From Migrant to Citizen: Testing Language, Testing Culture

Professor Martina Möllering is Head of International Studies and Professor Co-ordinator of German Studies at Macquarie University. One of her research interests is the linguistic analysis of Turkish-German identity construction as represented in literature and film. On Tuesday 16 December 2010, Professor Mollering joined Dr Christina Slade to address The Sydney Institute at the launch of their book From Migrant to Citizen: Testing Language, Testing Culture.

FROM MIGRANT TO CITIZEN: TESTING LANGUAGE, TESTING CULTURE

MARTINA MOLLERING

As Christina Slade has just outlined, Europe has seen a rise of testing regimes for citizenship, based on a shift in the perception of citizenship models. In the book launched here today, Marian Hargreaves explores citizenship testing in the UK, Canada and the US, Christina discusses the situation in the Netherlands and my own contributions focus on the development of citizenship testing in Germany and recent changes to the testing regime here in Australia, a chapter to which Linda Silaghi, one of our PhD students at Macquarie University greatly contributed.

When we compare the acquisition of citizenship in countries like Germany and Australia, historically, we are looking at opposite ends of the scale of naturalisation regimes. On one end of the scale we have Germany, a late European nation state – whereas Australia has traditionally defined itself as a country of immigration this is a more recent phenomenon in the German context. Although Germany has had a large intake of immigrants since the late 1950s, the stance “Deutschland ist kein Einwanderungsland” (‘Germany is not a country of immigration’) has been a common one in political discourse which was up until 2000 confirmed by the legislation regarding immigration and citizenship.

Up to then, Germany was one of the few European countries that based its citizenship laws primarily on Ius Sanguinis, the right to obtain citizenship on the basis of descent, rather than place of birth, Ius Soli, and very few migrants obtained German citizenship, as a confusing array of residency categories substituted for a clear path to citizenship (cf. Göktürk et al 2007: 4). German citizenship law was comprehensively revised under the amended Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz) on 1 January 2000 and underwent another revision with the implementation of the Immigration Act (Zuwanderungsgesetz) on 1 January 2005. When the new Immigration Act took effect in 2005, Germany became officially a country of immigration, which it had been de facto since the late 1950s, and in 2008, a formal testing regime was introduced for prospective citizens.

On the other end of the scale we have Australia, a classic country of immigration; and one that has a longstanding history of naturalisation policies in regards to its migrant population – a history, which Andrew Buck and Charlotte Frew discuss in the book From Migrant to Citizen in the context of its colonial origins and in relation to other settler societies, such as South Africa and Canada.

As an immigrant country par excellence, Australia has had a Citizenship Act, regulating the conferral of citizenship to applicants, since 1948. The Act was superseded by the Australian Citizenship Bill 2007 and later revised by the Australian Citizenship Amendment – that is the Citizenship Testing Bill – which introduced the Australian testing regime in 2007. The debates surrounding the introduction of the test are outlined in detail by Lloyd Cox and Emily Farrell in the book launched here today.

When we look at the current situation, however, in the year 2010, the image of opposite ends of the scale, that is Germany at one end versus Australia at the other, can no longer be upheld with such strength. Rather, what we see is a process of convergence. In both countries, migrants wishing to acquire citizenship have to have resided in the target country for a minimum period of time (4 years in Australia –up from 2 years in the past; 8 years in Germany – down from 15 years in the past), they have to sit a citizenship test, and prospective citizens have to prove that they have an adequate knowledge of the respective national language – although “an adequate knowledge” is defined at different proficiency levels in the two countries and there are different requirements when it comes to demonstrating this knowledge. In Australia it is subsumed in the citizenship test – in Germany it is a separate requirement.

Nevertheless, the importance of language in the context of citizenship testing in both cases is evident, a phenomenon that has very recently been described for a large range of European as well as non-European countries (e.g. Extra, Spotti & van Avermaet 2009; Hogan-Brun, Mar-Molinero & Stevenson 2009, Slade & Möllering, 2010, Wright 2008). More and more countries specify language conditions for citizenship: a survey in 2002 showed that 4 out of 14 countries (29 %) had language conditions for citizenship, the 2007 follow-up survey showed that five years later this number had grown to 11 out of 18 countries (61 per cent) (Extra, Spotti, Van Avermaet 2009:14). It has been argued that this emphasis on language competency in the national languages of the respective nation states can be seen as a move from policies supporting cultural pluralism to those that are aimed at fostering “integration” into the majority culture; or, as Extra, Spotti and Van Avermaet (2009:14) describe it:

In many cases across Europe, it is language that fulfils the role of lubricant of the integration machinery and that works as a gatekeeper of the national order. Although differences in national approaches can be observed, it cannot be denied that a proliferation of integration tests and courses is spreading throughout Europe through policy emulation …

The development of an Australian testing regime which we describe in the book From Migrant to Citizen is to be seen in this context and it is the international discussion of citizenship testing processes that has sparked the initiative to bring together an interdisciplinary team of scholars to address the Australian testing regime and its international contexts.

References

Extra, G., M. Spotti, and P. Avermaet (eds.) (2009) Language Testing, Migration and Citizenship: Cross-National Perspectives on Integration Regimes (London: Continuum).

Göktürk, D., Gramling, D. & A. Kaes (2007) Germany in Transit. Nation and Migration 1955–2005. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hogan-Brun, G., C. Mar-Molinero, and P. Stevenson (eds.) (2009) Discourses on Language and Integration: Critical perspectives on language testing regimes in Europe. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Wright, Sue (2008) “Citizenship Tests in Europe – Editorial Introduction. Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era” International Journal on Multicultural Societies 10 (1): 1–9.