Civics and Citizenship Assessment

Publication Date

4-2018

Subjects

Lower secondary years, Civics, Student engagement

Comments

Papers about ICCS presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in New York (13 - 17 April 2018)

Abstract

Educational systems, school and teachers seek to prepare young people to understand the society they live in, to engage with its political and social issues and become actively involved as citizens in later adult life. There is a consensus that formal education influences the extent of adult civic engagement (Pancer, 2015). This is reflected in the fact that many countries include civic learning as a goal of school education either as a distinct subject or through several subjects (Ainley et al., 2013). More broadly, civic engagement of citizens is seen as a central characteristic of a democratic society and refers to personal involvement in activities related to the societal governance and interaction with other people. Putnam (1995) defines civic engagement as “people’s connections with the life of their communities, not merely politics” (p. 665). The IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) has investigated outcomes and processes of civic and citizenship education in 2009 (Schulz et al, 2010) and 2016 (Schulz et al, 2017). This paper is based largely on ICCS 2016 but it also references ICCS 2009. The focus of the analysis is on intended civic engagement and the patterns of association within countries rather than on comparisons of point estimates for countries. In this paper we investigate students’ intended civic engagement in relation to their:  current civic engagement (in school and in the community),  dispositions for civic engagement (civic knowledge and civic self-efficacy),  beliefs about civics and citizenship (the importance of conventional citizenship and trust in civic institutions), and  background (gender, socioeconomic background, interest in political and social issues and parental interest in political and social issues).

Language

English, English

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