Canons and communities: Children and social cohesion in Sweden and the Netherlands

In this article I compare the lines of argumentation that are used in two public debates about the introduction of national canons in Sweden and the Netherlands. These arguments illustrate how different political actors understand the balance they think should be struck between the interests of individual children and society in obtaining social cohesion. Theoretically, this means that the debates can be understood against the background of the distinction between cosmopolitan and communitarian theories. Communitarian arguments are very much in vogue in political practice, despite the classical critique against this position. Unfortunately, alternative cosmopolitan accounts of citizenship also have their problems. I argue that these two cases pose different challenges to cosmopolitan ideas on the use of education to obtain necessary common values with a qualified acceptance of plurality within unity and on the expansion and deepening of children’s citizen rights.