Do We Need a Core Curriculum in European Union Studies?

Abstract

Umbach and Scholl's (2003) intervention on the benefits of a core curriculum in European Studies contains much of interest, particularly their emphasis on the need for EU studies to be interdisciplinary and international, an emphasis which is gaining increasing recognition. There are however two issues that we wish to raise. The first is the idea of a core curriculum, the need for which we resist strongly. The second is to point out that Umbach and Scholl suppose that no core curriculum exists at present in EU studies: this is incorrect.