Locating ancestry in notions of Britishness/Germanness: Beyond waning myths of civic and ethnic nations

This article focuses on ancestry as a controversial marker of Britishness/Germanness. Considering developments in nationality law and large-scale survey data for England and Germany, it illustrates that macrocontextual distinctions into civic and ethnic nations tend to overestimate cross-national differences, while underestimating important within-country variations according to people’s educational background. The fact that—in both countries—higher levels of formal education are strongly associated with more ethnically inclusive notions of legitimate national membership underlines the formative potential of formal education in contemporary multicultural societies.</jats:p>