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Envisaging Transnational Solidarities: A Comparative Study of Europe-rich Schools

Subject Area General Education and History of Education
Term from 2018 to 2024
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 396205389
 
Final Report Year 2025

Final Report Abstract

The study examined how solidarity – a foundational value currently under strain in Europe and globally – is officially promoted, discursively understood, and locally enacted in three schools having a similar European ethos but distinctly organised and privileged in terms of access, resources, and school clientele: a Schola Europaea, an Accredited Schola Europaea, and an Integrierte Gesamtschule with Europaschule profile. The study asked three questions referring to (1) officially promoted notions of solidarity, (2) school actors’ solidarity engagements in practice and (3) differences between schools. Designed as a comparison along two dimensions (supranational vs. national mode of organisation, higher vs. lower level of privilege), the study generated data covering school regulations, curricula, classroom practices and extracurricular activities, as well as interviews with local school actors (principals, teachers, pupils, other staff). The study revealed how transnationally embedded young people in varied social positions (are expected to) conceptualise and engage with solidarity at school in manifold ways. Curricular analyses showed diverse and fragmented meanings of solidarity, predominantly framed in universalizing or individualizing terms (e.g., charity, human rights, living together), while largely ignoring an explicit supranational or European solidarity. Multimodal analyses of school websites highlighted how privileged schools align with internationalization discourses, framing diversity as enrichment, whereas less privileged schools adopt deficit-oriented approaches. Observational data captured nuanced in-situ understandings of solidarity, influenced more by privilege than organizational mode, with privileged schools emphasizing global connections and individual benefits, and less privileged schools focusing on local cohesion and equality. These insights underscore the ambivalence of solidarity as practiced in schools, revealing its alignment with societal norms and power structures rather than fostering transformative (global) solidarities. The findings reveal a dual outcome, stemming from its attention given to both policy and practice: on the one hand, it appears that cosmopolitan forms of solidarity beyond an exclusive ‘fortress Europe’ can emerge, albeit in a thin form that does little more than shying away from a ‘particularising’ Europe. On the other hand, coupling this thinly cosmopolitanising outlook with an implicit western-eurocentrism may contribute to a furthering of east/west divides in Europe and undermine the European integration project. Observations of solidarity practices highlight more critical-disruptive, anti-racist, anti-capitalist forms of solidarity than those reflected at the policy level. However, as these solidarity discourses are both less visible and undercut by dynamics of power and privilege themselves, there is a risk that they remain the (inconsequential) exception rather than the (empowering) rule.

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