Debating Europe: Towards the Critical Informed Citizen?

The book examines how Europe and the European Union are debated, politicised, and contested in a group of key (future) actors of European integration.

Based on detailed focus group discussions with students in EU studies and the social sciences in six EU countries, the book presents the core results of the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical work of the Jean Monnet Networks "Debating Europe" (www.debating-europe.de) that set out to study the gap between the EU and its citizens.

Ruzha Smilova and Kaloyan Velchev are co-authors of three of the chapters in the book, which is available as open access.

Chapter 4: Young People, Students, and the EU: This chapter provides a concise overview of current knowledge on student attitudes and behaviour toward the European Union, highlighting gaps and areas for further research. It broadens the scope by first examining young people’s views of Europe, then narrows to students’ perceptions of the EU, including those who engage with EU-related topics in their studies.

Chapter 7: The Cases and the Context: This chapter presents the cases and the context, i.e. the country contexts and political contexts during the time the focus groups were carried out.

Chapter 10: Young Citizens' Visions of EU Democracy: This chapter complements qualitative focus group findings with survey analysis to examine attitudes toward the European Union among highly educated youth, moving beyond general trends to identify nuanced patterns linked to conceptions of democracy and citizenship. It identifies six distinct visions of EU democracy by connecting these attitudes to recurring themes and distinguishing between utilitarian and solidarity-based perspectives across values and national contexts.