Integrating the Cosmopolitan and the Local – The Curricular Construction of Citizens in Luxembourg in the Long Nineteenth Century

During the 19th century new forms of government emerged, understanding themselves explicitly as nation-states. The new definition of the state had to include its members by defining them as citizens, a definition which included both equalizing and differentiating aspects. The education system fulfilled a key role in educating these future citizens. While the principal setting was not a national, I intend to show how this national logic shaped constructions of various types of nation-state citizens made through the public school, based on empirical evidence from the Luxembourgian curriculum. In an exemplifying way, the motivation behind the respective changes and continuities will be uncovered, with emphasis on social differentiation in secondary education and a strong regional differentiation in the homebound lower branches of education.