This article analyses the construction of the gendered and nationalised citizen in education in Turkey and Sweden. We draw on a narrative approach identifying narratives linked to educational discourses. Our empirical data consist of textbooks (in the later years of mandatory schooling), steering documents and interviews. In both our cases, we encounter continuities in these narratives; the citizen is defined with ethno-cultural references along with civic ones, and differentiated according to gender. In the Turkish case, a meta-narrative is constructed around the narratives of enemy and defence related to masculinity, and the feminine as the object of protection. The gender regime is an important part of the processes of normalisation of nationalism. In Sweden, nationalism is formulated around the "Swedish miracle", a social-welfare state, among the best democracies, and with a story of "gender success". In both cases, we also found new narratives in line with Europeanisation processes.