Party Competition and Ideology in Danish Citizenship Education Politics 1997-2011

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Party Competition and Ideology in Danish Citizenship Education Politics

1997-2011

Kristian Kriegbaum Jensen

Department of Political Science, Aarhus University

Abstract

During the 2000s, the Danish right-wing government strengthened citizenship education in compulsory

schooling from the perspective of a historically rooted, non-negotiable notion of national identity. They

met little resistance from the left-wing parties and especially the Social Democrats, the big left-wing

party, have over time accepted the solutions implemented as more or less their own policy. This paper

describes the philosophy of integration that has come to dominate Danish school politics and the

underlying political dynamics. It argues that because the Social Democrats could not form internal

agreement on an ideological standpoint on the relation between good citizenship and ethno-religious

diversity, electoral pressure pushed them to distance themselves from more multicultural notions. Unable

to ideologically oppose the right-wing, the Social Democrats over time implicitly invested themselves in

their policy solutions. This demonstrates why studies on integration and citizenship politics should not

automatically assume ideological differences between left-wing and right-wing parties.

Keywords: Citizenship education; national identity, party competition, ideology, Denmark

Introduction

Since the mid 1980s the number of residents and citizens in Denmark with a non-Western

immigrant background has more than six-doubled. Today, immigrants and their descendants make

out 11.1 per cent of the population and 65 per cent of these have a non-Western background

(Danmarks Statistik 2014). Most Danish political parties have not taken this increasing ethno-

cultural diversity as a reason to confront dominant ideas of good citizenship and initiate change in

the subjects and curriculum taught in compulsory education (primary and lower secondary

schooling). Instead, the right-wing government in office from 2001 to 2011 argued, without much

resistance, that the correct response was strengthening the school’s focus on reproducing national

belonging in new generations along the lines of a historically rooted, non-negotiable notion of

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citizenship, thus denying recognition of cultural differences and the re-thinking of national identity

(Haas 2008; Horst and Gitz-Johansen 2010; Sørensen 2012). In this vein, the government defended

prioritizing Christianity in the teaching of religion, removed the right to mother tongue instruction,

increased teaching in History, centralized curriculum planning and developed mandatory canons for

literature (to be taught in Danish language class) 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 students while coupling it, at least formally, to

Christianity.

These changes did constitute a shift from the preceding centre-left government’s

understanding that most of these questions should be left to local considerations, yet none of these

changes have been rolled back or altered by the centre-left government that took office in 2011.

Moreover, the left-wing during the years of the right-wing government invested few efforts in

opposing these new measures. The Social Democrats, the big left-wing party, actually supported

most of them. This is not because school politics is not a contentious issue in Denmark. School

reforms in the 2000s that increased testing and student evaluations have been very controversial and

have occupied public school debates while questions of citizenship education have not (Gustafsson

2012). Moreover, the far-right Danish Peoples Party has been much more interested in pursuing

immigration issues than school issues, adding to the lack of public salience. Why, then, despite little

(direct) electoral pressure, do we not see a strong left-wing alternative to the notions of good

citizenship and policy solutions promoted by the right-wing parties?

The basic argument presented in this paper is that the Social Democrats implicitly invested

themselves in the ideological standpoint and solutions of the right-wing. When immigrant

integration became a highly salient issue in the 1990s, the Social Democrats was still experiencing

internal disagreements and unresolved puzzling on how to position themselves. In the context of

high media attention and the electoral success of the far-right Danish Peoples Party, the Social

Democrats was pushed to distance themselves from multicultural notions of citizenship without

agreement on an alternative conception. When the right-wing government in the 2000s started a

nationalistic revitalization of citizenship education, the Social Democrats still did not have an

ideological counter-position. When they chose not to oppose the measures and rhetoric promoted by

the right-wing they over time implicitly adopted them as their own policies. Consequently, analyses

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on how left-wing parties react to right-wing success on integration issues should be sensitive to the

capability of these parties to actually present an alternative position.

In addition to unfolding this analysis, the paper aims for a more detailed account of the public

philosophy of integration that has come to dominate the Danish politics of citizenship education.

The paper is structured in two main parts. Firstly, the relationship between party competition and

ideology is discussed and refined by incorporating the concept of ideological empty space.

Secondly, the development from the late 1990s until recently in Danish citizenship education

politics is analyzed to understand how a historically determined, individually deep-seated notion of

national identity came to dominate school politics.

Party competition and ideology

Schooling is a society’s primary, legitimate instrument to prepare all children to contribute as

economic and political citizens, to identify to children what a good citizen is, and to integrate

immigrant children in particular as equal members of a national community. Yet, few studies try to

explain the political dynamics behind how ethno-religious diversity is approached in national school

politics. Sociologists and political scientists have been much more interested in explaining and

discussing the policies directed at adult newcomers such as rules for asylum, permanent residence,

naturalization and family reunification. The debate here is often between those emphasizing party

competition as the main explanation of policies and those emphasizing distinct national ideologies

or philosophies of integration. For example, Green-Pedersen & Odmalm (2008) argue that the

reason why Denmark and not Sweden have implemented a restrictive approach to permanent

residence and naturalization is that the Danish right-wing coalition, in contrary to the Swedish,

does not depend on more moderate, centrist parties for their parliamentary majority and therefore

has no incentive not to take advantage of their issue ownership over immigration. This argument

rests on the assumption that there exist ideological differences between left-wing and right-wing

parties regarding citizenship, national culture and social cohesion that would affect the policies

promoted if not tempered by concerns for votes or office.1 Conversely, Brochmann & Seeland

(2010) and Borevi (2010) argue that the policy differences have more to do with most political

parties, across the left-right divide, subscribing to the same kind of ideological ideas about

nationhood. Danish politicians tend to conceive the nation as ethnic while Swedish politicians tend

to understand the nation as civic.

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However, when it comes to a historical analysis of the Danish politics of citizenship education

both perspectives have something to contribute if supplemented by the concept of ideological empty

space (Williams 2015). This concept refers to when a political party, bloc or system have not

formed internal agreement on or otherwise invested itself in an ideological standpoint on certain

policy solutions to the social phenomena in question. This overlaps with the concept of ‘ideological

cohesion’ which Jahn and Oberst (2012) define as ‘general agreement within a party about certain

ideological standpoints’ (225). Without intra-party ideological agreement to guide action on an

issue, the question is either ignored, downplayed in importance, or pragmatic argumentation is used

allowing for policy shifts to be defended against accusations of inconsistency and lack of credibility

(Tavits 2007). This concept is still meaningful even if we accept Adrian Favell’s argument that

integration politics, which I take to comprise citizenship education, 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). Even if this ideologically constrains public debate it still leaves

the central question of what the nation is unanswered.

If a political bloc or a major party within the bloc experiences ideological empty space on a

given political issue this has implications for the other two kinds of explanations. First, it makes it

untenable to assume that a left-wing government per default will produce different policy solutions

than a right-wing government as a consequence of ideological differences (Howard 2009, 61).

When not ideologically invested in a given issue, other factors – e.g., public opinion or coalition

building – will determine how a party positions itself. Second, without one or more political parties

being able to give ideological answers to questions of citizenship, nationhood and ethno-religious

diversity, one have to be clearer on what is meant by public debate and policy solutions being

shaped by a certain conception of the nation. It cannot be the case that all parties actually believe in

and defend a certain conception of the nation. That they, so to speak, invest themselves in certain

policy solutions based upon a principled stance on nationhood to the extent that deviations can

become costly in terms of accusations and perceptions of inconsistency and lack of credibility

(Favell 2001, 27) – as well as the uncertainty that might arise from having to develop a new

consensus both within the party and between parties in a coalition.

Instead, another, more implicit, political investment mechanism is possible. Parties without a

principled stance might well support the solutions proposed by other parties without explicitly

defending the underlying ideological elements – such as a certain conception of the nation. They

might do this for strategic, electoral or pragmatic reasons. Yet, as long as they do not themselves

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argue against this principled view or lend their support to other parties who do, they implicitly

invest themselves in these policy solutions and tacitly accept the ideological elements they are said

to express. This is especially so when it comes to value-based issues where ‘any policy shift may be

perceived as a sign of inconsistency or disloyalty, undermining the credibility of the party’ (Tavits

2007: 152) because voter’s preferences are principled rather than pragmatic. That is, on such issues

even policy positions assumed more or less implicitly can be electorally consequential to shift from.

This further decreases the probability of forming an intra-party consensus on an alternative and

competing conception of good citizenship.

The Social Democrats, this paper argues, experienced this last mechanism within the area of

citizenship education politics effectively consolidating a philosophy of integration in Danish school

politics based on the deterministic view of the nation promoted by the right-wing parties. This

analysis is based on readings of the political debate as it unfolds in the media, parliament and

government publications – as well as using the insights of existing research. From 1997 to 2012, 49

newspaper articles from four major newspapers authored by ministers and parliament members

were gathered along with 9 parliamentary debates and 10 government publications. The material

was analyzed according to the conceptions of good citizenship used by political parties to reason

about policy solutions in order describe ideological positions and locate possible shifts in problem

definition, policy position and inter-party disagreements.

Danish citizenship education politics 1997-2011

Since 1972 it has been compulsory for children in Denmark to attend nine years of schooling,

typically from the age of 7. In 2008 this was expanded to ten years of compulsory schooling from

the age of 6 (Holm-Larsen 2010, 103). Approximately 85 percent of students attend public

compulsory schooling. Most of the remaining children attend private charter schools – also called

free schools (friskoler). Today, approximately 10 per cent of children in Danish schools have an

immigrant background, most being descendants of immigrants. 56 percent of these children have a

background in Turkey, Iraq, Libanon, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Bosnia-Herzegovina

(Hornbek 2009).

Citizenship education is not its own subject in compulsory education. Instead, the law on

public compulsory schooling (folkeskoleloven) has since 1975 stated in its preamble that citizenship

education must be an integrated dimension of all subjects and school life. Still, it is typically the

subjects History (from 3rd to 9th grade), Danish (from 1st to 9th grade), Christianity Studies (from 1st

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to 9th grade) and Social Sciences (from 8th to 9th grade) that are emphasized as the main drivers of

cultural and democratic socialization. Christianity Studies is arguably the most controversial in a

context of increasing ethno-religious diversity and is regularly criticized for not being named

Religion, for strongly favoring Christianity over other religions and for taking up too much time (it

is one of only five subjects that students have from 1st to 9th grade).

The analysis begins in 1997 under a minority left-wing government consisting of the Social

Democrats (Socialdemokraterne) and the Social Liberal Party (Radikale Venstre). The Social

Liberal Party is historically a smaller, but pivotal centrist party that has shifted between supporting

left-wing and right-wing governments. Yet since the 1990s they have only supported left-wing

governments (Green-Pedersen & Krogstrup 2008). From 2001 to 2011 a minority right-wing

government was in office consisting of the big Liberal Party (Venstre) and the smaller

Conservatives (Konservative Folkeparti) and supported by the successful far-right Danish Peoples

Party (Dansk Folkeparti). In 2011 a new minority left-wing government took office consisting of

the Social Democrats, the Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People’s Party (Socialististk

Folkeparti).

1997-2001: The revival of citizenship education

After having lost its salience, the concept of citizenship (medborgerskab) was sought revived in the

late 1990s in school politics. Then Minister of Teaching, Margrethe Vestager of the Social Liberal

Party, saw citizenship education as a key issue but it was also something her predecessor, fellow

party member Ole Vig Jensen, had put on the agenda by commissioning a report on democracy in

the education system (Undervisningsministeriet 1997). Margrethe Vestager further issued two

ministerial publications to cultivate debate and a law that gave students representatives in all

general school councils and committees (Folketinget 1999; Undervisningsministeriet 1999, 2000).

In line with ideas of progressive education (reformpædagogik) and teacher autonomy, the

government avoided general regulations and instead sought to induce local discussions on

fundamental values, national belonging and on how to strengthen the student’s co-determination

and co-responsibility for school life.

This was not in response to a perceived apathy or deficit of democratic skills and knowledge

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

(and still is) regarded as quite democratically skilled, comparatively speaking – but as an answer to

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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.

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).

The commission report, the law proposal as well as both publications touches upon a public

philosophy of integration. They argue that democracy is not just a certain form of government or

principles restricted to the public sphere, but also culture or a way of life that must continuously be

reproduced in new generations. Democracy is described as a fragile form of government that

requires that the people understand it and want it. 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 everyday lives. This notion of democracy as a way of life has a long pedigree in Danish

educational thinking and is the reasoning behind treating citizenship education as cross-cutting all

school subjects and activities. It was popularized by the theologian Hal Koch in the 1940s and

1950s and it gradually became dominant in the educational system during the last half of the 20th

century (Jacobsen et al. 2004: 10-11; Koch 1991).

Moreover, the two publications argue that the kind of citizen a well-functioning democracy

needs is someone wholeheartedly committed to a national, democratic identity; that has a deep-

seated 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). There is a

clear notion that national belonging is grounded in extensive socialization set in childhood instead

of it being a conscious, reflective choice one can make throughout life (Undervisningsministeriet

2000, 18).

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 intentions of strengthening the teaching of democracy and

democratic virtues (Folketinget 1999). Brian Mikkelsen of the Conservatives, who was to become

Minister of Culture in 2001, noted how democratic virtues are equally important to create a skilled

labor force reflecting the notion of democracy as a way of life beyond politics. Still, the

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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 student’s knowledge of

democratic institutions and history.

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 students (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). While national identity is treated as an extensive socialization process when regarding how

individuals develop belonging to a national way of life, it is also pictured as something that can be

altered and expanded on a collective level through deliberate action (Haas 2008; Jensen 2014).

However, these publications and initiatives by the Ministry of Teaching did not receive much

attention in the public debate. Instead, the public debate had since the mid 1990s been highly

marked by questions of immigration and integration of newcomers and a strong skepticism towards

too much ethno-religious diversity and multicultural notions of citizenship (Green-Pedersen &

Krogstrup 2008; Holm 2007). As Birthe Rønn Hornbech of the Liberal Party expressed it:

‘Denmark is not and shall not be an immigration country. We are not and shall not be a multi-ethnic

or multicultural society’ (quoted in Jørgensen 2006: 241).

Central to this politicization was the arrival of 18.000 refugees from the Bosnian war and the

decision by the big opposition party, The Liberal Party, to promote a much more restrictive

immigration law arguing, among other things, that refugees should not become immigrants and

therefore should only be eligible for permanent residence after 7 years of temporary stay (Jønsson

2013c: 198-201; Jørgensen 2006: 250-61). They voiced the same critique when the centre-left

government introduced the new integration law in 1998 making it a requirement for permanent

residence to finish a three-year integration program (Jønsson 2013c). Against the right-wing

opposition’s arguments about reducing the numbers of immigrants and requiring some degree of

cultural assimilation, the government argued for a more humanitarian attitude and a focus on labour

market integration, yet without being dismissive of the opposition’s cultural arguments (Jønsson

2013c).

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Yet, within the Social Democrats strong internal disagreements on questions of integration

had existed since the 1980s, and many efforts had unsuccessfully been put into developing

consensus on an integration approach (Jønsson 2013a, 2013b, 2013c). Several Social Democratic

mayors in municipalities with comparatively many immigrants pressured the party publicly to take

a more restrictive and demanding stance, but the national leadership was reluctant (Jønsson 2013c:

201-05). This internal situation was relieved by the 1998 integration law and the appointment of

Thorkild Simonsen in 1998 to Minister of the Interior and Karen Jespersen in 2000, both politicians

representing a wing of the Social Democratic party advocating a tougher, more demanding

approach to immigrant integration (214). At no point in this debate did the Social Democrats

develop and promote a more open, multiculturally sensitive notion of the relationship between

nationhood, citizenship and ethno-religious diversity that could contest the culturally conservative,

assimilationist notion prevalent among right-wing parties (Holm 2007; Jensen 2014; Jørgensen

2006: 242, 267-68).2 Instead, 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 (Green-Pedersen and

Krogstrup 2008). Especially Karen Jespersen argued against accommodating cultural diversity. She

outspokenly stated that immigrants, particularly Muslims, must be integrated (or rather assimilated)

into a specifically Danish understanding of solidarity and democracy (Jespersen 2001; Termansen

2000).

When citizenship education in schools started to become a more salient issue after the new

centre-right government took office in 2001, the Social Democrats lacked a principled counter-

position to the government’s nationalistic revitalization of public schools. The humanitarian critique

they had offered of the right-wing proposals to restrict immigration were not transferrable to a

school context. Firstly because children have access to and start school at the same early age

independent of the (immigrant) status of their parents and, secondly, because 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.

Moreover, they had already in the immigration and integration debate distanced themselves from

multicultural notions of citizenship but without developing internal consensus around an alternative

conception of what it means to be a good citizen – beyond being employed and paying taxes. The

Social Democrats found themselves in a position where they could only offer pragmatic counter-

arguments and given the perception that the electorate was highly skeptical of accommodating

ethno-religious diversity; the Social Democrats were reluctant to oppose government measures and

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actually ended up supporting most of them. But the silence of the Social Democrats and the rest of

the left-wing is perhaps the most striking. Only five of the forty-nine articles gathered are authored

by Social Democrats and none by the Socialist People’s Party. Ten are from members of the Social

Liberal Party. Moreover, the articles by Social Democrats contain next to none critical remarks on

citizenship education as understood by the right-wing government – as opposed to the ones from the

Social Liberal Party.

This was facilitated by the school debate being focused on the government plans to increase

testing and student evaluations in reaction to low PISA-scores which the government connected to

practices of progressive education (Gustafsson 2012). In this context little public attention was

given to initiatives to strengthen citizenship education.

2001-2011: strengthening the ‘culture-carrying subjects’

Following the 2001 election, the new right-wing government sought to reorient the school towards

emphasizing basic skills and knowledge as part of a wider ‘culture battle’ aimed to break with ideas

of progressive education. The government chose to regulate the schools more directly by

centralizing curriculum planning and increase testing and student evaluations (Holm-Larsen 2010).

Initiatives to strengthen national belonging and democratic education became part of both this

debate and the government’s legislative packages proposed to parliament. Citizenship education,

including national identity, was said to be more about centrally defined skills and knowledge and

less about development through classroom and school practices. The notion that national identity is

something seated deeply in the individual through extensive socialization processes is here

supplemented by the content of national identity being historically determined. As such national

culture and identity becomes something relatively static that the school must help students

understand and internalize, not something they are supposed to confront critically and in a

reconstructive manner (Horst & Gitz-Johansen 2010). Consequently, the government emphasized

that the subjects History and Christianity Studies are central to the cultivation of good citizens.

Already before the election in 2001, the Conservative Party was highly vocal on the issue of

Christianity Studies. As the Minister of Culture to be 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

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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).

Bertel Haarder, Minister of Teaching 1982-1993 and 2005-2010, agreed with this view and stated

that the whole purpose of changing the preamble of the compulsory schooling 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 Studies, 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.

From 2002 to 2009, the government removed the right to mother tongue instruction, increased

teaching in the subjects History and Danish, 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 or prevent radicalization among the

Muslim youth. Throughout these years the need for citizenship education increasingly became one-

sidedly connected to a lack of understanding and knowledge of democratic norms and Danish

culture on the side of Muslim students.

The new government quickly acted to remove the right to mother tongue instruction arguing

that it did not help children of immigrants to learn the Danish language (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 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

opposed the proposal on pragmatic grounds questioning the evidence against mother tongue

instruction not improving Danish skills.

In 2004 the government started airing their intentions to further strengthen teaching in the

‘culture carrying subjects’: Danish, History and Christianity Studies. The government had already

laid the groundwork for their plans by amending the compulsory school law in 2003 increasing

lessons in History and Social Sciences and giving the Minister of Teaching authority to determine

nationally binding end-goals as well as intermediate goals concerning central areas of knowledge

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and skills for the individual school subjects (Folketinget 2003). Law changes supported by the

Social Democrats but not without noting that they did not see this as moving towards increased

testing (Adelskov in 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 two law proposals presented in December 2005 and March 2006 and adopted by a

parliamentary majority of the Government parties, Danish Peoples Party and the Social Democrats

(Folketinget 2005; Folketinget 2006a; Regeringen 2005). Among other things, the law proposals

changed the preamble of the compulsory schooling law to reflect a stronger priority to basic skills

and knowledge, increased mandatory testing in Danish, Math, English and the natural science

subjects, implemented learning plans for the students, increased the weekly lessons in History in the

fourth and fifth grade, and added History, Social Sciences and Christianity Studies to the list of

subjects students could be examinated in when finishing 9th grade. The parliamentary debates focus

almost exclusively on the role of testing and student evaluations in the school which was opposed

the Unity List, the Socialist People’s Party along with the Social Liberal Party. They decried the

downgrading of the aims of progressive education and saw a conflict between the kind of

innovative, teamwork-oriented worker that the labour market needed and too much focus on

knowledge and tests. Yet, no party took offence with the strengthening of History and Christianity

Studies even though it was emphasized in the speeches by the spokesmen from the Conservatives

and the Danish Peoples Party.

Moreover, the government set out to standardize the History curriculum by developing a

mandatory History canon. When Bertel Haarder took office as Minister of Education in February

2005 he sat down two committees to report on ways to strengthen the History, Social Sciences and

Christianity Studies. The committee working on the History subject was also asked to make a

mandatory canon of historical events. The main arguments for this upgrading and centralization of

curriculum planning was the well-rehearsed argument that the ‘culture carrying subjects must give

the young people a cultural community as a starting point. It is something people need in a

globalized world’ (Haarder quoted in Gram 2005; see also Regeringen 2005: 2, but also nationalism

as the foundation of democracy:

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 2005: 18)

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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 criticized

progressive education for not caring about the national community and being elitist arguing that ‘we

need a common memory to remind each other about the values we share in Denmark’ (quoted in

Hardis 2004). He also argued for a mandatory history canon and connected it, albeit loosely, to

Muslim children developing a more “civilized” kind of religiosity as Danes had done before:

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)

This reaction from Sass Larsen is part of a Social Democratic soul searching, and the analysis he

gives for the lost 2001 election and decreasing vote-share, is that the Social Democratic became too

progressive and elitist, and forgot to take the concerns of ordinary citizens (regarding immigration)

seriously (Hardis 2004). Ole Sohn, then a leading MP of the Socialistic Peoples Party, reiterates this

analysis the same year (Sohn 2004). The History canon mostly aroused public debate about the

historical events selected and later on only the Social Liberal Party argued against the whole idea of

a canon saying that it reflected a static, monocultural conception of the nation that simply was not

true (Østergaard 2008).

The historical canon was finally implemented into the 2009 ministerial curriculum plan,

Fælles Mål (‘Common Goals’). The final list ignores the history of Danish immigration and

emigration, reaffirms ideas of cultural clashes and ‘inspires the view that Danish history forms a

progression from peacefulness and justice to an even higher degree of peacefulness, liberality,

justice, and modernism through non-violent steps and peaceful revolutions’ (Jørgensen 2014).

Moreover, since 1995 the History curriculum plan had stated the task of the subject to promote the

student’s ‘insight into how humans are created by history as well as being creators of history’

(Undervisningsministeriet 1995, 2002 & 2004). In the 2009 curriculum plan ‘creators of history’

was removed and instead the students should know that they are created by history so they can

‘reflect on their opportunities of action’ (Undervisningsministeriet 2009) downplaying a critical,

reconstructive approach.

Later in 2006, 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

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

Christianity studies did not raise any eyebrows in the parliamentary debate.

What we see by the mid-2000s, already before the Muhammad cartoons crisis, is a Social

Democratic party that increasingly co-opts the policy approach to citizenship education promoted

by the centre-right government. By not opposing the underlying conception of the nation, even

when the Social Liberal Party offers an alternative, the Social Democrats tacitly accepts the premise

of these policy solutions. Consequently, the debate becomes more dominated by a public

philosophy of citizenship education in which the school’s role is to reproduce in new generations a

deep-seated relationship to a historically rooted, non-negotiable notion of nationhood based on a

certain Danish brand of democracy that transcends the public/private-divide to also structure

everyday interaction and practices.

The Muhammed cartoons crisis in late 2005 amplified this public philosophy. Already before

the crisis, Fogh Rasmussen stated: ‘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). Thomas Adelskov, spokesmen from the Social

Democrats, agreed saying that ‘the school is only culture carrying institution left where all societal

groups meet. Therefore it is central that the school convey culture carrying values to the students’

(quoted in Rasmussen and Clausen 2004).

During the crisis, Fogh Rasmussen, in response to the strong reactions from Muslims both

inside and outside Denmark, repeatedly declared that freedom of speech is absolutely non-

negotiable and that social cohesion demanded that we safeguard our fundamental values. Fogh

Rasmussen talked about a certain Danish brand of democracy which involved being tolerant, down-

to-earth, consensus-oriented, anti-authoritarian, autonomous and secularly minded (Meer and

Mouritsen 2009; Mouritsen and Olsen 2013). A way of being that extends to all spheres of social

life – from the family over the market and civil society to politics.

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

publication Teaching Democracy from 2006. The reactions to the Muhammed cartoons were seen

as evidence of a failure of integration:

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

15

In the publication Haarder points out that the threat to democracy today comes from young people

who are unable to reconcile their religion with democracy. In 2007 the Liberal Party, published the

program Verdensmester i demokrati (‘World Champion in Democracy’) which was directed against

immigrants and their children. 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). Later, the teaching of History and

Christianity Studies was also connected to the integration of immigrants into the world’s best

democracy:

“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)

Equally in the government 2009 plan to counter-act radicalization among the Muslim youth, the

teaching of democracy and citizenship in schools was emphasized as an indispensable tool

(Regeringen 2009).

Where were the opposition parties in all of this? The Social Democrats did not oppose the

government’s diagnosis and seemed satisfied not to engage the debate any further. However,

prompted by critique from the Danish Peoples Party, then Minister of Teaching to be, Christine

Antorini of the Social Democrats, emphasized 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’ touching upon a different notion of Danishness as something you should engage

critically (Antorini 2010). This idea, however, rarely surfaces and it is never spelled out nor

connected to initiatives to offer culturally diverse perspectives in citizenship education. Differently,

the Social Liberal Party kept defending progressive education and in 2009 they proposed to

implement citizenship education as its own subject from the 5th grade effectively decoupling it from

Christianity Studies and History (Radikale Venstre 2009). They argued against the government’s

focus on knowledge and tests and Danishness as something to be protected instead of continuously

developed (Rahbek and Jelved 2009; Østergaard 2008).

16

Yet, after the Social Democrats formed a new government with the Social Liberal Party and

Socialistic Peoples Party in 2011, none of the changes to citizenship education has been rolled back

nor any new introduced. Years of supporting or often just ignoring the centre-right government’s

proposals, initiatives and rhetoric seem to have left the Social Democrats in a policy position similar

to the right-wing leaving them open to accusations of inconsistency and lack of credibility if they

try to shift position. The new government has not taken any steps to promote a different kind of

public philosophy of citizenship education than the one consistently advocated for by the former

centre-right government. It still structures the politics of citizenship education in the sense that the

left-wing government only hesitantly pursues policies or addresses certain phenomena as

problematic if it can be seen as inconsistent with this public philosophy. Indeed, mother tongue

instruction has not been reintroduced as a right despite having been favored by all three government

parties before (Vibjerg 2012) and Christianity Studies has not been renamed Religion despite

favored by all three government parties before 2011.3 In fact, when a study in 2012 showed that

many teachers fail to use the canons developed for History and Danish, Christine Antorini was

quick to stress that they must, downplaying any further need for discussion (Jessen 2012). Although

the left-wing parties now all acknowledge the usefulness of canons, they also agree that they should

only be guiding arguing that teacher autonomy is important (Folketinget 2012). Still, they remain

mandatory.

Conclusion

Citizenship education is not and has not been a contentious issue in Danish politcs. In fact, there is a

strong link between the rhetoric of the Minister of Teaching in the late 1990s, Margrethe Vestager

of the Social Liberal Party, and the right-wing Ministers of Teaching during the 2000s. They agree

that a central purpose of citizenship education is the cultivation of a kind of national identity that is

deeply rooted in the individual. This rootedness becomes increasingly important in a globalizing

world for the survival of a Danish style democracy and welfare state. What the right-wing adds is

the historical rootedness of Danishness. The Danish nation becomes something that cannot be

reconstructed or negotiated but must be emphasized in the face of increasing ethno-religious

diversity.

The Social Democrats never really developed consensus around an ideological standpoint on

the relation between nationhood and ethno-religious diversity. Without being ideologically invested

in certain policy solutions, little stopped them from supporting the right-wing approach to

17

citizenship education. This support mostly amounted to not opposing measures and rhetoric and

little effort was used defending them. Still, in a policy area where voter’s preferences are principled,

even policy positions adopted more or less implicitly take a strong hold on a party’s future policy

formulations. Today, the Social Democrats would be accused of inconsistency and lack of

credibility if they started promoting a different, more multicultural notion of citizenship. This

effectively keeps them from engaging in internal discussions on this - at least it does not surface.

Studies on immigration and citizenship politics assuming ideological differences between left-

wing and right-wing parties should take note of this case study. It is not always the case that left-

wing parties actually have formed an ideological standpoint on these issues and their lack of

opposition might implicitly invest them in the solutions of the right-wing. Consequently, if left-

wing parties are relatively silent on these issues it is not necessarily because they have been

tempered by coalitional building or perceived preferences of the electorate or median voter. They

might simply just not have an ideological answer to what should be done or they have implicitly

invested themselves in the ideological answer of the right-wing.

Notes

1 This assumption is common in the literature on how left-wing parties, especially Social Democrats, position themselves on immigration issues. See, for example, Akkerman (2012), Alonso & Fonseca (2011), Bale et al. (2009) and Howard (2009). 2 Illustrative of this are the answers by then Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (Social Democrats) when asked by MP Peter Skaarup (Danish Peoples Party) if Denmark is a multi-ethnic or multicultural society (Folketinget 1999, Spm. nr. S 658; 2000, Spm. nr. S 1052). Both answers distance themselves from the notions of ‘multi-ethnic’ and ‘multicultural’ but without supplying a different notion of the nation. 3 The Social Democrats, however, have made it clear that they only favor changing the name of the subject from Christianity Studies to Religion. They do not want to change the strong focus on Christianity (Antorini 2010).

18

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