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The Politics of Citizenship Education in Denmark

Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen & Per Mouritsen

Department of Political Science, Aarhus University

Draft version presented at the workshop The Civic Turn in European Immigrant Integration

Policies, 43rd ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, University of Warsaw, 29 March – 2 April 2015.

Introduction

From the late 1990s, the notion of citizenship education in Danish compulsory education became

part of the government’s overall strategy to safeguard Danish democracy, national identity and

social cohesion.1 Not in response to the perceived apathy or deficit of democratic skills and

knowledge in the younger generations as in Britain (Osler and Starkey 2001) – Danish children was

actually regarded as quite democratically skilled, comparatively speaking – but as an answer to a

concern that globalization left unchecked could well lead to a situation where young people lose

their sense of belonging and democratic engagement in the national community. When the centre-

left government was replaced in 2001 by a centre-right coalition, citizenship education increasingly

came to target children of non-Western immigrants. The perception was that especially the Muslim

youth was not sufficiently democratically minded and was lacking a sense of national belonging

making them more likely to withdraw from society and become radicalized in their beliefs about

Danish society and religion. Indeed, since immigrant integration became a central and pivotal issue

in Danish politics in the mid to late 1990s, the public debate has in general been marked by strong

skepticism towards cultural diversity as an enrichment of society and an emphasis on the Danish

welfare state presupposing citizens taking share in the same civic virtues, values and identity (Holm

2007; Jensen 2014; Mouritsen and Olsen 2013; Mouritsen 2006).

While the centre-left government only sought to induce local initiatives to strengthen the

democratic culture in schools, the centre-right government took on a more regulatory approach after

they took office in 2001. Over the course of seven years they centralized curriculum planning,

increased teaching in the History and Danish, developed mandatory canons for literature (to be

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taught in Danish) and history, and it introduced a new compulsory subject to the teacher education –

Kristendomskundskab/livsoplysning/medborgerskab (‘Christianity Studies/life

enlightment/citizenship) – emphasizing the importance of all teachers being able to transmit the

meaning of good citizenship to pupils while coupling it, at least formally, to Christianity. Other,

more structural, changes such as removal of the right to mother tongue instruction, greater control

with private faith schools and efforts to reduce the concentration of immigrant children in certain

schools was also (partly) discursively connected to creating a better environment for schools to

foster good citizens.

The common and empirically well-founded analysis is that citizenship education in the policy

documents put forth by the centre-right government in the 2000s was mainly envisioned as a tool to

assimilate the children of non-western immigrants into the particularities of Danish democracy and

culture (Haas 2008; Horst and Gitz-Johansen 2010; Sørensen 2012). This paper does not dispute or

offer an alternative to this basic analysis as much as it seeks to go one step further and investigate

the political dynamics that paved the way for these policies. To what extent did the centre-left buy

in to, or at least tacitly accept, the normative and causal arguments about national identity and social

cohesion that the government offered, and for what reasons? Answering these questions we get

insight into how stable the political foundation is for the recent changes to citizenship education in

Danish compulsory education.

Such an analysis speaks to larger theoretical debate within research on citizenship policies between

those emphasizing party politics as the main explanation of policy-differences between countries

and those emphasizing distinct national models or national philosophies of integration. The former

line of research argues for the importance of mobilization of anti-immigrant sentiment in the public

opinion (typically by a radical far-right party), strategic considerations regarding the formation of

viable coalitions, and ideological differences between left-wing and right-wing political parties. The

latter line of research suggests that these policy differences can be traced back to differences in how

national identity and social cohesion is generally understood in national politics. For example,

Green-Pedersen & Odmalm (2008) argue that the strong differences in Danish and Swedish policies

for permanent residence and naturalization reflect the different constraints of and opportunities for

coalitional politics in the right-wing bloc, while Brochmann & Seeland (2010) argue that the

differences have to do with different conceptions of the nation.

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Yet, the policy area of citizenship education has not received the same kind of empirical attention

from political scientists as permanent residence and naturalization – or anti-discrimination, anti-

radicalization, asylum and family reunification for that matter – even though the West European

trend described in these policy areas towards the state taking on a more active role in the ‘making’

of immigrants into citizens through tools of ‘civic’ conditioning can also be witnessed within

citizenship education policies (Goodman 2010; Joppke 2007; Mouritsen 2013).

This paper is structured in three parts. First, the theoretical approach is discussed with the aim of

describing what kind of footprints the empirical material should display if we are to increase or

decrease our confidence in the given theory’s relevance for the Danish case. Second, we analyze the

development in Danish citizenship education policies from the late 1990s to today. Finally, we

discuss the particularities of the Danish case in comparison with similar research on other cases.

Party politics and national philosophies of integration

We should be aware that different policy areas that connect to the politics of citizenship may have

different characteristics that may constrain the role different ideas and factors can play in political

decision-making. Citizenship education in compulsory education indeed has some particular

characteristics arising from the fact that it only concerns children. First, children start school at the

same early age independent of the (immigrant) status of their parents. Hence, the children of

immigrants and natives at least have a more equal starting point from which to learn what good

citizenship means in the specific national context than immigrants arriving in the country as adults

have compared to adult natives having been raised within the institutional and cultural confines of

the state. Second, attending and finishing school is not tied to the achievement of political, social

and economic rights in the way that acquiring asylum, family reunification, permanent residence or

citizenship typically is. Taken together with the first point this means that it is less controversial

from a human rights perspective to try and enforce through schools that children of immigrants,

together with the other pupils, be socialized into a particular (national) way of life. In fact, it is

widely accepted that schooling is a society’s primary, legitimate instrument to prepare all children

to contribute as economic and political citizens, and to integrate immigrant children in particular as

equal members of a national community. It is part of schoolings raison d’être. Finally, trying to

enforce cultural assimilation through school does not directly conflict with a countries’ need to be

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attractive on the global labour market in the same way as language and knowledge requirements for

residence and citizenship might.

All in all, we can expect that political decisions on citizenship education in compulsory education in

general are more difficult to problematize from the perspective of human rights or global

competition even though the aim might be cultural assimilation beyond civic values. It is simply a

policy area were courts, civil rights groups, NGOs and employer organizations do not have a strong

voice or interest compared to other areas of citizenship politics. Consequently, this paper focuses on

party politics and national models as explanations.

Party politics explanations focus on the ideological differences and power distribution between

political parties. The assumption tends to be that ideological differences exist between left-wing and

right-wing parties that influence the kind of citizenship policies they can be convinced to pursue,

but that the kind of policies they ultimately end up backing depends on the possibilities to increase

their vote-share by changing policy position and on the power distribution and future cooperation

within their coalition partners or political wing. Müller and Strøm (1999) describes how political

parties often find themselves in a situation where the policy position they eventually end up with

necessarily involves one or more trade-offs between gaining votes, keeping a coalitional partner

happy and getting desired policies enacted. Conversely, national model explanations argue that

there is a national distinctness to how political parties reason about integration and citizenship

issues. That in fact it makes more sense to look towards nationally specific ideologies of immigrant

incorporation instead of differences between political parties when trying to account for policy

differences between countries.

Adrian Favell has presented one influential way of thinking about national models. He argues that

immigrant integration politics is structured by a deep-seated notion of social integration as

something that is ‘encompassed, bounded and achieved by the historical nation state’ (2006, 52).

Accordingly, politicians from left to right are by default nationalist in their perception of the

problems of and solutions to immigrant integration. Favell labels this particular perspective on

national, social unity or cohesion as an “amateur” public theory or philosophy of integration and

defines its ideational structure as a combination of two parts: ‘a kind of functionalist social theory

of what it is that holds nations together, with a normative political philosophy that expresses

nationhood in terms of abstract civic values (usually citizenship)’ (2006, 51). That is, a philosophy

of integration consist of both a normative framework describing the conception of national identity

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that should be promoted in state policies and a causal framework describing what empirical

processes the collective and individuals must undergo in order for the national community to retain

its distinctiveness.

Favell along with other scholars within the national models tradition have been criticized for

treating models as dense, coherent and stable, and thereby having a tendency to treat integration

politics as rather depoliticized and depolarized (Bertossi and Duyvendak 2012). That is a

misunderstanding of the theory. Claiming that there is something substantially, nationally distinct to

how citizenship politics unfolds in a country is not the same as saying that integration issues are

depoliticized – obviously it has been highly politicized throughout Western Europe in recent years –

or that mainstream political parties from left to right agree on issues of integration. Instead, it is a

claim that there is something distinct to how and what kind of social phenomena is problematized

and the kind of policy solutions discussed that originates from certain shared notions about what

can legitimately count as good normative arguments and valid causal claims in public debate. From

this common plateau disagreements arise between political parties. In other words, claiming that a

national philosophy of integration is structuring a political debate is more a claim that the political

disagreements are distinct than there is strong political agreement on what to do.

This creates theoretical room for an interaction with the factors emphasized by party politics

explanations. That is, one should think about national models as a distinct political space that allows

for plenty of puzzling and political maneuvering and not as a dense, coherent and stable answer to

questions of integration and citizenship. Political parties might experience – internally or externally

– limits to what kind of arguments that are acceptable, but that might still leave ample room for

different policy positions that parties can switch between if there are strong incentives in terms of

votes or coalitional building.2 The relevant question when analyzing a case from these two

theoretical perspectives, then, is whether there is nationally distinctness to how issues of integration

and citizenship are being discussed that cannot be reduced to how political parties strategically

interact due to power distributions.

It is arguably possible to come up with numerous ways to approach this analytical task. In this

paper, we propose that it is fruitful to analyze diachronically in terms of the kind of disagreement

and (in)consistency the political debate displays. Mehta (2010) distinguishes three ideational levels

at which disagreement and (in)consistency in the political debate can unfold: policy solutions,

problem definitions and public philosophies. A problem definition is a particular way of

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understanding a complex reality that affects which policy solutions are considered. Public

philosophies are ideas on how to understand the purpose of government and public policy in light of

certain assumptions about society. As such they can serve as a kind of meta-problem definition that

provides a heuristic to the understanding of more specific problems. In other words, public

philosophies serve to structure the semantic space within which public debate takes place.

If political disagreement arises over policy solutions but not how to define a certain phenomena as

problematic we have good reason to suspect a rather dense philosophy of integration. Less so if

political disagreement arises over how to define a phenomenon as problematic and if disagreement

exists about the purpose of citizenship education then we should suspect that there is at most a

weak, thin philosophy of integration at play. Regarding (in)consistency in the position of a political

party, we would think it was less ideologically driven if it were inconsistent in terms of the purpose

of citizenship education and more if the inconsistency only surrounded policy solutions.

FIGURE 1.

Level of disagreement

Public philosophy

Lev

el o

f in

cons

iste

ncy

Pub

lic p

hilo

soph

y

Policy solutions

Policy solutions

- Weak national philosophy of integration.

- Strong party ideologies

- Strong national philosophy of integration.

- Weak party ideologies

- Weak national philosophy of integration.

- Weak party ideologies

- Weak national philosophy of integration.

- Weak party ideologies

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Of course, it is a question of degree in the sense that it is the extent to which we can observe

disagreement and inconsistency at a certain level over time that decides what we can conclude in

terms of how ideologically driven political parties are and if there is a relatively strong national

philosophy of integration structuring the political debate and decisions. If we could say with

reasonable conviction that a philosophy of integration of some density and coherence is shared by

mainstream political parties from left to right, we would need to compare to similar analyses of

other countries in other to conclude whether such a philosophy of integration is indeed nationally

distinct.

In the following, we analyze how the political debate on citizenship education has developed in

Denmark from the late 1990s until recently. The analysis is based on readings of the political debate

as it unfolds in the media, parliament, party programs and ministerial publications – as well as using

the insights of existing research.

Danish citizenship education politics

It is compulsory for children in Denmark to attend ten years of schooling from the age of 6.

Approximately 85 percent of pupils attend public compulsory schooling. Most of the remaining

children attend private schools – also called free schools (friskoler) – that receive grant levels

around 70 percent per pupil compared to public schools. Today, 21 of these private schools are

Muslim faith schools.

The concept of citizenship (medborgerskab) was revived in the late 1990s in Danish education

politics under a centre-left government consisting of the Social Democratic Party

(Socialdemokraterne) and the Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre). Issuing two publications

about national community and introducing by law that the pupils must have a representative in all

general school councils and committees, the government tried to avoid general regulations and

instead sought to induce local discussions and initiatives on how to better cultivate democratic

virtues and national belonging among pupils. The main argument and concern was that citizenship

education is more important in a globalizing world where increasing complexity and escalation of

change introduces a strong centrifugal pull on society. Citizenship education becomes a way to

secure that individuals do not lose sight of the national community in a world where travelling,

communicating, working and media consumption is increasingly less restricted by national borders.

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This analysis was shared by the new centre-right government consisting of the Liberal Party

(Venstre) and the Conservative Party (Konservative) who took office in November 2001 with the

parliamentary support of the far-right Danish Peoples Party (Dansk Folkeparti). Yet, they appeared

equally if not more concerned with the effect cultural diversity due to immigration from non-

western countries could have on social cohesion. In fact, the right-wing parties had success in

making non-western immigration the main issue of the 2001 election, and after Muhammad

cartoons crisis in late 2005 the concern for integration of particularly Muslims completely

overshadowed the concerns for how globalization might affect national belonging among the native,

non-Muslim youth (Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup 2008).

The centre-right government also chose to regulate the schools more directly in response to these

concerns. From 2002 to 2009, they removed the right to mother tongue instruction, increased

teaching in the subjects History and Danish, centralized curriculum planning and introduced

mandatory canons for teaching in History and Danish, introduced a new subject to the teacher

education named ‘Christianity studies/life enlightment/citizenship’, tightened control with Muslim

faith schools and generally sought to strengthen the teaching of democratic citizenship to counteract

radicalization processes.

None of these changes were controversial, and they were generally not opposed by centre-left

parties. Therefore it is not surprising that the new centre-left government which took office in 2011

have not rolled back any of these changes. The following analyzes the political dynamics

underlying this policy development in order to elucidate if there is a form of national philosophy

structuring political disagreement between the political parties.

1998 to 2003: Changing governments, changing analysis

From March 1998 till November 2001 Margrethe Vestager of the Social Liberal Party was Minister

of Teaching. Citizenship education was as a key issue for her but also something the former

Minister of Teaching, Ole Vig Jensen of the Social Democrats, had put on the agenda by

commissioning a report on democracy in the education system (Undervisningsministeriet 1997).

Margrethe Vestager sought to revitalize the debate among teachers and schools through two

publications from the Ministry and a law that gave pupils representatives in all general school

councils and committees (Folketinget 1999; Undervisningsministeriet 1999, 2000). She did not

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attempt to regulate the curriculum, the style of teaching or how subjects are prioritized but rather to

instigate a broad debate about the value foundation of Danish compulsory education in order to

strengthen national belonging among pupils and the democratic culture in schools.

The commission report, the law proposal as well as both publications argue that democracy is not

just a certain form of government but also culture or a way of life that must continuously be

reproduced in new generations if democracy is to be secured. Democracy is described as a fragile

form of government that requires that the people understand it and want it. The school is, correctly

so, pictured as the main tool the state has to administer such a learning and socialization process.

Moreover, democracy is described as culture and a way of life. To understand democracy, to truly

want it, is to have it incorporated as a basic principle of everyday life. In the law proposal, the goal

of schools is described as making sure that children acquire a democratic “life form” that they can

bring with them into their daily lives.

This notion of democracy as a way of life has a long pedigree in Danish educational politics and

thinking. It was popularized by the theologian Hal Koch in the 1940s and 1950 and it gradually

became dominant in the educational system during the last half of the 20th century (Jacobsen et al.

2004: 10-11). Hal Koch summarizes it so:

“Democracy can never be secured – precisely because it is not a system which must be implemented but a life form which must be acquired. It is about a certain character which must be imparted to every new generation. Consequently, the popular work of enlightenment and education is the nerve of democracy.” (Koch 1991: 13).

This position emphasizes that the realization of the democratic citizen requires that the pupil

practices how to state his or hers opinion in a civilized and consistent manner, to listen attentive to

the argumentation of others and treat them as equals and engage genuinely in the search for

common ground.

Such an understanding of democracy did not manifest itself in strong disagreement between the

political parties. Reading the parliamentary debate on the law proposal, all political parties declare

themselves in agreement with the goal of strengthening the teaching of democracy and democratic

virtues (Folketinget 1999). The spokesmen for the different opposition parties all stress that they do

not disagree with any of the intentions or content of the law. Brian Mikkelsen of the Conservative

Party, who was to become Minister of Culture in 2001, noted how democratic virtues are equally

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important to create a skilled labor force reflecting the notion of democracy as a way of life beyond

politics. Still, the representatives of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party stressed that

promoting a democratic culture in schools must not happen at the expense of the pupil’s subject

knowledge and the teachers control of the classroom. Especially the spokesman of the Liberal Party

argued that we must not lose sight of that a good democratic citizen is also a citizen that is

knowledgeable about society’s democratic institutions and history.

Especially the two Ministry publications Uddannelse og fællesskab (‘Education and community’)

from 1999 and Værdier i virkeligheden (‘Values in practice’) from 2000, presented a second

argument for the need to strengthen citizenship education. The national community is described as

threatened by a world that is increasingly changing and less predictable due to globalization

processes. Modern life supplies young people with so many opportunities and so much complexity,

that we risk that they lose sight of the national community if the school does not counteract these

processes.

More than ever we need to put into words what attitudes and values are holding us together and must hold us together. We need clear values that we can profess too and steer after in an increasingly less predictable world. (Undervisningsministeriet 2000).

These publications argue that being a good citizen, the kind of citizen a well-functioning democracy

needs, is committing oneself wholeheartedly to a national, democratic identity, to have a deep kind

of obligation to fellow citizens. In fact, the publications conflate democracy and the nation, unable

to picture one without the other. It is even said that ‘personal freedom’ only ‘makes sense when you

are part of a [national] community’ (Undervisningsministeriet 1999). In the 2000 publication we

really sense how deep national identity runs:

The school offers the pupils knowledge about our culture, literature, history and the development of society. Here, the language – the mother tongue – plays a fundamental role. It is through the mother tongue that we make our history, traditions and myths about ourselves, our people and its history come alive. The language is in itself a living symbol of the community … When we were children, we hurt our knees in Danish, we were comforted in Danish, we were given our first kiss in Danish, and we had love troubles in Danish. At school we felt sorry for the ugly duckling in Danish, we shivered at the thought of schoolmaster Blomme in Danish and laughed our heads off at the Olsen Gang in Danish. They are all memories which make up a major part of our very identity. They are in our hearts and are based on our mother tongue. (Undervisningsministeriet 2000: 33)

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Yet, while the publications argue that the school should instill a deep national identity, they also

touch upon the negotiability of the national identity. The two publications argue that democratic

values should be open for contestation and negotiation in a context of increasing cultural diversity

and that it would be wrong if “we in Denmark tried to force a uniform Danish nationality on

everybody” and that pupils (of another ethnic background) should be offered “elements of the

Danish identity which are so essential that they can feel at home in Danish society without any

difficulties … in full consideration of their own cultural values” (Undervisningsministeriet 2000:

39).

These themes were not brought up in the debate between the political parties and were not present

in any initiatives by the government. We have good reason to suspect that they were not broadly

shared like the notion of democracy as a way of life. Danish politics at the time was marked by the

high salience of immigrant integration driven by the success of the far-right Danish Peoples Party.

In response the centre-left government appointed Thorkild Simonsen in 1998 to Minister of the

Interior and Karen Jespersen in 2000, both politicians representing a wing of the party advocating a

tougher, more demanding approach to immigrant integration. Indeed, there was a strong concern

from the Social Democratic Party that appearing to lenient on such issues could end up costly in

terms of votes (Bale, Green-Pedersen, Krouwel, Luther, et al. 2009). Especially Karen Jespersen

argued that immigrants must be integrated (or rather assimilated) into a specifically Danish

understanding of democracy and democratic life. A notion of Danishness or Danish democracy

being negotiable and accommodative of cultural diversity was not present at all in other political

parties than the Social Liberal Party.

A new centre-right government took office in 2001. The notion that schools should somehow

accommodate cultural diversity was loudly dismissed. Instead, the government acted to remove the

right to mother tongue instruction arguing that it did not help children of immigrants to learn the

Danish language. The children of immigrants’ lack of proficiency in the Danish language were

judged to inhibit their learning the first years in school, and extra effort were put in to stimulating

their Danish in day care before reaching school age (Folketinget 2002). In the parliamentary debate

it was argued by the representatives of the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party that questions

of cultural diversity and the pupil’s cultural identity belonged in the private sphere, as something

only concerning the parent-child relationship. The representatives from the Social Liberal Party and

the communist Unity List (Enhedslisten) both argued against this, saying that mother tongue

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instruction strengthens the identity and self-esteem of children and helps them to learn the Danish

language. The Social Democrats did not argue in terms of culture and identity but they questioned

the evidence against mother tongue instruction not improving Danish skills and opposed the

legislation on that ground.

Increasingly the need for citizenship education was one-sidedly being connected to lack of

understanding of democratic norms and Danish culture on the side of immigrants and their children.

In 2003 the government published its policy-program for immigrant integration which was to pin-

point a new course in integration policies:

In the following a lot will be written about our ‘values’. This means the basic broadmindedness, which stems from respecting human beings and the particularity of each individual. And it means our concept of democracy, which contains more than a majority rule […] newly arrived foreigners have to learn these values, and these values have to be respected. […] The fundamental point of view is that foreigners who come to live here should learn about our often different point of views, and they should respect the society, which they are to be a part of. But, naturally, we who belong to the majority have to exert ourselves to understand other cultures and other outlooks on life. (Regeringen 2003: 6)

Citizenship education in this version is meant to ensure that the basic values of Danish society are

transmitted to immigrants. There is throughout the publication an opposition between a majority

‘we’ and an immigrant ‘they’ where “a cultural homogenous national majority community is taken

for granted as representing the normative consensus into which ‘they’ could and should be

incorporated” (Haas 2008).

It was important for the new government to emphasize that the subjects History and Christianity

Studies is an important part of school and the cultivation of good citizens. Before the election in

2001, the Conservative Party was highly vocal on the issue of Christianity Studies. As Brian

Mikkelsen expressed it:

I am convinced that our democracy, our culture, our welfare and our view of humanity is closely tied to the national sentiment which again is inextricably linked to Christianity. Even to Protestantism. Without an understanding for the Danish Christian history one can only shallowly acquire a Danish national identity. […] But – and this is my point – I am not born with those feelings. It is something I have learned. Somebody has poured it into me through my upbringing. Among other things, through the teaching of Christianity at school. The Danes learn to be Danish at school. (Mikkelsen 2001).

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Bertel Haarder, Minister of Integration, agreed with this view and stated that the whole purpose of

changing the purpose clause of the compulsory education law in 1993 so it read that one must be

conversant with one’s own culture and familiar with others was to signal clearly that Danish culture

is more important than other cultures and that the school subjects should reflect this (Hardis 2002).

Haarder labeled the subjects of Christianity Science, Danish and History the ‘culture carrying

subjects’ and especially after the Muhammed cartoons crisis in 2005, the government started to

carry through initiatives to strengthen these subjects.

What is remarkable in the early 2000s is how these remarks do not spur on counter-arguments from

the centre-left parties. They did not engage in a discussion on these issues and largely left the debate

to the centre-right parties.

2004 to 2009: Strengthening the ‘culture carrying subjects’

In 2004 the government started airing their intentions to strengthen teaching in what Bertel Haarder

(then Minister of Refugees, Immigrants and Integration but Minister of Teaching from 2005 till

2010) termed the ‘culture carrying subjects’: Danish, History and Christianity Studies. The

government had already laid the groundwork for their plans by amending the public school law

(folkeskoleloven) in 2003 giving the Minister of Teaching authority to determine nationally binding

end-goals as well as intermediate goals concerning central areas of knowledge and skills for the

individual school subjects (Folketinget 2003).

In august 2005 the government publication Verdens bedste folkeskole (‘The World’s Best Public

School’) expressed the government’s plans for compulsory education that would eventually end up

as a law proposal presented in March 2006 and adopted by a parliamentary majority later that year

in June (Folketinget 2006a; Regeringen 2005). The publication stated that the subject History

should that it needed more weekly lessons in the fourth and fifth grade, that pupils should be tested

in the subject and that the curriculum should be more standardized. To help the latter goal a

mandatory History canon should be developed. The main argument for this upgrading and

centralization of curriculum planning was the well-rehearsed globalization argument that the former

government also used. All children should be conversant with society’s basic cultural values

because it helps them understand who they are in a complex, constantly changing globalized world

(Regeringen 2005: 2). The same kind of reasoning was used by the Minister of Teaching, Ulla

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Tørnæs, and the Minister of Culture, Brian Mikkelsen, to argue why a literature canon and a culture

canon, respectively, were important for teaching in the subject Danish and generally for national

identity and belonging:

In a time where internationalization of economy, culture and communication confronts us with new challenges, the Danish subject helps to secure common values, understanding and mutual tolerance. (Tørnæs 2004)

In a society like this, where the information flow is huge and where you are affected by messages, opinions and impressions from you put your legs out of bed in the morning till you turn off the night lamp at bedtime, it is necessary to know where you come from. That you know your history. As citizens in Denmark we are not just free floating atoms outside time and space. We belong to a certain tradition, time and culture. (Mikkelsen 2004)

Henrik Sass Larsen, a leading MP of the Social Democrats, voiced similar concerns in 2004 about

the importance of historical knowledge for citizens to have a ‘common base’. He also argued for a

mandatory history canon and connected it to the integration of Muslim children:

Especially as a politician is it important to know the story about the Danes and Denmark. It is essential to know why things are they way they are. In relation to Islam it is, for example, important to know about the Enlightment, where we placed reason as the focal point [of society], just as we must know our own time before the Reformation where also the Danish society was characterized by a law religion. (Sass Larsen quoted in Jessen 2004)

Analyzing the parliamentary debate on the 2006 law proposal, only the Socialistic Peoples Party

(Socialistisk Folkeparti) disagreed with the upgrading of the subject History (Folketinget 2006a).

They saw a conflict between the kind of innovative, teamwork-oriented worker that the labour

market needed and too much focus on knowledge and tests in Danish and History. However, no

other party responded to these concerns. Only Brian Henriksen of the Danish Peoples Party

responded that it was the most important thing of all that pupils become conversant with Danish

culture. Instead, the discussion revolved around the role that tests should play in school with the

political left disagreeing with the proposal to increase tests.

Just one month later a law proposal to reform the teacher education was presented. This reform

added a new mandatory course called Christianity Studies/Life Enlightment/Citizenship with the

purpose of securing that teachers know “the basic democratic values and Danish democracy and are

able to pass these values on to the school” (Folketinget 2006b). The coupling of citizenship and

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Christianity studies did not raise any eyebrows in the parliamentary debate. In fact, the course was

wholly uncontroversial among the political parties.

When Bertel Haarder took office as Minister of Education in February 2005 he further strengthened

the focus on History and Christianity Science and decided to set down two committees to report on

ways to strengthen the teaching in the two subjects. The committee working on the History subject

was also asked to make a mandatory canon of historical events. Haarder was assiduous in public

arguing why we need nationalism, that we cannot think democracy without it:

Love of homeland is something universal, which cannot and should be wiped out … nationalism and feeling of nationality are not only necessary evils, but constitute … the fundamental substance without which moderns democracies cannot exist. (Haarder 2005a: 18)

The teaching of democracy again became the central concern after the Muhammed cartoons crisis.

In response to the strong reactions from Muslims both inside and outside Denmark Prime Minister

Anders Fogh Rasmussen repeatedly declared that freedom of speech is absolutely non-negotiable

and that social cohesion demanded that we safeguard our fundamental values – typically

emphasizing freedom of speech, equality between the sexes and the separation of religion and

politics, that is, values that are seen as conflicting with a traditional understanding of Islam. Fogh

Rasmussen laboriously argued that Denmark needed to protect is special brand of democracy and

democratic culture that the people had strenuously developed over centuries. The key to this certain

Danish democracy was a certain way of being tolerant, down-to-earth, consensus-oriented, anti-

authoritarian, autonomous and secularly minded (Meer and Mouritsen 2009; Mouritsen and Olsen

2013).

Likewise, Minister of Education Bertel Haarder expressed his concern in the ministerial publication

Teaching Democracy from 2006:

“We can see that an increasing number of young people can’t handle concepts regarding democracy and it has given problems that has surprised us all … They are blind facing democracy and simply don’t know enough about it. Consequently, we must be more conscious about teaching the basic concepts of democracy.” (Undervisningsministeriet 2006)

He later clarified who he was actually referring to:

”As a final note an admission: I was a bit too politically correct when I said that also Danish young people have problems with democracy. These years it is clearly

16

young people from certain immigrant milieus that don’t understand the basic terms of democracy. This is also evident from the publication.” (Haarder 2006).

In the publication Haarder further states that history shows how “every generation has its form of

democracy blindness and that every generation must reinvent democracy”

(Undervisningsministeriet 2006). In this regard Haarder mentions Nazism and fascism in the 1930’s

and 1940’s, communism in the 1970’s and points out that the threat today comes from young people

who are unable to reconcile their religion with democracy. Then Prime Minister Anders Fogh

Rasmussen stated it very clearly: “We can just as well call a spade a spade and say that it is certain

young Muslims with immigrant background which hasn’t understood the principles the Danish

society are built on” (quoted in Lindboe 2004).

The teaching of History and Christianity Studies was equally connected to the integration of

immigrants:

“What many immigrants seek when they come to Denmark is what values we build our culture on. That is understandable to me. We usually assert our democracy, view on equality, open-mindedness and our understanding of the opinion of others. But that is only half of our value community. Our common values are more than this. It is something that is deeply rooted in us – a common consciousness about our history and culture. It is a common frame of reference we have.” (Haarder 2008)

From this point of view history and culture is important because it establishes a mutual

understanding between members of society on where we come from and where we are going – what

Haarder denotes a “community of fate” (Ibid.). Haarder also argues that the transmission of Danish

culture is important on a more personal level because ”man is first and foremost a historical being

who must know his history in order to know himself” (Haarder 2009), that is, the cultural and

historical context is fundamental for a meaningful life and the possibility of navigating in an ever

more globalized world: “The culture carrying subjects must give our students a cultural community

as a starting point” (Haarder 2005b).

The years following the publication of the Muhammed cartoos was marked by strong focus on

especially immigrant pupils acquiring certain democratic virtues. In 2007 the biggest government

party, the Liberal Party, published the program Verdensmester i demokrati (‘World Champion in

Democracy’) which was directed against immigrants and their children. The Liberal Party perceived

the reaction of the Muslim community in Denmark to the cartoons as displaying a lack of a

17

democratic mind-set. The publication stated that it was important for public schools to help

safeguard Danish democracy – presented as the best in the world – from anti-democratic attitudes

spreading among the immigrant youth (Venstre 2007). The same year the government appointed a

committee to develop a Democracy canon stating the same worries. Equally in the government

2009 plan to counter-act radicalization among the youth, the teaching of democracy and citizenship

in schools was emphasized as an indispensable tool (Regeringen 2009).

The opposition parties never really questioned these initiatives and changes to compulsory

education and the centre-left government that took office in 2011 did not change any of them. Then

to be Minister of Teaching, Christine Antorini of the Social Democrats, stated in a 2010 article that

also the Social Democrats regard Danish, History and Christianity Studies as important subjects to

understand Danish values and culture, but also noted that ‘there is a need for continous

interpretation of what so-called Danish values are’ (Antorini 2010). This idea, however, is never

really spelled out and never connected to initiatives to accommodate cultural diversity in schools.

Moreover, it does not seem to have a strong presence in the Social Democrats as it only rarely

shows itself in public debate. We also find this opening towards re-interpreting the national identity

in the Social Liberal Party, but again only occasionally (see e.g., Østergaard 2008).

Discussion and conclusion

As the analysis has shown, citizenship education in Denmark is not a very contentious issue among

political parties. The few disagreements that do arise are mainly on the level of policy solutions, for

example regarding mother tongue instruction and testing. We do see somewhat of a disagreement

on the public philosophy level when it comes to the negotiability of Danish national identity.

Occasionally the argument for negotiability surfaces among the centre-left parties, but never with

the eagerness or concerted effort that can cause public debate. This may reflect unwillingness

within the parties to delegate attention to the issue – either due to internal disagreements; because

other issues are thought more important or because it is an issue the centre-right typical win votes

on. This could also be interpreted as a form of inconsistency on how to frame the problem.

The centre-right parties, however, display a high degree of consistency. The purpose of citizenship

education is argued to be the cultivation of a kind of national identity that is deeply rooted in both

the individual and the national community. This rootedness becomes increasingly important in a

18

globalizing world for the survival of a Danish style democracy and welfare state. This sense of the

nation being something resting deep within citizens is shared by the centre-left parties. The school

must indeed instill such a deep reaching relationship. Hence, there is a strong overlap between the

public philosophies political parties subscribe to in Danish citizenship education politics. All

mainstream parties conflate democracy and the nation, arguing that the special Danish brand of

democracy has to do with an individually deep-seated sense of belonging to the nation and

democratic values – with some disagreement about how determined the national identity is on a

collective level.

The particularity of this public philosophy becomes clearer when we compare to public debates

about citizenship education in other countries. Since the late 1990s Britain has also experienced a

debate on citizenship education as a response to perceived democratic deficits in the youth. Both

Labour and the Conservatives have favored an approach favoring local communities and the

implementation of a citizenship education subject in schools seeking to raise political literacy and

local volunteering (Mycock and Tonge 2012; Osler and Starkey 2001). The debate is not

prescriptive of a national identity, nor does it talk about cultivating deep-seated notions of national

belonging or passing on a strongly historically determined national identity. National identity is

largely though about as something rather thin that must be brought into existence.

Notes

1 In Denmark it is compulsory to attend 10 years of schooling typically starting from the age of 6. Approximately 85 percent of pupils attend public schools. 2 By internally we refer to ideational limits the party imposes on itself and by externally we refer to ideational limits imposed by the public or electorate. It is irrelevant for the national models approach how the ideational limits are imposed. What is relevant is that they are there and working.

19

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