ABSTRACT
During the last forty years the structure and composition of Europe’s population has changed and there are more than twenty million citizens who are not living in the country where they were born either through immigration from former overseas colonies or by the migration of workers from nearby countries. There is also a likelihood of an increasing number of migrants in the future together with the escalating social tensions that might accompany any demographic shift. An already culturally diverse Europe is becoming increasingly more so. With unemployment rates high amongst individual member states and workers moving from one country to another in order to find work there may be feelings of resentment amongst unemployed ‘nationals’. These are very sensitive and important issues and it is against such a background that we must view the development of a European dimension in our primary schools.
