there are statistically significant differences between items framed in an ethnic and a civic manner – and that this differs per item. This relationship is significantly moderated by respondents' degree of exclusive national identity and voting behaviour for the radical right. Our findings suggest that the way in which the people is conceptualized has important implications for the measurement of populist attitudes. When populist attitudes are measured with an ethnic understanding of the 'the people', the construct is biased towards right‐wing populism, inhibiting the measurement of populism as a 'thin ideology'. Moreover, we demonstrate the importance of careful translations in comparative research, since some translated synonyms carry different semantic meanings and thereby change the concept under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A neglected topic in empirical research on national identity is its stability at the individual level, and this is especially true for its content, that is, the meaning elements that people associate with the concept of nation. In this article, we study the stability of key dimensions of national‐identity content. We ask three simple questions: How stable is national‐identity content—as captured in the ethnic/civic framework—at the level of individual citizens? Are there clear differences in stability across subgroups? What are the implications of interindividual differences in stability? Analyzing data from four waves of a large‐scale panel survey of German citizens (N = 4,654) collected over a five‐year period (2016–21), we show that there is high but not perfect stability of the degree to which individuals subscribe to ethnic and civic criteria of nationhood. Second, we find little difference in stability as a function of several theoretically selected characteristics. Third, we show that the association between national‐identity content and relevant political attitudes (immigration attitudes and far‐right party support) increases with intraindividual stability. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how national‐identity content is shaped and mobilized and how it can influence political attitudes and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political ideal of meritocracy has increasingly come under attack, but continues to figure centrally in the national identity of many self-declared liberal democracies, including Germany. A question which remains underexplored is where and how meritocratic thinking becomes ingrained in individuals to account for its pervasive appeal. This paper argues that the school grade plays a pivotal role. Ethnographic fieldwork in a German comprehensive school revealed that students consistently defended grading even though they often received very low grades themselves. The pupils' arguments evoked core meritocratic motifs of betterment, hierarchy and social ascent. In order to explain this finding, grades are situated in a wider theory of quantification, arguing that it is in their capacity as numbers that grades encourage meritocratic thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the growing rift between Western and Eastern Europe regarding the commemoration of Europe's recent past and related historical narratives of nationhood that shape contemporary political preferences. More specifically, it investigates the connections between collective memory, national identities, and democratic cultures as they manifest themselves in Germany and Poland. With the help of an interpretative analysis focused on the discourse of political elites in both countries, the article identifies competing ways of interpreting 20th-century history and providing it with meaning for contemporary audiences. The national case studies of Germany and Poland present a contrasting logic in this respect: the promise of freedom and democracy in Poland is primarily narrated as the liberation from foreign rule and the desire for national independence. This narration is significantly built around a notion of popular sovereignty in which dissenting views of the heroic national past tend to be discredited and largely banned from public debate. In contrast, in Germany, the memory of fascism and the Holocaust has established a stronger rights-based approach to democracy in the liberal tradition and an openness to contesting historical narratives in the public domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE To investigate the intention of Greek physicians working in Germany to repatriate, as well as the factors affecting it. METHOD The survey involved 152 Greek doctors working in the German healthcare system, who were asked to complete a specially designed questionnaire expressed on a Likert-type scale, which was made in Google Forms and posted on the internet. RESULTS The results show that the intention of repatriation of Greek doctors is rather limited. It was also found that increased repatriation intention is associated with reduced work and community integration and satisfaction with the host country, as well as increased family encouragement and perceived national identity. Finally, it was recorded that a combination of significant pull factors in the country of residence and limited pull factors in the country of origin (or alternatively, push factors from the country of residence) led to a reduction in repatriation intention. CONCLUSIONS Brain gain is a multifactorial phenomenon, which depends on the interaction of numerous parameters and can be more complex than brain drain. Further studies are needed to better understand the phenomenon of reverse medical brain drain, given its multifactorial nature and the lack of sufficient empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the country hosting the most significant number of refugees in Europe, Germany's Merkel government's refugee policy has been repeatedly adjusted and plagued by inconsistencies and management failures. What factors have influenced the formation of the Merkel government's refugee policy and its two shifts? The traditional rational decision-making model does not effectively explain government decisions' motivation in complex challenges. This article develops a framework for analyzing "bounded rational decision-making". It identifies the three factors that influenced the Merkel government's refugee policy: (a) strict border controls, (b) welcome culture, and (c) welcome culture under restrained policies. It explains the process and logic of their development. Based on the theory of "bounded rational decision making", the article examines the "key events and problem identification", "goal selection", "national interests", and "political psychology". We found that in the early stages of the refugee crisis, (a) public opinions and pressure, (b) the pursuit of a positive national image, and (c) a shift in the leader's psychology led Merkel to shift away from a pragmatic and rational course. These factors led to the first shift in German refugee policy from "hesitation" to a "welcoming culture". At the end of 2015, however, the shortcomings of the irrational policy were quickly revealed, and the frequency of refugee-related social problems reversed German public opinion, forcing Merkel's government to seek a balance between humanitarianism and national interests. As a result, refugee policy was adjusted for the second time, returning to a strict refugee examination system. The development of the Merkel government's refugee policy exposed the shortcomings of the traditional crisis decision-making model. Moreover, it provided a new perspective for rethinking the governance of the refugee crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE To investigate the intention of Greek physicians working in Germany to repatriate, as well as the factors affecting it. METHOD The survey involved 152 Greek doctors working in the German healthcare system, who were asked to complete a specially designed questionnaire expressed on a Likert-type scale, which was made in Google Forms and posted on the internet. RESULTS The results show that the intention of repatriation of Greek doctors is rather limited. It was also found that increased repatriation intention is associated with reduced work and community integration and satisfaction with the host country, as well as increased family encouragement and perceived national identity. Finally, it was recorded that a combination of significant pull factors in the country of residence and limited pull factors in the country of origin (or alternatively, push factors from the country of residence) led to a reduction in repatriation intention. CONCLUSIONS Brain gain is a multifactorial phenomenon, which depends on the interaction of numerous parameters and can be more complex than brain drain. Further studies are needed to better understand the phenomenon of reverse medical brain drain, given its multifactorial nature and the lack of sufficient empirical data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In research on national identity, scholars have developed a wide variety of approaches to measure and better understand this ubiquitous yet complex concept. To date, most of these approaches have been theory-driven, while only a very few have been data-driven. In this article, we aim to contribute to the latter by introducing a new data-driven method that has not been applied yet—that of non-linear principal component analysis (NLPCA). In contrast to other commonly used methods such as factor analysis, NLPCA distinguishes itself by making relatively few assumptions about the data and by allowing for greater flexibility when discovering underlying dimensions of such a complex concept as national identity. Drawing on the 2013 ISSP National Identity module, our analysis focuses on the case of Germany, also taking into account Western and Eastern Germany. Running an NLPCA, we find four dimensions that cover the multidimensionality of national identity: nationalistic attitudes, national pride and attachment, cosmopolitan beliefs, and membership criteria defining national belonging. This article contributes to the empirical debate on measuring national identity by suggesting a new and flexible methodological approach that better grasps the concept's complexity and which we believe can move empirical research on national identity forward in and beyond Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increasing need to understand integration processes and existing impediments, the present study investigated interculturality in Germany with N = 171Germans and Migrants in terms of social identity, personality, social distance as well as xenophobia and their relationship amongst each other. Results confirmed that openness and flexibility predict outgroup orientation for the total sample and the German subsample. However, this was not true for the subsample of migrants. Furthermore, within the German subsample, outgroup orientation had a decreasing influence on hostility towards foreigners and refugees, whereas national identity had an enhancing influence on xenophobia. Moreover, within the subsample of migrants, a decreasing influence of outgroup orientation on xenophobia was only confirmed towards foreigners. It was also shown that xenophobia has an enhancing influence on social distance within the total sample and the German subsample. For the subsample of migrants, this was not the case. Overall, the present study reveals the importance of personality traits regarding the success of migration in Germany through individual predispositions against foreigners that influence the process of integration. The results can be used to derive measures to support the integration, e.g., in the form of intercultural trainings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate on national identity has been receiving more attention from academics, social planners, and the public in recent years. This study aims to analyse citizens' different national identity typologies using data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) in two waves: 2003 and 2013. The study is based on 10 countries for which the dimensions of the national identity construct are first examined through multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). Then, a fuzzy hybrid approach is used to obtain two synthetic indicators for each dimension of national identity, namely ethnic and civic orientations. Then, a fuzzy clustering analysis is used to extend the Classical Apostle Model, obtaining 16 different national identity categories that expand the four Apostle categories denominated as credentialists, post-nationalists, ethnic-oriented and civic-oriented. The study ends by applying the Binary Probit Model to analyse whether some socioeconomic characteristics can partly explain the four pure national identity categories. Our results show that people seem to be increasingly credentialists. Furthermore, the civic–ethnic dichotomy of France–Germany is no longer confirmed, as Germans appear to be included in the civic-oriented national identity group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1896 Berliner Gewerbeausstellung was a transformative moment for city and nation alike. The exhibition announced Berlin's pre-eminence as a scientific and industrial city and bolstered an emergent German national identity. Including displays of Egypt and Germany's formal colonies also revealed Germany's competence as a colonial power. By illustrating its skill in both aggressive conquest and subtle intervention, city and nation thought themselves capable of competing with European rivals at home and abroad. However, the two visions of colonialism, cloaked in the guise of mass entertainment, have rarely been brought into conversation with one another. This article seeks to discuss this colonial–Oriental dichotomy by focusing on tensions between education and entertainment in display techniques, particularities of racial difference in ethnographic display, the use of advertising, and the insertion of new technologies. Contributing to a deeper understanding of race, empire, and modernity in the German context, the Gewerbeausstellung offers a jumping off point for further comparison to other local, regional, and international exhibitions and an avenue to explore how notions of modernity factored into formal and informal imperial arrangements. Ultimately, it sheds light on how an exhibition helped to fashion a global, imperial city at the turn of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Filología Alemana is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Sociology / Sosyoloji Dergisi is the property of Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Horizons of Politics / Horyzonty Polityki is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

American history has often witnessed a "Pendulum Effect" in consideration of the nation's own past. That is, attitudes swing from one interpretive pole to the opposite, in this case for interpretations of the Plymouth Pilgrims, the Mayflower, and "the first Thanksgiving." The articles in this special issue try to avoid those extremes, but while still treating fairly and with sharp moral scruples, the events of four centuries ago and their contemporary legacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within imagological approaches, paratexts can provide insights into how the Other of translated literature is presented to a new target audience. So, within a transnational context, such as Germany and Britain's shared experience of the Second World War, can the source and target-culture paratexts invoke the same images? Through a case study of Er ist wieder da, a novel that satirises Germany's relationship with its National Socialist past, and the British publication of the English translation Look Who's Back, this article finds that while the novel's humour is reframed by the British publisher, the novel's controversial position within Germany's Vergangenheitsbewältigung discourse remains intrinsic to the paratexts published in the British press. As such, this article demonstrates the transnational relevance of individual national characteristics to the paratextual framing of translated literature, the value of paratexts as objects of imagological study, and the methodological benefits of distinguishing between production- and reception-side paratexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known on how ethnic minority adolescents develop acculturation profiles of identification (i.e., how they combine their ethnic and national identification, such as being high on both and thus rather "integrated" or high on ethnic and low on national and thus rather "separated"). In a first step, this 3-year longitudinal study classified Turkish (n = 344) and resettler-origin (n = 121) ethnic minority adolescents living in Germany (Mage = 14.2, SD = 1.54, 51.6% female) according to their levels of ethnic and national identification. Latent profile analyses identified four profiles (separated, integrated, medium-ethnic, low-ethnic) for the former and three profiles (separated, integrated, low-and-medium ethnic) for the latter group. Latent transition analyses revealed considerable instability of profile attributions over time. Integration declined among both groups and results provided no evidence that national group boundaries are more permeable for resettler-origin than for Turkish-origin adolescents. Additional analyses revealed that perceived ethnic discrimination affected the probability to be in a particular profile but did not moderate transition probabilities. Overall, results suggest that during early-to-mid adolescence it is increasingly difficult to uphold a dual identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the discourse around anti-Semitism in Germany since 2000. The discourse makes use of the figure of the Jew for national security purposes (i.e. via the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the trope of the "dangerous Muslim") and the politics of national identity. The article introduces the concept of the "War on Anti-Semitism", an assemblage of policies about national belonging and security that are propelled primarily by white racial anxieties. While the War on Terror is fought against the Muslim Other, or the War on Drugs is fought against predominantly Latinx and Black communities, the War on Anti-Semitism is ostensibly fought on behalf of the racialized Jewish Other. The War on Anti-Semitism serves as a pretext justifying Germany's internal and external security measures by providing a logic for the management of non-white migration in an ethnically diverse yet white supremacist Europe. In 2000, a new citizenship law fundamentally changed the architecture of belonging and im/migration by replacing the old Wilhelminian jus sanguinis (principle of blood) with a jus soli (principle of residency). In the wake of these changes and the resulting racial anxiety about Germanness, state sponsored civil-society educational programs to fight anti-Semitism emerged, targeting predominantly Muslim non-/citizens. These education programs were developed alongside international debates around the War on Terror and what came to be called "Israel-oriented anti-Semitism" in Germany (more commonly known as "Muslim anti-Semitism"). Triangulated through the enduring legacy of colonial racialization, the Jew and the Muslim are con/figured as enemies in socio-political German discourses. This analysis of the War on Anti-Semitism has serious implications for our understanding of "New Europe". By focusing on the figure of the Jew and the Muslim, the implications of this work transcend national borders and stress the important connection between fantasy, power, and racialization in Germany and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper presents three studies, which suggest that perceiving one's nation as transgenerational (TG) is related to a differentiation in the evaluation of ethnically German diaspora migrants and ethnically non-German ('foreign') migrants. First, we find that unlike 'classical' concepts such as right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and hierarchic self-interest (HSI), TG explains differences in derogatory sentiments expressed towards diaspora and 'foreign' migrants. Second, TG is differentially related to positive emotions and behavioral intentions expressed towards these two groups of migrants. Lastly, results indicate that people who perceive the ingroup as TG require 'foreign' migrants to fulfill more criteria that make them eligible for citizenship and are thereby more exclusionist than people who include only the current generation into their concept of national identity. The social implications of these findings in face of the so-called refugee crisis in Germany and the wider European Union are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that two ethnocultural "identities"—such as ethnic identity or national identity—can be compatible (positively correlated) or in conflict (negatively correlated) within and across immigrant-origin groups. In the present article, I advance a more cognitively oriented framework for using correlational patterns to map how immigrant-origin people organize their attachments to a variety of ethnocultural categories. In explaining the value of this framework, I embark on a multistage empirical illustration. First, I perform a correlational class analysis (CCA) using a sample of second-generation Germans and a vector of 13 identity-related indicators. Second, I use a series of linear regressions and a descriptive visualization to clarify the results of my CCA. Third, I fit two multinomial logistic regressions that demonstrate how social attributes—and specifically, religion and ethnicity—impose constraints on the latent schemes that second-generation Germans follow to organize their ethnocultural "identities." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flashbulb memories are vivid, confidently held, long-lasting memories for the personal circumstances of learning about an important event. Importance is determined, in part, by social group membership. Events that are relevant to one's social group, and furthermore, are congruent with the prior beliefs of that group, should be more likely to be retained as flashbulb memories. The Fukushima nuclear disaster was relevant to ongoing political conversations in both Germany and the Netherlands, but, while the disaster was congruent with German beliefs about the dangers of nuclear energy, it was incongruent with Dutch support for nuclear power. Danish participants would not have found the disaster to be particularly relevant. Partially consistent with this prediction, across two samples (N = 265 and N = 518), German participants were most likely to have flashbulb memories for the Fukushima disaster. Furthermore, event features thought to be related to flashbulb memory formation (e.g. ratings of importance and consequentiality) also differed as a function of nationality. Spontaneously generated flashbulb memories for events other than Fukushima also suggested that participants reported events that were relevant to national identity (e.g. the Munich attacks for Germans, the Utøya massacre for Danes, and Malaysian Airlines flight MH-17 for Dutch participants). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a sizable Alevi religious minority among the predominantly Sunni Muslim immigrant community from Turkey in Germany. Based on dissertation research among Alevis between 2010 and 2013, this article investigates the experiences of Alevis, currently living in Germany, who trace their background to locations within the boundaries of the Turkish nation. Music has been a particularly important mode through which Alevis in Germany have articulated collective histories and have fashioned terms for belonging to multiple and sometimes conflicting identities. Music, sacred or not, plays a vital role in Alevi identity formation and has deep kinesthetic and symbolic meaning for the Alevis. One of the essential social activities for the members of Alevi community has been attending türkü bars, musical venues that feature "folk music" along with other kinds of music from Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Historische Zeitschrift is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Author-supplied Abstracts.)

This article explores the potential of entertainment media as a platform for challenging monolithic conceptions of national identity. Discussions about immigration in Germany usually concentrate on what minority communities need to do in order to become integrated, but neglect to consider how normative Germans must renegotiate German identity to include immigrants and minorities. German-language television often reinforces cultural divides through underrepresentation or stereotypical misrepresentation. However, several recent productions have sought to change German television by bringing normative audiences into the liminal space of transcultural Germany. In particular, two Turkish-German family comedies broke new ground with high-quality scripted narratives, distinct from the popular skit-based ‘ethno-comedies’ that began to appear in the 1990s and are still popular today. The more capacious story-telling space of scripted series is well-suited to developing complex characters. In particular, family series are studies in the tensions surrounding difference in community, with the distinct personalities of members responding differently to the same framing conditions. This article analyzes the characters and narratives of these programs in conjunction with their circulation in the public sphere to argue that family comedies provide forums for intercultural negotiation, even as they may risk reifying the stereotypical representations they seek to undermine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies find that high shares of native friends are positively related to immigrant youths' identification with the host country. By examining various immigrant groups together, these studies imply that having native friends matters in the same way for the national identification in different immigrant groups. In contrast, we argue that the extent to which having native friends affects immigrants' national identification depends on both immigrant group characteristics and the receiving context, especially on ethnic boundaries and related group differences in perceived discrimination and the compatibility of ethnic and national identities. Analyses based on data from the National Educational Panel Study in Germany that are representative of 15-year-old adolescents in secondary schools indeed reveal pronounced group differences: While national identification of ethnic German repatriates as well as of adolescents of former Yugoslavian and Southern European origin is related to the share of native. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) confers an obligation on developed states to lead in mitigation. This obligation challenges traditional conceptions of the modern state by calling forth a more outward looking state that is able to serve both the national and international communities in the service of global climate protection. Yet, the more skeptical theories of the ecological state suggest that climate leaders will only emerge if they can connect their climate strategy to the traditional state imperatives of economic growth or national security. How the governments of Germany and Norway, both relative climate leaders with ongoing fossil-fuel dependencies, have legitimated their climate policies and diplomacy is examined through a comparative discourse analysis. While both governments rely heavily on discourses of Green growth, they also construct national identities and international role conceptions that serve purposes beyond themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As nationally mixed people have parents born in different countries, they can potentially identify with multiple national reference groups, allowing the researcher to study national identification processes. The analysis of approximately one hundred people of nationally mixed background living in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom highlights different registers of identification. There are important differences in how nationally mixed people articulate them, which leads to the identification of different national repertoires of identification. In France, a strong French national identity was emphasized, whereas German national identity seems more fragile because it depends mainly on cultural socialization. In the United Kingdom, non-national identities are developed in a context where the national community is not clearly defined, while ethnicity is publicly recognized. The register and repertoire of identification concepts thus allow the researcher to analyse identity discourses and then explain national differences through international comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we discuss trans-border identities across the Franco- German- Swiss border area? Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this article aims to establish a conceptual framework in order to apprehend and study border regions. Focusing on the Franco- German- Swiss border area usually designated as the 'Upper Rhine', the article seeks to show how actors' strategies - mainly those of institutional agents - articulate with, complement, or contradict the habitus (i.e. the practices and materialities of everyday life), giving rise to a diverse set of identity constructions and sketching a more or less precise contour of this region, and of border territories in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the teaching of Swedish language lecturers active in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century. It shows the centrality of literature and literary constructions and analyses images of Swedishness and the Swedish nation present in the teaching material of that time in relation to the national image present in Swedish schoolbooks. The importance of language teaching to the transfer of knowledge regarding foreign countries is also discussed, in this case the knowledge and images of Sweden that were transferred to German students via their lecturers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Following the tradition of discourse analysis, this article examines representations of two narratives of immigration in U. S. and German social studies textbooks: the ideas of the United States as a nation of immigrants and of Germany as a (non-)immigration country. Textbooks are of particular importance in this regard, as they contain one of the few quasi-official formulations of national self-understandings. Among the most crucial findings is that in Germany, the country's decade-old self-denial of its status as a country of immigration is no longer a tenable official position, but, at the same time, the conscious self-identification as an immigration country has not yet profoundly reshaped German national identity. In the United States, on the other hand, the clichéd self-designation as a 'nation of immigrants' has not lost its appeal as a rhetorical device and grand narrative of national history, but seems increasingly anachronistic with regard to the country's broader immigration discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National character stereotyping often hinders teachers' responses to an important 21st century educational theme, global awareness. While recognizing that educators have a responsibility to teach history, in remembrance of the people and events of the past and to help prevent societies from making the mistakes of their predecessors, it is also essential that teachers prepare our new generation of young students for global citizenship in a 21st century world. This research studied 114 teacher candidates in K-6 social studies methods classes at two universities. Qualitative methods were used to measure and describe teacher candidates' knowledge and beliefs about the country and people of Germany before and after experiencing a curricular intervention workshop focused on modern aspects of Germany. Pre-study data showed outdated or stereotypical views of Germany, frequently related to WWII and the Cold War. After the intervention, approximately 83% stated that their conceptions of Germany had changed, and about 12% admitted that they had actually replaced negative impressions. Teachers must adopt the pedagogies necessary to eradicate ignorance and dispel harmful national stereotypes that threaten cultural understanding and safe learning environments for all students, thus this research adds to the ongoing conversation concerning the preparation of teacher candidates in the area of global awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces theVölkerpsychologieof the German psychologist and liberal politician Willy Hellpach. It shows how Hellpach used the once venerable approach ofVölkerpsychologie, introduced by Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal in the nineteenth century, to adapt to the Third Reich and distract the authorities from his political career. The article provides a close reading of Hellpach's main text on the subject, theEinführung in die Völkerpsychologiepublished in 1938, and explains the ease with which he was able to make this approach compatible with Nazi ideology. Hellpach's case thus illustrates the proximity of national-liberal thinking to ‘Nazi ideology’. Moreover, on account of the post-war reception of Hellpach'sVölkerpsychologieby scholars such as Ralf Dahrendorf, the article examines the uneasy and incomplete repudiation ofVölkerpsychologieafter 1945. It concludes that the origins of widely used concepts such as ‘national habitus’ or ‘national identity’ can be traced back to the tradition ofVölkerpsychologieand related studies of national character. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the contribution of political periodicals to the creation of a transnational European public sphere. The author first outlines theoretical and historical perspectives on European integration, the interplay between national and European identities, and the relationship between the mass media and politics. He then provides the example of the leftist German political and cultural journal "Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Hefte," which primarily addresses a younger audience of political activists and intellectuals, and situates it within the broader context of political journalism in the European Union countries.

This article explores the question of 'boundary-formation' by examining the significance of historical narratives for defining the nation. Specifically, it compares the historical construction of religious or confessional identity as national boundary in the cases of Ireland and Germany in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article examines the importance of this historically constructed national identity for rendering continuity to the nation's history and delineating the national 'Other', thereby establishing national particularity. The historical 'joining' of 'Irishness' to Catholic identity and 'Germanness' to Protestant identity, as well as providing cultural 'cement' for the nation, also had exclusionary implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses press commentary on the subject of European integration in newspapers published in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s, focusing on the interplay between national stereotypes and characteristics in shaping views of the respective neighboring European countries and of the process of postwar European reconciliation. The author understands the opinion pieces and editorials he analyzes as windows onto the broader political cultures in the three countries. Events examined in detail include the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC/EGKS), the failed establishment of the European Defense Community (EDC/EVG), and the Treaties of Rome that created the European Economic Community (EEC/EWG).

The “Blitz spirit” is a popular story about the British public during the Second World War, uniting together with defiance and resilience to overcome the threat of invasion from Nazi Germany. Previous work has revised this wartime story as a propagandistic construction of national identity and popular memory. Therefore, this paper reviews the Blitz spirit as a myth. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) then examines how this myth was retold in British newspapers after the July 7th bombings in London. I examine how this myth was constructed and the ideological role it played after the attacks. Similar to previous revisions of the Blitz myth from 1940, I argue that social and political complexities after July 7th were often suppressed by messages that sought to evoke a sense of “Britishness” defined by a previous generation. Whilst the July 7th bombings were not a case of traditional warfare or attacks carried out by a foreign force, I argue that wartime analogies often supported military responses in the war on terror and evoked a foreign threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]