European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

THE MEANING OF EUROPEAN IDENTITY: PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE PROJECT 195the traits and the social insertion of the identity in question must beanchored to the shared social representations within the socialenvironment of those identifying with it.This is all to be said about the factors which contextually conditionthe acquisition process of a social identity since its initial, preacquisitionstage. With regards to what contextually influences the veryprocess of acquisition we would have to consider, first of all, the typeof insertion into the primary groups (or facie ad faciem) of theindividuals concerned; secondly, the way the new identity integrateswith the previous identifications of the same individuals; and thirdly,the events taking place in the wider social environment which aresomehow relevant to the social development of the identity inquestion.The first conditioning factor, namely the relevance that insertion intofacie ad faciem groups bears to identification processes, does notconstitute a peculiarity of the latter but is rather a common denominatorto all processes of attitude change. Someone´s identification with anysocial identity essentially entails some attitude change.The fact that the identity to be acquired should integrate withother identities previously assimilated by the individual is easilyunderstandable. With respect to the acquisition of European identity, Iwill later on express my point of view about the debates that haveoften taken place in relation to how to make European identitycompatible with other national identities existing in EU citizens beforethe EU was created.The third contextual condition that has just been mentioned —thecurrent appearance or non-appearance of relevant events expressing themeaning of the proposed identity— does not require further clarificationeither. It is obvious that whether that meaning comes to light inimportant life or media events or whether it appears inoperative insuch circumstances, is not indifferent for the stimulation of theteaching processes through which it wants to be transmitted.Finally, and with a view to the educational promotion of socialidentities, some possible more or less utopian prospective visionsassociated with those identities could be taken into consideration. Theanalysis of identification processes indeed shows that they are not onlycarried out through assimilation of reference images embodying preexistingattitudes and procedures. Human beings also often identifythemselves with ideal figures, especially during childhood and youth.These formal characteristics of every post-childhood identityacquisition process should also be present throughout this Seminar onEuropean Identity education. We will soon see how these characteristics