Between the nation and Europe: identity framing in lower-secondary geography curricula across six central and Eastern European countries

This comparative study examines how national and European identities are framed in lower-secondary geography curricula in Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. Using qualitative comparative curriculum analysis informed by critical policy sociology and territorial identity theory, it examines how official curriculum documents formally represent territorial belonging across differing EU accession trajectories. Three dominant, partly overlapping patterns emerge: explicit European identity integration in Croatia and Slovenia; value-based Europeanisation through thematic structures in Romania and Slovakia; and nationally foregrounded identity framing in Hungary and Ukraine. Across the cases, national and European frames are layered rather than mutually exclusive and are articulated through both explicit identity language and the curricular organisation of spatial scales. The findings challenge linear interpretations of curricular Europeanisation: longer EU membership does not necessarily produce more explicit European framing. They highlight heterogeneous post-socialist curriculum politics and varied formal relationships between national and European belonging.