Introduction - Teaching European Studies: Educational challenges

The increasing importance of the european union as a central player in both domestic and international politics since the late 1980s has given a strong boost to an academic research agenda moving beyond nation-oriented approaches (keeler 2005). This development found promptly its way into university curricula, be it in economics, law, history, political science, cultural studies, ir and other programmes. These traditional disciplines saw the raise of new courses, specialised tracks and even entire master’s programmes focusing on the impact of the eu on their respective discipline. In addition, the multifaceted character of the european integration process also led to the creation of new multi- and interdisciplinary bachelor’s, master’s and even phd programmes specifically focusing on the eu. These programmes were mostly labelled european studies or european union studies. While the term european studies could be considered to be broader in scope and reflecting an interest in the european continent in more general terms, in practice both terms are being used interchangeably. In the framework of this study, we have chosen for the most commonly used term of european studies. If the author however specifically wanted to emphasise that a programme was exclusively focusing on the eu, we have allowed for the term eu studies.keywordseuropean studyblended learningcivic educationeducational challengeeuropean integration processthese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.