Are we all Europeans now? Local, national and supranational identities of young adults

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1 Sue Grundy & Lynn Jamieson 1 Dept of Sociology, University of Edinburgh Are we all Europeans now? Local, national and supranational identities of young adults Abstract The continued expansion and deepening of the European Union state raises important questions about whether there will be a corresponding development of pro-supranational feeling towards Europe. In what circumstances will a shared European identity develop over time, complementing or replacing a sense of attachment to nation, and in what circumstances will national and local frames override a wider European identity? This paper is based on data drawn from a European Commission (EC) funded project on the Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity. The project includes comparative surveys of random samples of young men and women aged and samples of this age group on educational routes likely to take them to European careers beyond their national boundaries, although this paper will examine data collected from the random sample only. This comparison of samples is made in paired sites with contrasting cultural and socio-political histories in terms of European affiliations and support for the European Union. The sites are: Vienna and Vorarlberg in Austria; Chemnitz and Bielefeld in (the former East and West) Germany; Madrid and Bilbao in Spain; Prague and Bratislava, the capitals of the relatively new Czech Republic and Slovakia; Manchester, England and Edinburgh, Scotland in the UK. This paper will examine patterns of local, national and supranational identity within our British sample and comparison will be made with data from our other European partners. 1 The partners, researchers and consultants in this investigation are: Professor Claire Wallace and Reingard Spannring, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria; Professor Klaus Boehnke and Daniel Fuss, International University Bremen and Professor Bernhard Nauck, Technische Universitaet Chemnitz, Germany; Professor Ladislav Macháček; Dr. Gabriel Bianchi, Barbara Lášticová and Pavla Macháčková, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia, and Professor Maria Ros and Miryam Rodriguez Monter, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Dr. Hector Grad and Gema Garcia Albacete, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain; and Dr. Susan Condor, Lancaster University, England and the coordinator Professor Lynn Jamieson, Dr. Sue Grundy and Professor David McCrone, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. 1

2 Introduction. Living in territory that is typically included in Europe and under the jurisdiction of the European Union 2, we are interested in perceptions of 'Europeanness'. A lack of interest in Europe as the basis of a form of supranational and/or citizenship identity is as interesting as positive claims for it. Many authors see little prospect of a European form of national or supranational identity because Europe lacks the elements that are supposed to give coherence to a nation state (Delanty, 2000, Smith, 1995). For example, Gerard Delanty has noted the absence of core components of a national culture: language, a shared history, religion, an educational system and a press or media (2000, 114). He has suggested that there are better prospects for a European citizenship identity through constitutional patriotism : an identification with democratic or constitutional norms a legal identity, as opposed to a cultural identity (2000, 115). However, how and when people come to claim, resist or downplay both the particular nationalities of the British Isles and their British citizenship are very complex processes shaped by everyday experiences in the socio-political context of their immediate locality (Bechhofer et al, 1999; Kiely et al, 2001; Kiely et al, 2000; McCrone2002, McCrone and Kiely, 2000). Enthusiasm for, or lack of interest in, being European must also have roots in everyday interactions and local contexts. This paper arises out of our EC funded project focusing on young adults aged and their orientations to citizenship and identity. 3 Research is conducted in paired sites with contrasting cultural and socio-political histories in terms of European affiliations and support for the European Union. The sites are Vienna and Vorarlberg in Austria, Chemnitz and Bielefeld in (the former East and West) Germany, Madrid and Bilbao in Spain, Prague and Bratislava, the capitals of the relatively new Czech and Slovak Republics, and Manchester, England and Edinburgh, Scotland in the UK. In this paper, we will focus on the attitudes of young adults to local, national and supranational territories and jurisdictions. Theorising identity We find it useful to draw on the interactionists notion of the self in theorising identity and to note that most individuals experience themselves as having one self but many identities (Jamieson, 2002). Our sense of self is an ongoing product of our everyday social interaction, and is open to change. At the same time, a sense of continuity and biography, past and future, is part of our present self in memories, habits, stocks of knowledge, feeling, expectations and aspirations. In social interaction, people present different faces to others, sometimes consciously deliberately and manipulatively and sometimes without any conscious artifice. The term identities can encompass the whole range of presentations of the self, whether they are felt to be primary, a core part of who I am, heartfelt and authentic or more self-consciously playful and superficial, whether staged only in specific and infrequent social contexts or more enduring performances. This theoretical approach emphasises the social processes by which identities are produced or reproduced rather than identities as an 2 or in the case of the two accession states that participate in the study, being about to become under that jurisdiction 3 This is part of a multi-site European Commission funded project Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity ( Using surveys and qualitative studies, the views and experiences are explored of random samples of young men and women aged and young men and women on educational paths likely to take them on European careers beyond their national boundaries. 2

3 outcome, such as a permanent psychological state. Even outcomes that are experienced as enduring are products of social interaction. 4 The social interactionist traditions on which we draw have sometimes been accused of neglecting the bigger pictures of power and inequalities, of over-emphasising agency and neglecting structure, or of inadequately theorising the interconnections between everyday power dynamics and the reproduction of structural inequalities. Like many other authors, we would ideally wish to theorise identity and identities to take account of both agency and structure, (Jamieson, 2002). By comparing the situation of young people both within and across European nation-states, we hope to see how they negotiate very different constraints and opportunities for mustering experiences of being European. For example, variation in rates of youth unemployment, the education and welfare packages offered to young people (Bynner et al, 1997; Chisholm et al, 1995; Nagel & Wallace, ), differences between Northern and Southern Europe in terms of patterns of leaving home, and young people's access to living independently of family households (Iacovou, 1998), differentially shape opportunities for mobility around Europe. Although our study does not include media monitoring, we are also aware that mass media provide a somewhat nationally specific repertoire of stereotypes and stories that are drawn on or actively resisted in everyday identity claims and attribution. These include social stereotypes of various personal characteristics gender, age, ethnicity, and of nationalities, as well as many offerings of more or less bland nationalism (Billig, 1995). The emphasis on everyday social interaction in the construction of identities means that socio-political processes and structures on grand scales, such as state policies, national economies or processes of globalisation, are important through their impact on local contexts. This is often very obvious in the case of national identity (McCrone, 2000; (Macdonald 1993) For instance, for our Czech & Slovak colleagues, the local contexts in which people negotiate national identity has already been radically transformed by geopolitical change. The nation they were born into Czechoslovakia no longer exists. Moreover, current enthusiasm for being European in Slovakia and the Czech Republic cannot be understood separately from local discussion and rhetoric concerning the position of the Czech and Slovak Republics in the process of expansion of the European Union. While we do not take it for granted that identity claims and attribution are always a process of othering (Barth, 1969), we are very conscious that different local contexts offer different incentives to define self against others. For instance, one of the co-authors of this paper first felt European when she was in the USA (her first time beyond our European shores): Europe was juxtaposed with America. It was also used to denote her ethnic status white European. She felt that she was othered in the conversations with Americans. By being labelled not American but European and also as British she came to be given, and to perceive, an identity which she had not perceived before. There was also a strong interest in where she came from and, for the first time, it created the need to be able to present herself 4 We are therefore attracted to previous research in sociology and social psychology which explores the social process of making identity claims and attributing particular identities to others and hence wanted to work with people like Susan Condor who is a co-investigator in the EC project and David McCrone who acts as a consultant. 5 See also the various socio demographic reports for the European Commission funded project Orientations of Young Men and Women to Citizenship and European Identity published on the website at 3

4 as someone from the British Isles. In another example of how context can change definition of self, one of the people interviewed in the project changed how she described herself in the national context. Firstly, she said that she was British and that she would never describe herself as English as she thought it had such negative connotations. A year later when she was on an overseas placement, she described herself as English and said that she would always call herself that. During her placement, she had made friends with other young adults from some of the various nations within the United Kingdom and also from Ireland and this meant that there were constant references to the differences between the nations that make up these islands. Social contexts can also provide strong incentives to conceal identities that might otherwise be presented. In the Observer Newspaper last month, there was an article about Pretendanians Americans, who when travelling, call themselves Canadians to get a better reception (Observer 2003)(Observer 2003). Furthermore, since the recent war in Iraq, Americans have been told to hide their nationality when abroad. Suggestions of how this should be done have included: not wearing clothes that have the American flag on them; only having discussions of politics in private; trying not standing out as a tourist; speaking more quietly; not buying American fast food (della Cava 2003). Cohen notes, There are obvious limits to the manipulative use of situational identity. It is relatively easy to change a religion or one s clothes. It is less easy to change one s accent, manner and language (Cohen 1994). British identity has been descrined as a fuzzy frontier (Cohen 1994). David McCrone and Richard Kiely note that, in the British Isles, people have difficulties in identifying who they are because of slippage between citizenship and nationality: What is the country called anyway Britain? Great Britain? The United Kingdom? Certainly not England, although this is common enough (McCrone and Kiely 2000). Their empirical work demonstrates that people in non-english parts of the British Isles are more adept at distinguishing their citizenship and their nationality, and have a better understanding of the different framings of these islands, than their English counterparts (McCrone, 2002). Research also demonstrates that issues are even more complex for British citizens who define themselves by membership of ethnic minorities (Saeed, Blain et al, 1999; McCrone, 2000; Pickering, 2001; Osler and Starkey, 2002). In England, for ethnic minorities, the term British can become an inclusive definition that overcomes what are perceived as the exclusive white ethnic connotations of the term English but in Scotland, the designation, British, is often perceived as too close to English to be an inclusive category. While eloquently demonstrating the empirical confusion between citizenship and nationality, David McCrone and Richard Kiely wish to draw a clear line analytically between the two concepts. Nationality and citizenship actually belong to different spheres of meaning and activity. The former is in essence a cultural concept which binds people on the basis of shared identity in Benedict Anderson s apt phrase as an imagined community while citizenship is a political concept deriving from people s relationship to the state. (McCrone and Kiely, 2000, 25). Like Prina Werbner and Nira Yuval-Davis (1999) and Gerard Delanty ( ), we want to use the concept of citizenship-identity as well as national-identity and to 6 with specific reference to Europe 4

5 suggest that citizenship could be the basis of an imagined community (Jamieson, 2002). Citizenship can become highly significant in claiming and attributing identity even if this is not frequently the case for many of our British respondents with reference to European citizenship. Regions, Nations and Europe in our Research Design Our research design, has built in a series of strategic comparisons of paired national and regional contexts with different relationships to Europe. In the case of each pair, these are localities that have histories of complex relationships of core and periphery, or dominance and subordinance, and opposing nationalisms, which we knew to be, or believed would be consequential in terms of the attractiveness of claiming European identity. In the case of Scotland and England, there is a history of economic, political, and arguably, also cultural dominance of the latter over the former. Scottish and English nationalism are clearly distinct and often framed in opposition to each other. Moreover, while expressions of English nationalism are often associated with antagonism to the European Union, Scottish nationalism, at least at the level of party policies expressed by the Scottish Nationalist Party, is pro-european. In the case of Vorarlberg and Vienna, we believed that more pro-european sentiments would be found in the politically subordinate but economically prosperous region of Vorarlberg. However, Vorarlberg currently lacks the sustained civic nationalist movement of Scotland. In the case of Euskadi 7 and Madrid, there are reasons to believe that Euskadian young people are becoming more pro-european as an aspect of their nationalism but they have hitherto been relatively indifferent to Europe. In the other two cases, East and West Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, indifference or antagonism to Europe is more culturally characteristic of the subordinate region/nation while the dominant nation/region is more pro-european. Each of these patterns involves a unique history of economic and political power relationships, and of distinctive cultural civic and ethnic nationalisms. It was important for our theoretical approach not to attempt nationally representative samples of nations but to conduct our studies in more local places. So, in each of our paired nations or regions, we have selected a specific city or, in one case, (the Bregenz district of Vorarlberg) towns in a specific locality. In each location, we wanted to find random samples of year olds who had been resident there for at least five years and who had been born in the country. We needed a minimum residence requirement in order to provide a base level of opportunity for developing local connections and a sense of attachment to the locality. Originally, we wished to set the threshold much higher but this was considered too problematic in terms of time and money taken to locate respondents. In Britain, the difficulty in obtaining the sample meant that some people who had been born abroad did make their way into the sample (n=22: 14 in Manchester, 8 in Edinburgh), and some of these had spent less than half their life in the research city (n=12: 6 in Manchester and 6 in Edinburgh). All of the people who were interviewed for the random sample, had lived in the city for at least 5 years. 7 Euskadi or the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country 5

6 Methods and the Characteristics of the British Samples Research for the project is being conducted using surveys and qualitative interviews. This paper draws on the former. The survey is often seen as a relatively crude instrument for trying to uncover complex social processes. We do not deny that and indeed, because we do not believe all will be revealed by surveys, we are going on to do qualitative work. However, there is a history of successfully tackling complex issues through surveys. We also note that in international work, the survey has some advantages. There are many potential pitfalls in the process of an international team designing a common survey in English. It is difficult to ensure that we genuinely share the same understanding of our questions. Translating the collectively designed questionnaire into national languages without altering the intended meaning depends on this shared understanding. As does the operation of a common SPSS coding frame that allows merging the national data sets into a common data file. Despite very hard work to achieve shared understandings, we have quirks and differences between countries in data gathering and coding procedures. Nevertheless, achieving a standard approach in design of a survey is probably easier than in the design of qualitative research. In our team, the latter has only seemed possible by taking a much more permissive approach to variation. Our survey was designed to give us some baseline knowledge of the following: respondent s sense of belonging to locality, region, nation, Europe and a global community and an indication of the basis of belonging; the significance of regional, national and European identity against other sources of identity such as gender, ethnicity, religion and social class; the balance of support for 'ethnic' and 'civic' strands of national-citizenship versus ethniccitizenship; the salience of citizenship-identity. As background to understanding local identity we gathered information on family and friendship groups and as background to understanding the sense of belonging to Europe, we gathered data on respondents' connection to Europe (time spent in European countries, languages spoken, family and friendship connections) and exposure to education about the European Union. As background to citizenship-identity, we checked whether the respondent had educational experiences that could be categorised as forms of education for citizenship and gathered information on citizenship practice, including whether they participated by: voting in regional, national and European elections; membership of political and civic organisations; professed interest in politics and social issues. In the summer of 2002, survey agencies set to work locating random samples of 400 young adults, aged 18-24, in each of our localities. In Edinburgh and Manchester, the research company we hired, System Three, gave a quota sample of addresses in each location to field researchers who visited each address in an attempt to locate year olds fitting our criteria of having been resident in the city for five years. Difficulties in finding respondents who fitted our criteria meant that fewer people were interviewed in Britain than anticipated (308 in Edinburgh and 364 in Manchester). Some of the characteristics of respondents are shown below: 6

7 TABLE OF CHARACTERISTICS OF SAMPLE IN MANCHESTER AND EDINBURGH Manchester Edinburgh Born in the city 91% 75% Living in parental home Men 78% Women 44% Total 57% Men 61% Women 31% Total 45% Living with a partner 8 17% 32% 25% 14% 31% 23% Living with a 2% 3% 2% 11% 14% 12% friend/friends Living alone 5% 4% 4% 14% 8% 11% Lone parent with child 9-20% 12% - 13% 7% White Scottish, English Welsh or Irish Mixed race, Asian, Black or other 83% 95% 17% 5% We will use analysis of the data in this paper to look at 10 : (1) Attachment to nation or supranation (2) Feelings of nationality (3) Citizens of Europe and the world? (4) Opinions about the requirements to be able to become a British citizen (5) Interest in and Perception of Europe (6) The influence of place on overall identity (1) Attachment to nation or supranation In our study, we asked both about strength of attachment to particular geographical places or units and strength of feeling about particular nationalities. Not surprisingly, these questions show a similar pattern of variation in terms of people s feelings about their country and their nationality. Within our British research samples, it is possible to locate people within two countries and nationalities. Hence our sample were asked, in the case of Manchester, about England and Britain, English and British and in Edinburgh, about Scotland and Britain, Scottish and British. Our data enable us to compare strength of attachment to local places versus country and Europe. A high proportion of young adults contacted in Manchester and Edinburgh were also born there (81%). We asked people both about attachment to their place of birth and to the city in which they live, Edinburgh or Manchester. Attachment to place of birth varies dramatically between those who are still living there and those who have since moved to the study cities. Those living in Manchester or Edinburgh but not born there are more likely to claim attachment to their new city than their city of birth. In terms of the city in which people live, Edinburgh commands greater attachment than Manchester and is equally endorsed by those born there and those who moved there. In the case of Manchester, those 8 A small number are living in their parental home with a partner. 9 A small number are living in their parental home with their child. 10 Our website also contains a copy of the questionnaire. 7

8 who were born in and remained in Manchester are somewhat more likely to be attached to Manchester than those who lived elsewhere. TABLE 11 OF PERCENTAGE WITH STRONG OR COMPLETE ATTACHMENT TO REGION, NATION AND EUROPE 12 Region Nation Europe Prague * 78% 42% Bratislava * 72% 44% Chemnitz 44% 46% 43% Bielefeld 23% 52% 47% Bilbao 77% 41% 39% Madrid 75% 80% 54% Manchester 81% 72% 39% Edinburgh 87% 46% 32% *Not asked in Prague or Bratislava. 63% 60% 43% In our study, the regions equivalent to the Autonomous Regions in Spain, or the former East and West Germany are regarded as national terrorites or nations, are England and Scotland in Britain. Attachment to nation in the sense of Scotland or England outweighs attachment to the territory and nation of Britain. There is a marked difference between young people in Manchester and young people in Edinburgh in terms of their attachment to Britain: 72% of the former and 46% of the latter, expressed strong attachment to Britain. Interviewees in Edinburgh and Manchester who were born elsewhere in the UK have slightly higher rates of attachment to Britain than young adults born and bred there. The proportion of all Edinburgh and Manchester respondents expressing attachment to Europe is much lower than the proportion expressing strong attachment to either England/Scotland or Britain: only 32% in Edinburgh, 39% in Manchester. We found few gender differences in this pattern of responses and they are not statistically significant. Slightly higher proportions of young women than young men report strong or complete attachment to Britain. This gender difference is more marked in Scotland although still modest: 43% of young men report such strong attachment compared with 50% of young women. In addition, there are differences between young men and women born in Edinburgh concerning attachment to Europe: 38% of young women born in Edinburgh feel strong or very strong attachment to Europe in comparison to 28% of young men. When we look across all the participating localities in our study, attachment to a more local region is highest in Britain and Spain. In Edinburgh, Manchester and Bilbao, high proportions of respondents expressing strong attachment to Scotland (87%), England (81%) or the Basque country (77%) are associated with low proportions expressing attachment to 11 This question was not asked in Austria. 12 The question asked was People may feel different degrees of attachment to their city, town or village, to their region, to their country or to Europe. Thinking about your own attachments, and using the scale on this card (0=not at all attached 4=completely attached), please tell me how attached you feel to: Where you were born (town or city), to this region : (East Germany and West Germany for interviewees in Chemnitz and Bielefeld; the Autonomous Regions of the Basque Country and Madrid for respondents in Bilbao and Madrid, England and Scotland for respondents in Manchester and Edinburgh] to your nation [Czech Republic for respondents in Prague, Slovak Republic for respondents in Slovakia, Germany for respondents in Chemnitz and Bielefeld, Spain for respondents in Madrid and Bilbao, Britain for respondents in Edinburgh and Manchester], to Europe. 8

9 Europe (32%, 39% and 39% respectively). This pattern is not, however, the case for Madrid where 74% of respondents profess strong attachment to the Autonomous Region of Madrid and a higher proportion of respondents than from any of the other cities, 53%, profess strong attachment to Europe. It seems that for the residents of Madrid, there is no conflict between attachment to region, nation and Europe. Attachment to region is very low in Bielefeld, (23%), and much lower than either attachment to Germany, (52%), or Europe (57%). In Chemnitz the proportion of participants who are strongly attached to East Germany, Germany and Europe are remarkably similar (44%, 46% and 43% respectively). It may be that the unique circumstance of German reunification have undermined the significance of East and West but, if this is so, the effect has been more dramatic in the west. It is not clear why levels of attachment to Europe and nation are so similar for our respondents in Germany. Attachment to nation, is relatively low among our respondents in Germany, in comparison to attachment to the Czech or Slovak Republics, among respondents in Prague and Bratislava, or to Spain in Madrid, or to Britain in Manchester. Less than half of respondents residing in Chemnitz (46%) and only just over half of those from Bielefeld (52%) express high attachment to Germany. In Edinburgh and Bilbao it seems that attachment to Scotland and the Basque country take precedence over attachment to any larger territory or jurisdiction. The low attachment to the national territories of Britain and Spain is not surprising among respondents from these cities because of their particular histories. However, it is less clear why so few people should profess attachment to Europe, particularly in Scotland where the Scottish National Party uses the slogan Scotland in Europe. In all of the research sites in which the majority express strong attachment to region or nation, a smaller proportion express strong attachment to Europe, except for our cities in Germany. As noted, in Germany the proportion of respondents strongly attached to Europe was only 3-5% less than it was for those attached to nation. (2) Feelings of nationality We wanted to know how people felt about different sorts of nationality that they might have. When looking at the data for all of the research localities, we find that more young adults in Manchester and Edinburgh report feeling strongly about being from England (80%) or Scotland (85%) than their counterparts with respect to equivalent regions in other countries. It is interesting that although 77% of respondents in Bilbao express being strongly attached to the Basque Country, only 68% express strong feelings about being of Basque nationality. When asked about their strength of feeling about being East German or being West German far more respondents in Chemnitz (64%) said they felt strongly about being East German than residents of Bielefeld about being from the west (41%). However, larger majorities from both Bielefeld (65%) and Chemnitz (72%) have very strong feelings about being German. The fact that the proportions of respondents expressing strong feelings for being German are higher than those expressing strong attachments to Germany is difficult to interpret. The cities in which the largest number of respondents express strong feelings about nationality are Prague (88%) and Bratislava (87%). The history of the relatively recent creation of the Czech and Slovak Republics from the former Czechoslovakia is clearly a very 9

10 important part of the explanation. At the opposite extreme, few respondents in Bilbao suggested they have strong or very strong feelings of Spanish nationality (31%). Instead, people tended to more frequently suggest that their feelings were very strong or strong for their Autonomous region of the Basque Country (68%). Unlike the previous questions, these questions were also asked in Austria. More respondents in Vienna (68%) and Vorarlberg (74%) felt strongly about being a person of these regions than about being Austrian (59% and 52% respectively). Respondents in the research sites in Germany and in the Czech and Slovak Republics are the people who most frequently held a strong feeling of being European or European nationality (Bielefeld 64%, Chemnitz 63%, Prague 65%, Bratislava 59%). Again, this relates to the reshaping of Europe and the European Union. It would be interested to replicate this research, particularly in the new Czech and Slovak Republics which are accession states to the European Union once their membership is several years old. Data from the Spanish and British research cities contain the fewest people with strong feelings of nationality towards Europe. These findings complement those reported earlier, for feelings of attachment to Europe. TABLE SHOWING PERCENTAGE OF RESPONSES OF VERY STRONG OR STRONG FEELINGS WHEN ASKED HOW THEY FELT ABOUT DIFFERENT SORTS OF NATIONALITY 13 Research Location Region/Nation (English, Scottish, West German, East German, Viennese, Vorarlberger, Basque, Madrilenian) Nation (British, Spanish, Austrian, German, Czech, Slovak) European Prague * 88% 65% Bielefeld 41% 65% 64% Chemnitz 64% 72% 63% Bratislava * 87% 59% Vorarlberg 74% 52% 45% Vienna 68% 59% 43% Madrid 67% 68% 38% Manchester 80% 77% 30% Bilbao 68% 31% 28% Edinburgh 85% 43% 23% Total 68% 64% 47% *not asked in Prague or Bratislava Feeling for national identity was also tested in a question about importance of being from England/Scotland and Britain for how you feel or think about yourself as a person. As we will suggest later, many other sources of identity were given greater importance by more young people than place of birth, residence or nation. 13 The question asked was Now I would like to ask you about the strength of how you feel about being different sorts of nationality? On a scale of 0-4 (0=no feeling at all, 4=Very strong feeling) how do you feel about being from English/Scottish, British, European (and corresponding places for the other sites)? 10

11 (3) Citizen of Europe and the World? We were interested to know if people ever thought of themselves as a European or a global citizen. The low proportion who report strong feelings about Europe or being European are confirmed by the question Can you tell me how frequently you think of yourself as a European citizen. In Britain, 53% of respondents in both localities chose the response never and an additional 26% rarely/seldom. However, we found that people in Manchester tended to think of themselves as European (10% always or often ) and Global (12% always or often ) more frequently than their Edinburgh counterparts (4% and 7% always or often respectively). Few people in either location consider themselves a European citizen more than very occasionally. In terms of global citizenship, the British respondents are similarly disconnected. There is a majority who say never or rarely/seldom to thinking of themselves as global citizens and is the same for young men and women. Differences between the Edinburgh and Manchester respondents in the percentage of interviewees often or always feeling a European citizen were found to be significant (0.039). In terms of global citizenship, the difference fell outside the range of significance (0.068). When we look at how our other research countries responded to this question 14, more interviewees in Germany reported regularly thinking of themselves as a European citizen (Sig at <0.001). Data from British respondents was very similar to those collected from respondents in the Czech and Slovak Republics, despite the fact that Czech and Slovak people are not yet citizens of the European Union and are therefore only citizens of Europe in the more rhetorical sense of European ; somewhat equivalent to the rather looser way we speak of global citizens. TABLE OF FREQUENCY OF FEELINGS (ALWAYS OR OFTEN) ABOUT BEING A EUROPEAN AND A GLOBAL CITIZEN 15 European Global Bielefeld 49% 49% Chemnitz 45% 37% Madrid 38% 60% Bilbao 32% 58% Bratislava 11% 9% Manchester 10% 12% Prague 9% 10% Edinburgh 4% 7% TOTAL 26% 31% Spain tends to be more frequently oriented to the globe than to Europe (Sig at <0.001). Interestingly, both Madrid and Bilbao respondents connect out to the world more frequently than they do to Europe. In comparison, few in the British samples report thinking of themselves as a global citizen suggesting that there is a sense of isolation, a lack of feeling 14 Austria did not ask this question 15 The question asked was Can you tell me how frequently (Scale shown was Never/Rarely/Sometimes/ Often/Always) you think of yourself as the following as a European Citizen as a global citizen. 11

12 connected to people outside of these islands, whether on a global or a European level. People in Germany, particularly in Bielefeld, are similarly oriented to being global and European citizens. (4) Opinions about the requirements to be able to become a British citizen We wanted to know what people thought should be requirements before being able to become a British citizen. This is interesting given political and media interest in asylum seekers, illegal immigrants and refugees. We found similarities between the English and Scottish sample in terms of people suggesting that it was an important requirement for those seeking British Citizenship to agree to abide by British laws and institutions, to be working in Britain, and to have sense of belonging to the country. More people in Manchester thought it important that those seeking British citizenship should speak English and they have been born in Britain. Slightly more Scottish respondents thought it was an important requirement that citizenship applicants should be living in Britain before being granted citizenship. Statistically significant differences between the two countries were found for: speaking English; having a parent from Britain; taking an Oath of Allegiance to the country; having British Ancestors; passing a test about the country. People in Scotland were much less interested in these items as requirements to pass for achieving citizenship. These differences may well reflect the asymmetry between nation and citizenship that Scottish people experience. It is possible, for example, that taking a test about the country might be perceived as a test more about England than Scotland or the other sections of Britain. TABLE OF WHAT ARE CONSIDERED VERY IMPORTANT OR IMPORTANT (3,4) REQUIREMENTS OF PEOPLE SEEKING BRITISH CITIZENSHIP 16 Significance Manchester Edinburgh Abide by laws and institutions 87% 85% Working in Britain 66% 60% Feel that they belong in the country 66% 63% Speak English % 50% Born in Britain 59% 50% Living in Britain 58% 56% A parent from Britain % 47% Oath of Allegiance to the country < % 24% British Ancestors < % 25% Pass a test about the country < % 19% (5) Interest in and perceptions of Europe We asked people to rate their interest in a series of social and political issues. One of the issues was the Unification of Europe. People in Manchester were more interested in the 16 *The question asked was In your opinion, how important should the following be as requirements for somebody seeking British citizenship (prompt if necessary, that is full entitlement to any state provided benefits, voting rights, a passport etc)? (SCALE 0=not at all important, 4=very important.) 12

13 Unification of Europe than their Edinburgh counterparts (Sig at 0.039) although there are large groups of people who are not interested in both of the research locations. TABLE OF INTEREST IN THE UNIFICATION OF EUROPE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUE 17 Manchester Edinburgh TOTAL No or little interest 38% 38% 38% Mid point 24% 31% 27% Much interest 39% 30% 35% Total 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% We wanted to know what people perceived Europe to be: political, such as the European Union; economic, such as the Euro; geographical, such as imaging it as land with boundaries; cultural, identifying connections through shared values and traditions. In both Edinburgh and Manchester, the perception of Europe most frequently chosen was of a place with shared traditions and customs. We found no significant differences between people in Scotland and England but interesting differences between men and women. More men (43%) than women (31%) in Manchester rated membership of the European Union as important in what Europe means to them. There were no differences between men and women choosing this response in Edinburgh (31%). Women in both Manchester and Edinburgh were less likely than men to think of Europe as a geographical entity: important for what Europe means to 36% of men and 23% of women in Manchester, and 32% of men and 25% of women in Edinburgh. TABLE OF HIGH OR VERY HIGH IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF WHAT PEOPLE CONSIDER EUROPE TO BE 18 Political - European Union Manchester Edinburgh 36% 31% Men 43% Women 31% Men 31% Women 31% Sig Economic The Euro 27% 25% Geographical Location 29% 28% Men 36% Women 23% Men 32% Women 25% Sig Cultural - Certain value and traditions 44% 41% (6) The influence of place on overall identity In the final question in the survey, we wanted to examine the relevance of a whole series of potential influences (e.g. gender, class, education) on what people see as their overall identity. 17 The question asked was, I am going to read a list. For each one, using the scale on the card (0=of no interest to me, 4= of great interest to me), can you tell me if the issue is of interest to you personally (that is, that you are concerned or think about this issue a lot). 18 The question asked was How important (Scale 0=Not at all important; 4=Very important) in terms of what Europe means to you?

14 Respondents were offered a list of items and asked how would you rate the importance of the following in terms of who you are, that is, how you feel or think about yourself as a person? In Edinburgh and Manchester, we found that people most frequently suggested that friends were very important or important for shaping their identity (chosen by 94% of respondents in Manchester and 92% in Edinburgh). This was followed by family relationships/being a parent (chosen as important by 92% and 88% in Manchester and Edinburgh respectively), then your job or plan for employment (chosen as important by 86% in Manchester, 80% in Edinburgh), partner or spouse (86% in Manchester, 72% in Edinburgh) and education (chosen as important by 80% in Manchester, 74% in Edinburgh). All of these items were more important than nationality, being from Britain (chosen by 59% in Manchester and 34% in Edinburgh) or being from England (chosen by 62% in Manchester) or being from Scotland (chosen by 68% in Edinburgh). For ethnic minorities, being from Britain was similarly not as important as many other sources of identity and the same overall proportion (59%) chose this item. However, it was important to a slightly larger proportion of young people who defined themselves as from an ethnic minority than of those who defined themselves as white Scottish or English. Equivalently, being from Scotland or England was less important. The enhanced sense of Britishness rather than Englishness or Scottishness among the ethnic minority communities is an issue discussed in other literature (Worcester, 2002). In contrast, recent research (Saeed et al, 1999) have found that young Pakistani people living in Glasgow tended to opt for bi-cultural statements of Scottish Pakistani and to choose Scottish over British. In the table below we show how people from all the cities in our study responded concerning the significance for their overall identity of being from their region, nation and being a citizen 19 of the European Union. In Manchester and Edinburgh, being from England or Scotland was important to more respondents than being from Britain or Europe. However, consistent with earlier answers, being from Britain was important to more of the English respondents than it was for the Scottish ones. We found that only 25% of young people in Manchester and 15% in Edinburgh rated European citizenship as of high importance to their identity. While still less important than many other factors, more young people from ethnic minorities rated citizenship of the European Union as important (32% rated it very important or important). In Bratislava, being from Bratislava, being from the Slovak Republic and being a citizen of the European Union are all important for many of the respondents (chosen as important by 65%, 60% and 60%, respectively). In many of the research sites, region was noted by more people as significant to their identity than nation. In Madrid, and the German cities, nation was important to more of the respondents than region. In the case of the German cities, this may be, again, because of the relatively recent demise of West and East Germany for respondents from Bielefeld and Chemnitz. In the case of Madrid, its significance as the capital city of Spain may well weaken the perceived importance of Madrid as a region. Interestingly, the sites with the highest proportion of respondents rating being a citizen of the European Union as important were Prague and Bratislava. The cities with the smallest proportion of respondents feeling strongly about the influence of European citizenship on 19 Or a future citizen for those people in the Slovak and Czech Republics. 14

15 their identity are Edinburgh and Bilbao, both places with a devolved parliament. These findings tie-in closely with those from the question asking about people s strength of feeling for European nationality and attachment to Europe. TABLE OF PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE RATING BEING FROM REGION, NATION, BEING A CITIZEN OF THE EUROPEAN UNION AS VERY IMPORTANT OF IMPORTANT TO THEIR OVERALL IDENTITY 20 Being From Region Being From Nation A Citizen Of The European Union Rated Important or Very important (3 or 4 on scale from 0-4) Bratislava 65%* 60% 60% Prague 68%* 68% 44% Vorarlberg 50% 49% 41% Madrid 50% 62% 37% Vienna 47% 42% 33% Bielefeld 15% 38% 32% Chemnitz 32% 46% 31% Manchester 63% 59% 26% Bilbao 49% 21% 17% Edinburgh 68% 34% 15% *In Bratislava and Prague, the importance of being from the city was asked. 5. Conclusion Our research suggests that young adults in a variety of European sites, have very different orientations to their region, nation and to Europe. The difference of significance of place is formed through the different socio-political structures and histories in each of the research sites. The unification of Germany, the Velvet Divorce of Czechoslovakia, and the future membership of the European Union of the Czech and Slovak Republics, can be seen to have had major impacts on how people view their homeland(s) and the significance and breadth of orientations to different levels of societal organisation. In the league table of our research, our Edinburgh respondents are the least oriented to Europe and respondents from both Edinburgh and Manchester look remarkably insular. Thus, the majority of people in our samples in Manchester and in Edinburgh have strong or very strong feelings about England and Scotland, English and Scottish respectively but weak feelings for Europe. In the future, we will examine in more detail whether these findings are gendered, different for minority ethnic groups, and for people who are in work or education. In England, people tend to see themselves as British and English. In Scotland, people tend to relate to Scotland only. However, in Scotland, questions about the requirements for those seeking citizenship suggest that people are more willing to accommodate people into the nation if they play their part in civil society by working or living here. In England, slightly more people emphasised as requirements more to ethnic aspects to becoming British you 20 The question asked was Using the scale (0 Not at all important 4 Very Important) how would you rate the importance of the following in terms of who you are, that is, how you feel or think about yourself as a person? 15

16 should be allowed to become a British citizen because you or your parents were born here, you have some claim to the nation by blood. However, these differences between England and Scotland are not very large and even Edinburgh respondents are less likely to stress civic rather than ethnic aspects of citizenship and nationality than respondents in Chemnitz or Bielefeld (Fuss, 2003) despite the greater emphasis on blood and lineage in the history of German citizenship. The work we have done with the quantitative data has allowed us a broad understanding of the lives of young adults. However, we are currently beginning qualitative work, using indepth interviews, which will enable us to understand more of the subtleties and complexities of how people are oriented to their city, region, nation and supranation and what this means to their everyday lives. As Housley & Fitzgerald (2001:1.1) note, very little sociological attention has focused on the manner through which such relevance s are produced, recognised and used within the realms of everyday interaction. 16

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