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Attribution License (European integration has an increasing impact on all aspects of life of its member countries. The formation of the European Union (EU) and the rapid economic, political and geographical changes have challenged the traditional role of the nation state and posed new kinds of civic and political questions about the definition of citizenship and nationality. In times of economic and refugee crises hitting Europe, the idea of European integration is put to its greatest test. The European Union needs narratives and meanings that citizens can identify with, to legitimize its existence. After all, the continuation of the European integration process depends on the support and engagement of the European citizens. Thus, the question of how European integration is represented and narrated in its member countries is crucial to the very future of European unification.
This paper examines the construction of the social representation of European integration in school textbooks of two EU member states: France and the United Kingdom.i Although both are members of the EU, they have different histories, policies and statuses within the European context. France and Britain are both among the largest countries in the EU in terms of population and economy. Whereas France was among the six founders and represents the old Europe around which European cooperation was originally built, the UK, known for its hesitant attitude towards European affairs, joined the European community in 1973 and has remained outside the European single currency and the Schengen agreement. From the very beginning, in the 1950s, France took an active role in and has since then been the leading force of European integration, whereas the UK has become known as the awkward partner of the Union. Even today, Britain’s membership of the EU continues to be a topic of public debate in the UK. A referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of or leave the European Union is planned to take place in June 2016. Moreover, the relationship between France and Britain has been called the most troubled and significant relationship of modern times, consisting of a long history of wars, alliance, hatred, coexistence, envy and admiration (Tombs & Tombs, 2006), leaving an enduring mark on the history and development of Europe.
Schools play a pivotal role in the formation of identities and in the political socialization of youth (Banks & Roker, 1994; Langton, 1969). The school is seen to carry out political socialization through three major channels: the curricula and textbooks, the school climate, and the teachers (Bar-Tal & Harel, 2002). Of special importance are the curricula and textbooks that contain topics of direct political relevance: civics studies and history. It is assumed, thus, that through exposure to the contents of the curricula and the school textbooks students acquire knowledge about political matters and form attitudes towards various political issues (Bar-Tal & Harel, 2002). Indeed, students report that they are more likely to learn about political issues through reading textbooks than through any other activity (Chambliss, Richardson, Torney-Purta, & Wilkenfeld, 2007). Although the role of textbooks in teaching varies considerably from country to country and from classroom to classroom, the textbooks nevertheless provide the basis for teaching the subject (e.g., Romanowski, 1995). Even if students’ prior attitudes and beliefs (Chambliss & Garner, 1996) and their cultural environment (Porat, 2004) influence the reception of textbook contents, and even if students have access to other materials that enable them to develop an understanding of the European Union (e.g., Billig, 1995; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001), educational systems and textbooks are powerful channels in transmitting an understanding of political issues (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Chambliss et al., 2007) and in forming collective identities (Lässig, 2009). Therefore, the study of textbooks is crucial if we want to understand how teenagers, the future decision-makers of the European Union, are socialized and raised as European citizens.
Nation-states have particular interests in education (e.g., Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991). Many social and political scientists have recognized the linkages between mass education and identity building. For example, Hobsbawm (1990) has highlighted the crucial role of the school system in mediating narratives of the nation and in establishing national identifications (see also László, 2013). In a similar vein, Smith (1998) has pointed out that, by adopting an educator role, the state is capable of mass inculcation of a standardized, patriotic culture. Previous work on textbooks (e.g., Carretero, Asensio, & Rodriguez-Moneo, 2012; Crawford & Foster, 2008; Schissler & Soysal, 2005) has underlined the importance of the school and the textbooks in the construction of a nation, national identity and divisions between ingroup and outgroup. In other words, textbooks can be seen as tools of identity politics and othering, as clearly demonstrated by examples from post-war Bosnian and Herzegovinan (Baranović, 2001; Torsti, 2003), from Turkish and Greek (Antonious & Soysal, 2005) and from Israeli and Palestinian textbooks (Bar-Tal, 1998). While previous studies show the power of textbooks in the construction of ethnic and national identities, the question of whether they also construct European identities has been less explored (Pingel, 2000).
The concept of collective memory, borrowed from the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1980), is vital in order to understand the role of school textbooks in the construction of history representations and identities. Halbwachs (1980) makes a distinction between formal history and collective memory that is presented in schoolbooks: “Undoubtedly, history is a collection of the most notable facts in the memory of man. But past events read about in books and taught and learned in schools are selected, combined, and evaluated in accord with necessities and rules not imposed on the groups that had through time guarded them as a living trust” (p. 78). Textbook knowledge is far more than factual information, but is always produced within specific social, cultural, political and educational contexts (Lässig, 2009) to justify behaviours and actions that are designed to have specific social consequences (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Crawford & Foster, 2008). Also James Wertsch (2002) makes a distinction between academic formal history and collective memory. He argues that there are two kinds of narratives of the past: specific narratives, which include concrete information about places, dates and actors; and schematic narrative templates, which take place on a more abstract level and provide a narrative framework for many specific narratives. While academic history relies on specific narratives and collective memory on narrative templates, the division between these two types is not that clear-cut, as schematic narratives also influence academic history. In a similar vein, László and Ehmann (2012) argue that school history textbooks stand somewhere between historiography and collective memory. In other words, on the one hand, textbooks aim to transfer ‘objective’ academic knowledge of the past, while on the other hand, they construct social representations that draw upon emotions and memories that are important for group identity. In his research on collective memory in Russia, Wertsch (2002) found that although young people could not recall the specifics of a national narrative (dates, places etc.), they were able to impart a feeling of the narrative. These schematic narrative templates are effective, as they often remain unnoticed by those who employ them, yet form a fundamental part of the identity claims of a group.
Collective memory as a research field is complex and multidisciplinary (Olick & Robbins, 1998). Halbwachs’ theory has been further extended by Jan and Aleida Assmann (2008) who have proposed a distinction between cultural and communicative memory. According to Assmann’s (2008) theory, communicative memory embraces memories from the proximate past and it exists in everyday interaction and communication, while cultural memory covers a much longer period of time and is more focused on myths and ancient history transmitted by institutions. In the present study, the concept of collective memory is completed with Serge Moscovici’s social representation theory (SRT; Moscovici, 1961/2008), a theory of communication and social knowledge that provides further analytical tools for the analyses of the content, construction and use of collective memory. According to Janos László (2008), Halbwachs’ idea of collective memory and Moscovici’s social representations can be translated into each other. They are both rooted in French social theory and developed to contrast Durkheim’s concept of collective representations. Unlike Durkheim, both Halbwachs and Moscovici have tried to conceptualise the inseparability of the individual and the society. In terms of Assmann’s communicative and cultural memory, Halbwachs’ theory is more focused on cultural and Moscovici’s theory more on communicative memory (László, 2008).
Acknowledging Licata and Klein’s (2010, p. 48) definition of collective memory ‘as shared representations of the past based on group members’ common identity’, the concept becomes situated at the crossroads of two main theoretical branches of European social psychology: processes of social representation (Moscovici, 1961/2008) and social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). There are a growing number of studies that show the interplay between historical representations and identity (e.g., Liu & Hilton, 2005), pointing to the suitability of approaching national and European identity in social psychology through the study of social representations of history (Hammack & Pilecki, 2012; László, 2013; Liu & László, 2007; Karolewski, 2010).
In the 1950s European integration was a historical novelty, trying to create a new social reality out of nation-states that for a long time had been divided by cruel violence. In many respects the formation of the European Union has shaken the traditional conceptions of citizenship and nationality. People in the member-countries have been forced to make sense of a new social reality. Social representation theory provides an analytical framework for the study of this unfamiliar phenomenon – European integration – by showing how it is encountered, understood and explained to young European citizens. Social representations can be considered as “a system of values, ideas and practices” (Moscovici, 1973, p. xvii) that can be organized as narratives (Jovchelovitch, 2012; László, 1997).
There are many approaches within SRT (e.g., Jodelet, 2008). This research adopts social constructionism as its epistemological stance and draws upon a dialogical approach to social representations (e.g., Marková, 2003). The social representation approach provides many useful concepts for an empirical analysis of European narratives in textbooks. According to the approach, the two related mechanisms by which we attempt to make the unfamiliar familiar are anchoring and objectification. To anchor is to classify and name something. Through the process of anchoring European integration is given meaning. It is identified and imposed upon a set of familiar or existing characteristics in a culture-specific and value-laden way. Objectification, on the other hand, is considered to be transformation of the object of study, in this case European integration, into something almost physical and concrete, which may take the form of a symbol, metaphor, figure, person or a group (Wagner et al., 1999). Thus, through objectification, the iconic quality of the object is discovered and reproduced; for example, the image of the Euro becomes a symbol of European integration.
Another important concept adopted in this study refers to the structural dimension of a social representation. The structural approach to social representations (e.g., Abric, 2001) has introduced a theory of a ‘central core’. A social representation is regarded to consist of a central core that is the most stable part of the representation and the most resistant to contextual changes, as well as of peripheral elements that are more sensitive to the immediate context. The core elements generate the overall meaning of the representation and determine the representation’s organization. Although the structural approach to social representations is grounded in traditional conceptions of social cognition and mental representation (Parales Quenza, 2005) and lacks a component of dialogicality (Marková, 2003), the two concepts it provides can be useful for any approach within SRT. Thus, following the general idea of core and peripheral elements (Abric, 2001), as well as authors such as Jovchelovitch (2012) and László (1997) who consider social representations to be organized as narratives, the narrative core of social representations can be considered to be key stories and plots, or narrative templates (Wertsch, 2002), which remain in our systems of thinking and acting throughout time. Acknowledging the narrative core allows for the analysis of the transformation of a social representation over time, as the change in the central core indicates a change in the whole representation (Abric, 2001). This aspect is of crucial importance for our present purposes, as social representations of European integration should not be approached as static entities, but as dynamic structures that change in the course of historical transformation.
The purpose of this study is to explore the constructions related to European integration in French and English school textbooks. Since all representations actually do something (Elcheroth, Doise, & Reicher, 2011; Völklein & Howarth, 2005), this study also aims to analyse the consequences, in other words, the discursive functions of social representations in terms of national and European identities. The different trajectories of France and Britain in the European context, as well as their mutual tensions combined with their influence in European politics today, provide an interesting starting point for studying how textbooks in the two countries navigate between nationalism and a superordinate European identity.
The focus of this study is on textbooks of political nature, namely, history and civics textbooks. There are differences between these two school disciplines, but both have implications for research into collective memory. History tends to view the past in relation to the nation, while civic education typically concentrates on the present in terms of the state. Nevertheless, the division between the two school subjects is not straightforward. History is not only a description of past and present, but also an attempt at establishing continuity in national memory, a continuity upon which collective identity is founded and the future predicated (Liu & Hilton, 2005; Nora, 1989). Civics textbooks are written with the future in mind, aiming to construct good citizens in national collectives (e.g., Schissler & Soysal, 2005), but, at the same time, the future is constructed in dialogue with constructions of the past.
Method
This research is based on a doctoral dissertation by the author examining social representations of European integration in textbooks of five countries (Sakki, 2010; see also Sakki, 2014). The analyses of this study are based on the same data as in the previous research, but partly on different analytical methods to provide a deeper analysis of the social representations of European unification in textbooks of two countries.
Data Selection
France and England represent different educational and schoolbook systems. To study and compare them, some common guidelines were set for the selection of the books.
First, history and civics textbooks were selected because these subjects are relevant for education about European integration (Pingel, 2000). Second, to improve the generalization of the results, the textbooks that were selected were in wide use and published by major educational publishers. However, there are not always official statistics available about the ranking of publishing houses and books (see also Pingel, 2000), and consequently, the information was sometimes obtained from publishers or even from booksellers. Third, the focus was on textbooks of the early 2000s. However, since one aim was to compare how the image of European integration has changed over time, books from earlier decades (1990s, 1980s, and 1970s) were included as well. Fourth, since the goal was to examine European integration, all selected textbooks were required to contain at least some parts that dealt with this topic. Most textbooks included a chapter on European integration or the EU, but in some books the topic was also integrated into other subjects. The data selection followed an inclusive strategy, i.e., also those parts that discussed European issues more indirectly were selected. Moreover, in traditional textbooks the text itself does not necessarily play a major role; rather, the books contain a lot of visual illustrations and other material from authentic sources, such as extracts from politicians’ speeches, newspapers and treaties. Thus, all materials, regardless of type (e.g., basic text, authentic material, visual imagery), were analysed.ii Fifth, history and civics textbooks aimed at upper secondary schools were selected because European integration is a compulsory topic for students between the age of 14 and 18 years in most European countries (Pingel, 2000). Moreover, as Erikson’s (1950) stages of psychosocial development indicate, these years of teenage and early adulthood are particularly important for the formation of identity.
Textbook Material
In France, there is a strong institutional presence in the production of the curriculum and textbooks (Waldman, 2009). The history of Europe after 1945 is taught primarily during the last year of upper secondary school. History and civics are compulsory subjects for all students. Civics is often included in the study of history and geography, sharing the same textbooks. The textbooks were selected from three major educational publishers. Nearly all of the selected textbooks contained a chapter focusing on the recent history of Europe. The selected books are presented in Table 1 (for a reference list of all textbooks see Appendix).
Table 1
Number of Analyzed Pages and Elementary Context Units (ECUs) in French and English Textbooks.
| Publisher and year | Number of pages | Number of ECUs | Word Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | 46,742 | ||
| Belin | |||
| 1989 | 15 | 177 | |
| 1998 | 16 | 138 | |
| 2004 | 22 | 159 | |
| Nathan | |||
| 1972 | 3 (28)a | 84 | |
| 1999 | 32 | 109 | |
| 2004 | 28 | 196 | |
| Hatier | |||
| 2004 | 22 | 193 | |
| English | 38,208 | ||
| Heinemann | |||
| 1982 | 5 | 61 | |
| 2003b | 15 | 74 | |
| Oxford | |||
| 1996 | 15 | 58 | |
| Hodder | |||
| 1992 | 13 | 128 | |
| Murray | |||
| 2003b | 8 | 59 | |
| Collins | |||
| 2002b | 4 | 32 | |
| 2003b | 4 | 49 | |
| 2005b | 4 | 38 | |
| 2000 | 25 | 291 | |
aUnlike the other French textbooks, the book published in the 1970s did not contain a chapter dealing with the European integration, but the topic was scattered here and there within 28 pages. The amount of three pages is an approximate quantity of total text. bCivics textbooks.
In England the institutional presence in shaping the content of the curriculum and textbooks is not as strong as in France. Although the state broadly defines the content of the national curriculum, it allows for considerable freedom in terms of textbook focus (Waldman, 2009). History is a compulsory subject only between the ages of 5 and 14, while citizenship education (civics) is a compulsory subject also at the Key Stagesiii 3 and 4 (11-16 years) of secondary school. In other words, history is not a compulsory subject for the target group of this study, while citizenship studies is. Also, the EU-related topics are practically absent in GCSE- and A-level syllabuses. For example, the programme for Key Stage 3 includes aspects of British, European, and world history, but although it mentions the role of European institutions in resolving conflicts, the European dimension is not specified in great detail (History National Curriculum of England for Key Stage 3, 2007/2011). As a result, finding books that deal with European integration was not easy. The topic was discussed briefly in the older books on modern world history, and somewhat more in the books on citizenship studies, but it was absent in the history textbooks published in the 2000s. For this reason and also because history is not a compulsory subject for the upper secondary school students in England, the history textbook material was complemented with more recently published civics textbooks.
Thus, unlike the French textbook material, the empirical material consisted of both history and civics textbooks. Due to large availability of the textbook market in England, the books were chosen from several educational publishers, as indicated in Table 1. In most textbooks, the topic of European integration was discussed very briefly.
Analytic Procedures
To explore the constructions of European integration, the textual material was analysed statistically using ALCESTE software (http://www.image-zafar.com). To further examine the social representations and particularly their functions, the analysis of ALCESTE was complemented with a more qualitative analysis based on the theoretical and analytical tools provided by SRT (e.g., Moscovici, 1984) and discursive psychology (Potter, 1996, 2012; Potter & Wetherell, 1987).
ALCESTE is a statistical analysis programme that automatically describes and classifies textual material. It quantifies texts for qualitative interpretation. ALCESTE puts weight on the role of language, aiming to distinguish word classes that represent different ways of talking about an object (Kronberger & Wagner, 2000). The aim was to understand discourses of the present topic of interest: European integration in textbooks.
The first step of the analysis was to submit the scanned and cleaned textbook material to ALCESTE. ALCESTE cuts the textual material into small textual units that are called elementary contextual units (ECUs). An ECU is automatically determined by considering the length of the statement and the punctuation used. Through descending hierarchical cluster analysis, the programme identifies lexical classes (discourses) that are built of ECUs with similar lexical content. The discourses are then constructed according to statistical criteria based on word stem co-occurrence in the ECUs. ALCESTE uses chi-squares for measuring the weight of the words and the sentences within a discourse. The chi-square measures a word’s level of association with a particular discourse, as opposed to other discourses. The higher the chi-square value, the more characteristic a word is for a certain discourse. As a result of these procedures, the strongest vocabulary oppositions were found and the discourses of representative words and sentences (ECUs) were created (see Figures 1 and 2). Thus, eventually ALCESTE revealed the characteristic vocabulary of each discourse and extracted several ECUs typical for them.
After the discourses had been identified, ALCESTE examined whether they were linked to any independent variables – in this study the year of publishing (e.g., 1990s) and the publishing house (e.g., Nathan).
The ALCESTE analysis follows an inductive logic and all parts of the material have the same importance in the analysis. ALCESTE does not take into account the meaning of words, and therefore, in order to focus in depth on the meanings given to European integration, it was complemented with a qualitative analysis informed by SRT and discursive psychology.
In the first stage the results obtained from ALCESTE were carefully read multiple times in order to identify the patterns, i.e., the consistency and variability within and between ECUs (Potter & Wetherell, 1987). The patterns sought for were the ways in which social representations of European integration were discursively constructed within the textbooks. The analytic procedure was guided by basic concepts of SRT, such as the definitions of anchoring and objectification (Moscovici, 1984). The purpose was to extract all anchors (e.g., familiar forms of cooperation, values, geopolitical positions, current/future forms of cooperation; for details see Sakki, 2014) and objectifications (e.g., symbols, metaphors, icons, personifications, tropes) of European integration from the textbooks. Special focus was allocated to the actors (e.g., French, we, de Gaulle) of the discourses. After having distinguished from each other the main discourses and actors of European integration, a detailed exploration of how these discourses function in terms of national and European identities followed. More specifically, the focus was on the rhetorical organization of the discourse, i.e., what rhetorical strategies and devices, such as factuality and credibility-enhancing strategies (e.g., Potter, 1996; Sakki & Pettersson, 2015), the texts made use of.
The analysis in the following sections is comprised of two parts. The first part responds to the objectives concerning the contents and constructions of European integration. The second part of the results concentrates on the narrative core and the discursive functions of these cores in terms of national and European identities. The findings of the two countries are reported separately.
Results
French Textbooks
Constructions of European Integration
The first aim was to explore the constructions of European integration. To ascertain what is discussed about European integration in the French textbooks, all textbook material was subjected to a statistical analysis. The total number of elementary context units (ECUs) was 1264, of which 80.5 percent were analysed and 19.5 percent were eliminated.iv The hierarchical analysis resulted in the division of the textual material into the three discourses presented in Figure 1.
Figure 1
The results of ALCESTE analysis in French textbooks.
Gaullist Europe
The first discourse was named Gaullist Europe, as this discourse is predominately concerned with the Gaullist view of Europe. The discourse contains 33 percent of the ECUs and is most salient in the textbook from the 1980s. Among the most characteristic words found in this discourse are we, not, I, nation, our, people, history, town, society, tradition, experience, force, problem, America, identity, human and heritage. The tone of the discourse, emphasized by this typical vocabulary, is passionate and subjective, as becomes evident in the extracts below.
Extract 1
| 1 | It is banal to say it, but why should this great centre of civilization, force, reason, |
| 2 | and prosperity, suffocate under its own ashes? |
Note. France: Hatier, 2004, p. 174 (χ2 = 26).
In this extract a rhetorical question works together with listing attributes (Lines 1-2) as a rhetorical affirmation to imbue Europe with highly positive, even moral meanings as a great centre of civilization, power, reason and prosperity. ‘It is banal to say it’ transforms a description into a fact (Line 1) and the metaphoric expression (Line 2) further reinforces the self-evident and obvious impression of the description. Europe is presented as an ancient civilization with its own cultural and traditional heritage. Also Extract 2 below illustrates these patterns.
Extract 2
| 1 | We are aware that we must save ourselves; that we must save our common |
| 2 | heritage and civilization dating centuries back. For if it is true that the Atlantic |
| 3 | Pact embraces much of the world, it is no less true that in this world, Europe |
| 4 | itself holds the most ancient sources and the highest traditions of civilization. |
Note. France: Nathan, 2004, p. 201 (χ2 = 43).
In this extract, with the help of several rhetorical devices, an image of Europe as an ancient civilization is presented as a fact (Lines 3-4). First, the references to the ‘truth-value’ (Lines 2-3) of the argument allow the evidence to speak for itself. Second, the credibility is enhanced through a concession (Line 2) that acknowledges the rise of a new superpower, the US-led NATO (Line 3), and through two extreme case formulations (Line 4) that indisputably grant Europe the highest place in the moral hierarchy. Third, the repetition of the word ‘we’ (Line 1) serves to enhance a sense of mutual understanding as well as an air of credibility of the message in the eyes of the readers. By the repetitive use of ‘we must save’ (Line 1) the speaker calls to save ourselves and our common heritage and civilisation (Lines 1-2) that later in the extract (Lines 3-4) are equated with Europe. In this way the account also works for equating ‘we’ with Europe.
The speaker in the two above extracts is the former French President, Charles de Gaulle, and most of the ECUs in the French textbooks, which are predominantly associated with this first discourse, are passages of his speeches.v Besides expressing pro-Europeanism as in the above extracts, he uses a nationalist discourse to legitimise the French position in Europe and in the world, as the following extract illuminates.
Extract 3
| 1 | It is not the case, of course, that I would deny myself, my own: quite the contrary, |
| 2 | I am more attached than ever (to France) and I do not believe that Europe can |
| 3 | have any living reality if it does not include France and the French. |
Note. France: Belin, 2004, p. 207 (χ2 = 26).
In the above extract an image of a powerful France in the European context is constructed by presenting France/the French and Europe as mutually inclusive categories (Lines 2-3). The repeated use of the pronoun ‘I’ (Lines 1-2) further emphasizes the speaker’s role and makes the message personal and appealing. The French influence in creating the ancient civilization of Europe is emphasized.
The first discourse, Gaullist Europe, reflects and constructs collective memory: social representations of the past that are based on a common identity. To use Assmann’s (2008) distinction, this discourse more specifically draws from cultural memory – from myths and ancient history of France and Europe. In fact, the two – France and Europe – are equated in the discourse.
Original political construction
The second discourse was labelled original political construction, as the discourse is connected to the European construction in post-war Europe. It contains 24 percent of the ECUs, and it is most often constructed in the books published in the early 2000s. Among the most characteristic words of this discourse are Schuman, German, Cold War, Adenauer, idea, Soviet, west, Monnet, European construction, communist, threat, and Christian. This vocabulary is associated with the early steps of the European integration process that took place after the Second World War, as Extract 4 below illustrates.
Extract 4
| 1 | The idea of the United States of Europe was revived after the Second World War |
| 2 | by Winston Churchill, Jean Monnet and most European Christian Democratic |
| 3 | leaders, particularly the Italian Alcide De Gasperi, the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak, |
| 4 | the German Konrad Adenauer and the French Robert Schuman. |
Note. France: Belin, 2004, p. 204 (χ2 = 26).
The founding fathers, Western European politicians and leaders, are the actors of this discourse (Lines 2-4). ‘The United States of Europe’ as a metaphor (Line 1) shows that the USA was the major example for the European cooperation, and many leaders like Adenauer, Churchill, Monet and Schuman believed that the western part of the European continent could become the United States of Europe.
The second discourse associates European integration with the original European construction based on the Franco-German cooperation as its functional core. In the following extract, this axis is personified in Charles de Gaulle and Willy Brandt:
Extract 5
| 1 | The Franco-German axis plays a decisive role in European construction. The |
| 2 | policy of General de Gaulle, which defends both the independence of France and |
| 3 | Europe, is similar to that of the German Chancellor Willy Brandt. |
Note. France: Belin, 2004, p. 217 (χ2 = 22).
Although seemingly similar to the previous one, the structure of the above extract indicates that the French and de Gaulle (Line 2) are the primary actors in the European integration project, and the Germans and Chancellor Brandt the secondary (Line 3). Again, France is equated with Europe (Lines 2-3). The metaphors of a couple, a partnership, or an axis (Line 1), as in Extract 5, are used to describe a marriage relationship of sorts between the two countries. The numerous photos of French and German statesmen in the French textbooks express the warm relations between the two countries. In other words, Europe becomes the main objectification of the relationship between these two countries, and it is given a Franco-German face.
The European construction is geopolitically as well as ideologically anchored in the West, as distinct from the Soviet Union and Communism. Indeed, the ECUs of the unstable political atmosphere of the Cold War and the Soviet threat characterise the present discourse.
The driving force behind the European unification process can be seen in two threatening movements in Europe: fascism and communism. Peace thus becomes the most typical meaning given to the European project. Also other values are introduced as inherent to Europe, as expressed in Extract 6 below:
Extract 6
| 1 | The European idea is rooted in history as a heritage of the Greco-Roman |
| 2 | civilization. On that basis, over the centuries, a Europe of Christendom, a Europe |
| 3 | of Enlightenment, a Europe of romance has been built, and thus, awareness |
| 4 | based on common values: the eminent dignity of man and the refusal of fatality. |
Note. France: Belin, 1998, p. 174 (χ2 = 14).
In this extract long lists are used as a rhetorical device to imbue Europe with meanings that portray it as a base for the values and ideas of Christianity, equality, reason, freedom, science and arts (Lines 2-3). ‘Over the centuries’ (Line 2) creates a temporal image of the European spirit that has always existed.
Also, the headings of the chapters in the French textbooks, such as ‘Defending European civilization’, ‘the foundations of European identity’, and ‘in the origins of the European idea’, refer to the existence of a common past – a shared European collective memory. Through the process of objectification such metaphors as ‘European civilization’, ‘European identity’, and the ‘idea of Europe’ are suggested to make more concrete a somewhat uncertain idea of European unity. The purpose of the textbooks seems to be the promotion of a pro-European image. This objective is concretized in such chapter-headings as ‘European Federation’, ‘Go forward Europe’, and ‘Continue Europe’.
Recent institutional and economic integration
The third discourse in the French textbooks was labelled recent institutional and economic integration, as it concerns the integration process itself. This discourse contains 43 percent of the ECUs and is thus the most dominant in terms of the statistical content analysis. The textbooks published in the 1990s are the ones most strongly related to this discourse. The typical vocabulary includes treaty, economic, member states, monetary, common market, EEC, exchange, commission and agriculture.
The important steps in the integration process, such as treaties, institutions, enlargements and political developments, are introduced within this discourse. The economic aspects of the integration process are a dominant theme; the common market and money play an important role in the discourse.
Extract 7
| 1 | The single market is established in 1993, it constitutes a European area without |
| 2 | internal borders and anticipates the eventual monetary unification of the |
| 3 | countries of the European Union, a partial implementation of the Euro that will start in 2001. |
Note. France: Hatier, 2004, p. 170 (χ2 = 19).
In this extract – a typical example of the present discourse – events (e.g., single market, Euro), rather than actors, play a central role. The European integration is personified in the European Union (and its predecessor EEC). As the extract shows, the discourse is more neutral and fact-based in comparison to the two previous discourses that were more emotional and evaluative. An integrated Europe is portrayed as an economic world power in all textbooks, regardless of time. Within this rhetorical context, unified Europe is distinguished from other economic areas; especially from the United States, as the following extract demonstrates.
Extract 8
| 1 | Europe has become an industry. Aviation cooperation, which allowed the |
| 2 | construction of the Airbus and the Ariane rocket, gave the opportunity for the |
| 3 | European industries to break the monopoly of the United States. |
Note. France: Belin, 1998, p. 182 (χ2 = 22).
The factual nature of the claim that Europe is an economic power is enhanced through an illustrative example in which the Ariane and Airbus cooperation serves as an objectification of the EU-US competition.
Whereas the economic aspects of the integration process are portrayed as successful, all French textbooks express disappointment in the development of political cooperation. Images of a weak political cooperation are concretized in some of the chapter headings: ‘A centre of prosperity without a political dimension’ [France: Belin, 2004] and ‘The political and military impasses’ [France: Hatier, 2004].
Temporal transformations
As for the transformations of the social representations through time, the ALCESTE analysis indicates that the French textbooks published in different time periods are tied to different discourses (see Figure 1). The discourse of Gaullist Europe appears most often in the eighties and the original political construction in the early 2000s, while the discourse of recent institutional and economic integration is more typical of the books published in the 1990s. Overall, the vocabulary of the two former discourses is more centred on the political, historical and cultural aspects of Europe, while the vocabulary of the third discourse is more concerned with the institutional and economic aspects of the European integration process. Whereas the former discourses are more emotionally and ideologically loaded and seem to reflect and construct a shared collective memory, the latter discourse is not as appealing and focuses on the more recent social reality that attempts to describe the functioning of the European integration process.
Identity Functions: French Europe
The analyses of French textbooks show, among other things, the importance of France in the process of European integration. In the textbook discourse and pictures, France appears as an architect of Europe. Especially the Frenchmen, Monnet, Schuman and de Gaulle, appear as the actors of the European construction. The role of the French is also emphasized by portraying European integration as a Franco-German construction, and by giving it the faces of French and German leaders. The importance of France in the European project is also stressed when values and ideologies are discussed. European integration is anchored in the cultural and humanistic values of the Enlightenment, resembling a French mission civilisatrice of a world destined to disseminate the universal values of the Enlightenment and the French revolution (Marcussen, Risse, Engelmann-Martin, Knopf, & Roscher, 1999).
The analysis also demonstrated that economic cooperation is described as a success in the French textbooks, whereas the political unification is portrayed as a disappointment. Furthermore, a political union appears as something that has not quite yet materialized and its absence is described in negative terms. Regarding the identity functions of the social representation of European integration, the idea of a strong and successful Europe might point towards a strong and successful France (see also Chryssochoou, 2000, for similar results). This interpretation is in fact supported in the analysis by the observation that the United States is portrayed as a reference point for European integration. In the French textbooks Europe competes with the US for economic power but also for military capacity.
Based on the analysis of the discursive patterns within and between the materials (Potter & Wetherell, 1987), the narrative core of the French social representation is named French Europe. The core is the most stable and non-transformable part of the representation (Abric, 2001). It appears both in the older and in the more recent textbooks. However, the peripheral elements seem to have changed over the years. Table 2 demonstrates the general patterns in the transformation of the social representation of European integration. As the analyses in the previous section indicated, whereas the textbook from the 1980s makes the invisible European integration perceptible by personifying it through the former French president Charles de Gaulle, the textbooks from the 1990s make the European Union familiar by anchoring it to familiar meaning systems such as economy, education, culture and citizenship. As the EU and the integration process of the 1990s was a complete historical novelty, this new social reality was created out of old nation states and their constituents, not so much in reference to the past and to the collective wartime memory. Instead, the textbooks published in the early 2000s again anchor the European integration to the past, back to the roots of the integration process and the European idea – to the ideas of peace and Franco-German cooperation as well as to the more ancient ideas and values. One possible interpretation of this might lie in the fast enlargement and deepening of the EU that has increased the perceived incoherence and complexity of it, and thus resulted in the need to remind people about the founding story, the original idea and the core of the European integration process, and the shared post-war communicative memories and more ancient cultural memories of the European idea (Assmann, 2008).
Table 2
Transformation of the Social Representation of European Integration in French and English Textbooks
| 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | |
|---|---|---|---|
| French Textbooks | |||
| Discourses | Gaullist Europe | Recent European Integration | Original European Construction |
| Anchors | Nation, people, history | Economy, Education, Citizenship, Culture | Past, Peace, Franco-German Cooperation, Communist Threat |
| Objectifications | Charles de Gaulle | Euro, Treaties, Institutions, Euro | Founding Fathers |
| English Textbooks | |||
| Discourses | In or Outside Europe?, Foundation of European Integration | Europe as a Third Force | British Debate on Europe, Institutional EU |
| Anchors | British-US Relations, British-French Relations | West-East, Communism, War | Domestic Policy, Trade |
| Objectifications | de Gaulle, Monnet, Schuman | “Third force” | Euro, Thatcher, Institutions |
Portraying European integration as a French instrument is the most evident identity function of the social representations transmitted in the French school textbooks. The narrative core ‘French Europe’ reflects French national identity. In other words, the social representation of European integration appears as a projection of the French ingroup identity (Wenzel, Mummendey, & Waldzus, 2007). As the key narrative of ‘French Europe’ indicates, Europe is perceived as a French construction, it is a product of French agency (László, 2008). The French actors (e.g., Monnet, de Gaulle) and values (e.g., Enlightenment) are portrayed as prototypically European. The textbooks’ social representation of European integration serves as a function of self-enhancement for the French in the European context (Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
English Textbooks
Constructions of European Integration
The English corpus was divided into six discourses shown in Figure 2. The total number of ECUs was 947 of which 83.5 percent were analysed and 16.5 percent were eliminated.
Figure 2
The results of ALCESTE analysis in English textbooks.
Institutional EU
The first discourse was named institutional EU, as its main concern seems to be: ‘How does Europe function technically?’. The discourse contains 17 percent of the ECUs, and it appears most often in the civics textbooks. Among the most characteristic words are European parliament, Commission, Council of ministers, represent, decision, parliament, elect, EU, MEPs and Brussels. In short, the vocabulary and significant ECUs are related to the European institutions and to institutional decision-making, as the following extract typical for this discourse illustrates.
Extract 9
| 1 | These meetings (top meetings) are usually held twice a year. The European |
| 2 | Council decides on the policy. The five institutions of the EU are: the Council of |
| 3 | Ministers, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European |
| 4 | Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors. |
Note. England: Heinemann, 2003, p. 67 (χ2 = 54).
As Extract 9 shows, the dominant actors of this discourse are the European institutions. The discourse is neutral and fact-based rather than appealing and grounded in emotional or evaluative language.
Economic power
The second discourse in English textbooks portrays the common market and economy as attractive and powerful; thus it was named economic power. It contains 25 percent of the ECUs, and it appears most often in the civics textbooks. Typical words found in this discourse include goods, currency, Euro, EU, business, work, rate, travel, money, company and bank. This vocabulary deals with trade and money, as is demonstrated in the following extract from a civics textbook:
Extract 10
| 1 | It has created a single European currency, the Euro, and a single market free from |
| 2 | borders, where goods, people and money move around freely. The EU has |
| 3 | grown from six to 25 countries. With two more due to join in 2007 it has become |
| 4 | a major trading power. |
Note. England: Collins, 2005, p. 6 (χ2 = 41).
Here, the discourse of economy is strongly positive. The EU is presented as an active agent, as the use of active verbs in the above extract demonstrates (Lines 1-3). The EU is portrayed as a trade power (Line 4).
The Euro emerges as a dominant topic within this discourse, with both positive and negative aspects of the single currency being mentioned. The two extracts below demonstrate well this controversy related to the Euro.
Extract 11
| 1 | Supporters of a single currency argue that it would eliminate exchange rates; for |
| 2 | example, the same money can be used in Germany, France or Italy |
Note. England: Collins, 2005, p. 9 (χ2 = 25).
Extract 12
| 1 | I’ll stick to pounds and ounces, not kilos, says Yorkshire butcher |
Note. England: Murray, 2003, p. 130 (χ2 = 21).
In Extract 11, the advantages of the Euro are mainly justified on economic grounds, such as the ease of conducting business and travelling within the EU. The footing (Line 1) is used to distance the speaker from the argument. In Extract 12, an argument by an ordinary Englishman is constructed through the deployment of colloquial speech and national symbols (Line 1). These two extracts demonstrate a rhetorical pattern in the English textbooks according to which the argumentation for and against the Euro is always value-based especially in the case of opposition to it. In particular, national sovereignty, and particularly the fear of losing it, is often used as a rhetorical resource in the argumentation against the Euro.
Foundation of European integration
The third discourse in the English textbooks contains 11 percent of the ECUs, and it appears often in the history textbooks. Among the most characteristic words of this discourse are plan, Schuman, Monnet, Belgium, European Coal and Steel Community, European Economic Cooperation, Benelux, French, six and sign. The vocabulary is associated with the very early steps of the European integration process; consequently, the discourse was labelled the foundation of European integration.
The foundation of European cooperation is personified in European visionaries: Schuman, Monnet, Spaak and Adenauer. They are the actors in this discourse, not the British. In the following extract, the British attitude towards participation in the European integration process is hesitant. Europe is regarded from the outside.
Extract 13
| 1 | The plan demanded that participants agree to lose sovereignty before they begun |
| 2 | to discuss the plan. This was contrary to the British desire to develop political |
| 3 | structures slowly. |
Note. England: Collins, 2000, p. 373 (χ2 = 21).
Again, national sovereignty (Line 1) provides a rhetorical resource in which the argument against British participation in the early steps of European unification is grounded.
Third Force Europe
The fourth discourse describes the post-war European atmosphere, characterized by recovery from the Second World War and by unstable economic conditions. In this context, European integration is portrayed as a reaction to a fragile, bipolarized world system; therefore, the discourse was named the third force Europe. This discourse is the largest of all discourses in the English material and includes 26 percent of the ECUs. It emerges most often in the history textbooks. Among the most characteristic words are war, force, America, Soviet Union, Western Europe, German, European Community, independent, recover, nuclear, peace, bloc and Bevin. The associated vocabulary and significant ECUs describe the unstable political atmosphere in post-war Europe, characterized by the American influence, on the one hand, and the Soviet and German threats, on the other. The establishment of European integration is considered to be an answer to the security question, as the following extract illustrates.
Extract 14
| 1 | A third force Europe would be one way of controlling Germany’s recovery, and |
| 2 | would offer a way of defending Western Europe if America refused to |
| 3 | participate. |
Note. England: Collins, 2000, p. 368 (χ2 = 19).
In this extract the unclear and unstable position of Europe in the post-war world is conceptualized and concretized in a metaphor of ‘third force Europe’ (Line 1). Germany is constructed as a threat (Line 1). The superpowers are the main actors of the discourse.
Two types of geo-political anchorages are made: the European integration process is anchored to the difficult relations that Britain has with France, and to its special relations with the United States. Britain appears to be separated from the continent of Europe.
Extract 15
| 1 | During the war the British had not been defeated or occupied like their |
| 2 | neighbours. They did not, therefore, have the same urge to unite. Winston |
| 3 | Churchill noted this when he told de Gaulle: ‘France is the tip of a continent, |
| 4 | Britain an island, America another world’. |
Note. England: Heinemann, 1982, p. 128 (χ2 = 21).
In this extract, the British relation to European unification is explained by a metaphor of an island (Lines 3-4). An active voicing device – a direct quote by Churchill – serves to make this argument reliable. The metaphor of an island (Lines 3-4) creates an image of Britain as separate from continental Europe. Europe, instead, is anchored to and objectified as France, and portrayed as a French construction (Line 3). This becomes even more evident in the following extract.
Extract 16
| 1 | Firstly, de Gaulle wanted France to lead Europe. If Britain was allowed in, |
| 2 | Britain would also want to lead Europe, so from de Gaulle’s point of view, it |
| 3 | was better to keep her out. Secondly, he wanted Europe to be strong, and |
| 4 | independent from American influence. He wanted the French culture and |
| 5 | language to flourish. Politically, he saw Europe as a ‘Third Force’ between the |
| 6 | superpowers. Thirdly, de Gaulle was interested in pursuing detente by |
| 7 | developing an independent French force, and by making friends with the Russians. |
Note. England: Collins, 2000, pp. 377-378 (χ2 = 17).
In this extract an argument of French-led Europe (Line 1) is made complete and convincing by the deployment of a three-part list (Lines 1, 3, 6). De Gaulle’s plans for Europe are made explicit and emphasized by the repetition of an intention-promoting verb (Lines 1-4). Again, the metaphor of the third force (Line 5), typical for this fourth discourse, is used to position Europe in the global world order.
British debate on Europe
The fifth discourse was labelled the British debate on Europe. It contains 13 percent of the ECUs. Among the most characteristic words used here are anti-European, Thatcher, pro-European, party, labour, referendum, conservative, campaign, domestic, public, debate and British membership. The vocabulary is linked to British political life. In other words, Europe is tightly anchored to British domestic policy. This discourse describes Europe as a tool exploited by the political parties and politicians in order to pursue either British national interests or their own political aims, as captured by the following extract.
Extract 17
| 1 | The pressure of anti-Europeans meant that Major opted out of the EU’s social |
| 2 | chapter. He, like Thatcher, tried to create the impression that Britain was |
| 3 | winning in Europe, declaring a complete British victory in the Maastricht |
| 4 | negotiations. |
Note. England: Collins, 2000, p. 386 (χ2 = 33).
In this extract a famous ‘Thatcherism’ (Lines 2-3) is deployed to argue that Europe is a political game for the British. This political game is personified in the British former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. However, also other politicians, such as John Major in the above extract, are portrayed as actors in the game.
In general, European integration appears to be a debated issue within this discourse. All textbooks mention the British fear of losing its autonomy of deciding in the context of European integration. Thus, again, national sovereignty serves as a rhetorical resource, an anchor, for the British debate on Europe, as the following extract further illustrates.
Extract 18
| 1 | Finally, many opponents of the European Union fear that it undermines the UK’s |
| 2 | national sovereignty. |
Note. England: Collins, 2002, p. 26 (χ2 = 17).
In this extract, the reference to ‘many opponents’ (Line 1) distances the writer of the text from the account through the rhetorical device of footing. The maximization (‘many’) further emphasizes the message. The EU is attached to the loss of sovereignty that is often expressed as a consequence of the supremacy of European law over national law.
Inside or outside Europe?
The sixth discourse is the smallest one, containing 7 percent of the ECUs, and occurring most often in the history textbooks. The discourse was labelled inside or outside Europe. Among the most characteristic words of this discourse are application, Macmillan, de Gaulle, entry, Wilson, applied, vetoed, negotiate, EEC, and Britain. The vocabulary is associated with the British membership negotiations that are strongly personified in the French President de Gaulle, who is blamed for the failed British membership application.
Extract 19
| 1 | Wilson’s reply was to leave the application on the table, saying that Britain |
| 2 | would not take no for an answer. It had become clear that Britain could never |
| 3 | become a member of the EEC while de Gaulle was president of France. |
Note. England: Heinemann, 1982, p. 129 (χ2 = 42).
In this extract the British position as an outsider to Europe is portrayed as a self-evident state of affairs (Line 2). An extreme-case formulation (Line 2) further emphasizes this conclusion. De Gaulle is portrayed as the main opponent of the British (Line 3).
Temporal transformations
English textbooks published in different decades draw from different discourses (see Table 2). Whereas the 1980s editions describe the early steps of the integration process from a European and British viewpoint, the books published in the 1990s are more concerned with representing Europe as a third force in the global context between the US and the Soviet Union. By contrast, the books published in the early 2000s are concerned primarily with the discourse of the British debate on Europe and the institutional EU. As a result of the descending hierarchical analysis of ALCESTE, the major discursive opposition in the English textbooks is made between the civics and history textbooks. The first two discourses, typical for the civics textbooks, deal with the economic and institutional issues and are more connected to the recent development of the EU; they do not draw upon collective memory but upon recent events on the European continent. The latter discourses, more typical for the history textbooks, reflect collective memory. They are more concerned with discussing the British role in and relations with Europe. Also the attitude towards European integration is different. The former discourses portray the EU more clearly as a functional and advantageous institution, particularly from an economic standpoint, while Europe is described as a difficult and ambivalent issue in the latter discourses focusing on the British relations with Europe.
Identity Functions: Ambivalent Europe
As discussed in the previous section, ambivalence characterizes the social representation of European integration in the English school textbooks. Persistent questions concern whether or not to remain inside or outside Europe; whether Europe is something advantageous or a threat for the British; and whether to join the Euro or not.
The narrative core of the English representation is therefore labelled ambivalent Europe. This core is expressed through a dialectical discourse. All English textbooks value the economic side of European integration positively. The EU is represented as a powerful trading bloc that benefits both its companies and its citizens. On the other hand, all the textbooks express some kind of criticism towards the European project. It is often portrayed as a threat to Britain’s national sovereignty (see also Cinnirella, 1996, for similar results).
The analysis of the transformation of the English representation (see Table 2) shows that the ambivalence of Europe seems to be a stable and non-transformable part of the European story. This core appears in all textbooks regardless of time and type of the textbook, while, for instance, the discourse of inside or outside of Europe is more typical for the older history textbooks, and is therefore regarded as a peripheral story.
In the English books, the European integration process is approached through a metaphor of an island, and through two different kinds of geo-political positionings: Britain’s difficult relations with France and its special relations with the United States. Europe appears as a French construction; it is objectified and personified in France and in its former president Charles de Gaulle. Europe appears to serve as the most important ‘other’ for the British (Marcussen et al., 1999). This finding should also be regarded in light of the history of France and England: the competition between these two nations has existed for nearly seven centuries, since the Hundred Years’ War. British identity was forged through the conflict with France, entailing that Britain invented itself as the ‘anti-France’ (Garton Ash, 2001; Tombs & Tombs, 2006). By contrast, the US appears as the key partner of Britain, reflecting the British foreign policy of the past centuries: as Garton Ash (2001, p. 9) analyses, a fascination with American solutions has been common for all British leaders.
As the search of the English textbook material made clear (see section ‘Textbook Material’), European integration appears to be a more or less silenced topic in the English syllabuses and textbooks. Whenever it is discussed, it is from the viewpoint of British interests. Europe is made sense of in relation to domestic policy, and such issues as common values and a European heritage are not discussed. European identity is not portrayed as an end in itself, but more as an instrument for fostering national identity. In other words, the social representation of European integration is determined by its instrumentality to national interests, for example for the purposes of trade and domestic policy.
Discussion
The formation of the European Union has posed new kinds of civic and political questions about the definition of citizenship and nationality (e.g., Flanagan & Sherrod, 1998). Although for the past 20 years a growing number of studies has shown the relevance of the social psychological study of European identity (e.g., Breakwell & Lyons, 1996), the historically and contextually constructed contents of identities have been largely ignored (e.g., Liu & Hilton, 2005; Reicher, 2004).
This paper has aimed to show how European integration is described in the school textbooks of two of its member countries. In line with the findings of László and Ehmann (2012), it seems that school textbooks stand somewhere between facts (e.g., historiography) and social representations (e.g., collective memories). The social representation approach (e.g., Moscovici, 1961/2008, 1984) has provided a comprehensive framework for the study of European integration by showing how European integration is explained and made meaningful and concrete to young European citizens.
The social representation approach allowed seeing how the images of European unification are built in the two countries by anchoring and objectifying the common project in similar and different ways. These representations, constructed around ‘French Europe’ in the French school textbooks and around ‘ambivalent Europe’ in the English ones, share the images of a strong European economy and a French-led political Europe, but adopt a different position with respect to the US, to the deepening of political and military cooperation, and to the significance of common values and heritage. In both countries the textbooks draw upon memories that are important for group identity. While the French textbooks make European integration meaningful with reference to a shared post-war collective memory and to a more ancient idea of Europe based on shared values and heritage, the English textbooks anchor it more strongly to domestic policy (Assmann, 2008; Halbwachs, 1980). The founding story of the European unification based on the post-war visions and visionaries is constructed in the textbooks of both countries, but while the French are portrayed as the main actors of this story, the British are left without agency – they are outsiders or even the villains of the story. Thus, European integration is objectified and equated with the French while the British are portrayed as the outsiders of Europe.
However, compared with previous research on textbooks (e.g., Antonious & Soysal, 2005; Torsti, 2003) that shows the role of intergroup bias in the construction of group identity, othering did not appear as a dominant identity building mechanism in the French and English textbooks. The focus of previous studies has not been on European identity, but on ethnic and national identity, which may explain these differences. In the present study, the most visible reference point for Europe was the United States. The EU-US relations were characterized as an alliance in the English textbooks and as an economic rivalry in the French textbooks. In addition, the despots of the Second World War, as well as the threats of fascism and communism, appeared as European others. The wartime memories were manifested more strongly in the French textbooks, where peace provided the main anchoring point, the meaning, for the construction of the European integration process. European identity was not constructed against immigrants, refugees or the Turkish, as might have been anticipated (e.g., Delanty, 1996).
Social representations are vital to a group’s identity (Liu & Hilton, 2005). When it comes to the construction of European identity in textbooks, the economic Europe is hardly enough to make people feel attached to Europe. Neither is European identity built against its salient outgroups. Instead, the French textbooks bring up European values and heroes as a base for a European identity, but these are borrowed from French national symbolic resources and are thus exclusive rather than inclusive. On the other hand, in the English textbooks the story of European integration is either silenced or controversial. European identity is not portrayed as an end in itself.
This study furthermore aimed to demonstrate that social representations are always contextually constructed in the dynamic flow of history. One example of the power of context in shaping social representations can be traced back to the early years of the European integration process. While France was among the founding members of the European integration process, the UK failed in both its attempts to join the EEC in the 1960s due to the resistance of the French president Charles de Gaulle. As discussed previously, the English textbooks concretize the centuries-old narrative of troublesome British-French relations in the narrative of the unfortunate British membership negotiations, blocked by the French and their president. The narrative is maintained, repeated and transmitted from one generation to another through the English school textbooks. Thus, ‘the past weighs on the present’ (Liu & Hilton, 2005). If we look at the present through the lenses of the past, we can at least speculate whether or not these negative memories have anything to do with the present ambivalent conceptions and attitudes concerning British EU membership. Do they have a role to play in the ongoing Eurosceptic atmosphere in Britain? On the other hand, the key narrative in the French textbooks, the central core of ‘French Europe’, can be understood in light of the post-war context where France had lost its superpower status in world politics, and Europe was seen as a way of restoring it. Thus, it is important to study and compare conceptions of European integration in different member countries of the EU, as different perceptions of European integration may lead to different European politics in the present.
Limitations
This study is not without its limitations. First, it is important to acknowledge that the results have been affected by the different educational systems in France and Britain and by the different positions of history and civics in the national curricula. In practice, this means that while the French material consisted of history textbooks, the English material included both history and civics textbooks. Consequently, the direct comparison between the analyses of the two countries is difficult. Another crucial limitation of this study concerns the small number of textbooks from the earlier decades. In particular, the restricted amount of textbooks has consequences for the analysis of the transformation of the social representation of European integration, and therefore, the results are not generalizable but remain tentative. Yet another methodological concern is the compatibility between different methods of analysis, namely ALCESTE and discourse analysis. Although the former is, in some respects, a quantitative and the latter is a qualitative approach, there is good reason to believe that ALCESTE ‘suits its aim of discourse analysis’ (Kronberger & Wagner, 2000, p. 306). In fact, Klein and Licata (2003), who successfully combined these two methodologies, argue that they can benefit from each other. On the one hand, ALCESTE increases the objectivity of the discourse analysis, as the choice of extracts is not made by the researcher but by the software. On the other hand, discursive tools are needed in order to analyse the argumentative functions of the selected extracts.
The discursive analysis of ECUs showed that textbooks and their authors use a variety of rhetorical devices to persuade their readers. Warranting, which works to convince readers that descriptions are factual, seems to be the most dominant rhetorical format used in the textbooks. This warranting took place through the use of devices such as passive voice, quotations and consensus building. The textbooks’ discursive specificity seemed to be ’distancing’: the text was written in third person, which masked the presence of the author. Typically, warranting was also emphasised through consensus-building devices (e.g., ’many’, ’the British’) that allowed for speaking in the name of a larger group of people – even in the name of an entire nation. These observations are, nevertheless, tentative and an avenue to further explore in future studies.
The final point to discuss is of a more theoretical nature: although language, communication and social construction are focal points in both SRT and discursive psychology, the integration of these two European approaches has not been uncomplicated. In his recent theoretical chapter, Gibson (2015) argues for the combination of SRT and discursive-rhetorical psychology because they can strengthen each other. On the one hand, the focus on action in discursive-rhetorical psychology provides a way to analyse how social representations are used in specific social settings; on the other hand, the focus of SRT on the ‘sedimentation’ of broader cultural processes could respond to the needs of discursive-rhetorical psychology to broaden its focus from micro-interactional processes. Thus, Gibson (2015, p. 215) argues that SRT should put more focus on action ‘to emphasise what social representations do in social and political relations’ (Völklein & Howarth, 2005, p. 448). This has been one of the endeavours of the present study.
Conclusion
This study contributes to our understanding of how European integration is based and how it depends on different national experiences and national projects. In the current context of the economic and refugee crisis hitting Europe and, consequently, the European idea of integration, the significance of this approach and the results it provides become paramount. After all, social representations are not only about something, but they do something, they are ‘mediated activity of social practice itself’ (Hammack & Pilecki, 2012, p. 88). Social representations legitimate political action, they serve as moral charters through which groups define their identities and decide their future course of action (Liu & Hilton, 2005). This could mean that if there is no shared collective memory of the European project, there is no European identity, and no legitimate European identity politics.