Introduction

Mass schooling was first introduced in the 19th century for different reasons, including the expectation that it would fulfil two important political purposes. On the one hand, teachers were to educate citizens to become autonomous, independent thinkers (Biesta, 2006). Political education was expected to help learners to find their singular political perspectives. On the other, schooling was to contribute to cohesive and peaceful intra-state societies (Durkheim, 1956). Aligned with processes of nation-state building, schools were seen as key settings where children and young people could ‘acquire’ the national identity associated with their legal citizenship status (Sant et al, 2016).

As time went by, globalisation fostered the migration of political sovereignty from nation-states to international organisations (Brown, 2014). Political education began a process of decentring, where multiple political identities (national, European, global) were co-taught and/or recognised (Veugelers, 2020). However, in the past two decades, we have seen a range of nationalistic movements resulting in unexpected political processes, such as Brexit in the UK, the Catalan movement for independence (Spain), or the election of Donald Trump as US president. Processes associated with globalisation, including the rise of cultural diversity, the 2008 financial crisis, the commodification of democratic politics (Mouffe, 2018), or even a global pandemic, have invigorated nationalist discourses. We live in times of complexity (Sassen, 2013). Globalisation is very much alive but coexists, and sometimes competes, with re-energised forms of nationalism (Sellar et al, 2022).

Such complexity has further problematised the role and purpose of political education (Veugelers, 2020). In contexts relevant to the focus of this book (mainly liberal democracies influenced by Anglo-American political culture), where there has been an increase of political polarisation, cultural diversity, increasing inequalities and growing support for nationalist discourses, policy makers have reinforced the teaching of national identities as a way to secure social cohesion. Certainly, many have seen these renationalisation trends in political education as a push towards more essentialist, assimilationist, and/or acritical approaches (see, for example, Jerome and Clemitshaw, 2012; Lander, 2016).