Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke International University Bremen

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke Identities are not attributes that people ‘have‘ or ‘are‘ but resources that people ‘use‘, something that they do (Jamieson, 2002) Questions: Are European youth able to do Europe? Do they speak languages, do they travel, are they willing to transgress national borders in the future? Does the ability to do Europe indeed foster a European identity among European youth?

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke Number of Foreign Languages Spoken Pro-European Trajectory (Target Sample) Representative Sample No foreign language 6%26% 39% 4% Austria 7% Slovakia 48% Spain 64% United Kingdom 125% 239%25% 10% 34% Slovakia 17% Czech Republic 4% Spain 1% United Kingdom 3 and more30%

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke “Foreign languages, that is the most important thing of all. I think that one can only understand a culture by really speaking the language. If one knows where the language comes from, how to express certain things and why we express some things differently than people who speak different languages." (Johanna, Bielefeld)

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke “Language skills, I think it would be useful. And I think, I do think, it should be taught from an earlier age at school. Because by the time you get to, em, secondary school you’re losing your ability to acquire a second language. And I do, and, like-like in Germany and places, where they teach it from a much earlier age. And they’re all like fluent kind of in English.” (Catherine, Edinburgh)

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke Country of Origin Pro-European Trajectory (Target Sample) (% having visited at least one other European country since age 16) Representative Sample (% having visited at least one other European country since age 16) Austria98%92% Czech Republic98%91% Germany100%90% Slovakia98%90% Spain78%54% United Kingdom98%62%

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke “When I was in the Netherlands this summer, I had this feeling that… it connects us with the people from Europe, because when there were some people there from Indonesia, that is kind of exotic… and when we are all from Europe, than… there is some kind of a common ground and that culture in most of the countries.” (Rado, Bratislava)

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke “I’m of the opinion that you learn most from travelling, and when you travel you open up to so many things, to anything that might happen and to seeing things you didn’t see before” (José, Bilbao)

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke 39% 57% 19% 17% 31% 16% 11% 10% Pro-European Trajectory Representative Sample City and SurroundingsElsewhere in CountryElsewhere in EuropeBeyond Europe 54% Austria 38% UK 20% Spain 17% Slovakia 27% Germany 22% Austria 9% UK 7% Spain Adjusted percentage of youth finding it likely or very likely that they live in the respective area at age 30

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke “But on the other hand, I can imagine living for example in Paris in the future, or somewhere in Western Europe somewhere… Although even when I said it differs that wouldn’t bother me so much … I can’t imagine life, I don’t know, for example in the US or somewhere in some countries of the third world, that’s difficult, difficult to say, of course. But from my own experience I can say, I could live anywhere in Europe.“ (Kryštof, Prague)

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke Probability of Living in Another Country at Age 30 35% Number of Countries Visited 25% Number of Languages Mastered 30% Relative Relative Importance of Language, Travel and Mobility for Strength of Identification with Europe

Youth & European Identities “Doing Europe“ Languages, Travel and Mobility Daniel Fuss and Klaus Boehnke Conclusions: EU-measures supporting mobility and language training promise to assist youth in ‘doing Europe‘ Currently, Spanish and British youth are substantially less well equipped to ‘do Europe‘ In Spain and, particularly, in Britain, ‘doing Europe‘ is almost exclusively an issue of the pro-European elite, while, e.g., in Germany and Austria all youth have a good inclination to ‘do Europe‘