Multicultural Upper Secondary School Life in Denmark: Identifications, Solidarity and Citizenship‪.‬

INTRODUCTION As other European countries, Denmark wrestles with the problem of finding ways to handle the increased diversity of its population in terms of, for instance, ethnicity, religion and language. Hence, negotiations and contestations about how to operationalize different forms of multiculturalism on all sorts of multicultural issues are currently on the agenda in relation to the welfare state (2,)(3,)(11). One of the main questions is: How can more individuals and groups be included in active citizenship and thereby contribute constructively to the community of solidarity which the welfare state constitutes? Education has always been a means to social mobility and integration. Historians who have studied the development of the Danish welfare state have maintained that in the 'pre-welfare state' i.e. the period before World War II, social policy and education policy constituted major components in the integration of the working class. This integration was an important element in the construction of the modern welfare state that was created after the war (1).