Europeanisation through education : promoting european etudies in “Eastern Partnership” countries

Abstract

Educational practices are instrumental in the transfer of European values beyond EU borders. Our aim is to problematize Europeanisation through education in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries by studying the promotion of EU studies in higher education pro-jects funded by the Erasmus + program. The paper discusses the educational dimension of Europeanisation in EaP countries from three interrelated perspectives -social constructivism, the Foucauldian concept of governmentality and a post-structuralist reading of centrality and marginality. We specifically focus on a series of international projects developed by the University of Tartu (Estonia) in partnership with other EU-based and non-EU universities from the EaP. We used qualitative data from reports of 4 EU-funded cooperation projects and also students' views obtained in 2 focus groups that explored how the EU is taught and discussed. In the end, the added value of the article is that it offers a critical view on teaching the EU in the Eastern neighborhood, focusing on nuanced local perspectives on the challenges of Europeanisation through education.