Effects of the various educational systems on the acquisition of Andorran national knowledge

Abstract

The theoretical framework of this paper is based on the Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1984 and Tajfel & Turner, 1989), which postulates that the acquisition of a national identity implies the internalization of knowledge socially shared with other members of the national group, as well as of knowledge from external groups that contributes to the representation that a person has of the nation. This paper focuses on the acquisition of knowledge about the national group by people who have completed all the mandatory schooling in Andorra in one of the three educational systems in place in this country. The data have been collected through a survey carried out on 514 people with different educational system backgrounds, family language profiles and nationalities. The results show that there are different degrees of national knowledge among this population, according to the chosen educational system and type of studies, which makes the situation especially sensitive since it requires a study of the psychological mechanisms involved in the construction of the national identity. According to this study, identity variables (sense of belonging), as well as age and in certain cases nationality, show a stronger connection with the level of knowledge than the variables directly related to the type of schooling. Our results also show that students from the foreign schools (i.e. the French school and the congregational Spanish school) are those who come to achieve a higher level of national knowledge, although the various fields covered by the study present different nuances with respect to this conclusion.

Keywords: national knowledge, educational system, schooling, learning, Andorra.