Using Education as a Tool for Promoting a Common European Identity: Lessons from Different Educational Paradigms

In a time of increasing debates regarding the future of the European Union and Europe in general, the questions regarding ways to promote common identity gain in popularity. In such a time, the responsibility of the educational systems to provide answers to those pressing issues becomes very important because education can serve as a tool for promoting tolerance and understanding as well as a drive towards commonality and togetherness. In order to do so the educational interventions need to be carefully planned and based on a well developed paradigm. However, such paradigm is still not well defined. Therefore, this paper will start by exploring the Social Identity Theory to provide a baseline understanding on how identity is conceptualized and developed. It will then move towards discussing the educational paradigms aimed at promoting multicultural education in different contexts. By doing so, the paper will try to provide a unique cohesion of different approaches to promoting mutual identity. As a result, the paper will try to uncover certain conclusions from each paradigm that can be of help when trying to design a program that can help in promoting a common European identity through education