Introduction

An increasing number of countries throughout the world are introducing citizenship tests, usually administered in the main national language, as part of immigration and settlement policy. A common thread in the rhetoric of governments that have introduced such tests is the widely held (but seldom investigated) assumption that the failure or unwillingness by migrants to learn the language of the country of prospective citizenship is a major threat to social cohesion (for an example, see Warren & Oakes, Chapter 1, this volume). Governments speak of problems with the integration and/or assimilation of migrant communities and point to a lack of knowledge of the local language or of the customs and values of the host country and its citizens as the most significant contributors to many societal ills (Blackledge, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c). This has led to many countries introducing (or strengthening) language requirements for citizenship. For example, the Association of Language Testers in Europe reported in 2002 that four out of 14 countries surveyed had language requirements for citizenship, while in 2007, this had increased to 11 out of 18 countries surveyed: Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom (Van Avermaet, 2009), with discussion taking place about the introduction of such requirements in several others (Belgium, France, Italy, Sweden). The means of establishing that one has met the requirement differs in different national contexts. In nine of the 11 countries listed above, candidates for citizenship had to take a formal language test; in others, for example Norway, there is a requirement to take language courses but no formal language test. In all but Slovenia, the language requirement is supplemented by a 'knowledge of society' test. While on the surface the latter is primarily a knowledge test, in reality it is a potentially very demanding language test, given the nature of the material contained within it (which includes abstract topics on government and history).