Karolina Czerska-Shaw is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the Jagiellonian University (JU) in Krakow and International Programmes Coordinator at the Centre for European Studies at the JU. Her interests include migration and integration policies and issues of multiculturalism and national identity, focused particularly on western Europe and North America.  

The Looking Glass-Self: Civic Integration and Citizenship Testing Schemes in France and the UK

The 21st century has seen the spread of a curious new phenomenon across Europe, namely civic education and citizenship testing schemes for immigrants. These policies have developed under the auspices of integration policy whist crossing over into those of immigration and citizenship. At the same time, a crisis of social cohesion, a breakdown of models of integration, and the strange death of multiculturalism has taken center stage, together with a full-scale debate on national identity, belonging, and common, shared values. In the United Kingdom and France, which historically have adhered to two opposing concepts of citizenship and integration, this multifaceted crisis is rarely off the political agenda and the differences between them seldom fully understood.

This presentation aims to review these two countries and their respective models of integration together with a strange by-product of the crisis of social cohesion and debate on national identity: civic education and citizenship testing schemes for immigrants.