Teaching Europe vs Building Europe

An Exploration Into Higher Education and the Construction of National and Regional Identity

This exploratory article discusses teaching as an instrument of building a regional (transnational) identity in the context of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) project. Higher education can be used as a tool of political construction. That can be done by adopting higher education policies that are customised for this purpose, for example by directing the work of higher education institutions towards building particular social identities in support of defined political objectives. The contribution of higher education to building national identity has been studied extensively in conjunction with the role of the university in the emergence of the modern nation state. It is important to observe that such occurrences can also be identified and studied in current times as attempts at building regional as well as national identity in or through higher education policies and activities. One of the most fascinating examples of using higher education to build regional identity is the very project of a EHEA.